Saturday, January 26, 2008

A hechsher for Heschel

Nonetheless, The Kopizhnitzer Rebbe who could not read German wanted to evaluate Heschel's European writings. He asked Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz, the head in the 1920's of a community in Williamsburg that had become a citidal of Orthodoxy, whether there was any apikorsus in them. The authoritave Rabbi Mendlowitz pronounced Heschel's writings to be kosher.

Abraham Joshua Heschel: Spiritual Radical pg. 81

2 comments:

  1. The statement is blantantly ambiguous. Some of what Heschel wrote is indeed "kosher" and laudable, some clearly heretical, some lightly heretical (and somewhat laudable). You'd have to get a rundown on the hechsher.

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  2. He refers to his German works: The prophets and his biographies. Those are undoubtedly kosher. You will have to ask Dr. Shapiro if he exceeded the "limits of Orthodox theology in his other books."

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