Kierk e'gaard and the KotzkerBy EDMUND I'ULLER

A little more than a yeaf, ago, Rabbi Abra-ham Joshua Heschel, one of the leading philosophers and theologians of Judaism, died. Acolumn in these pages, in praise of his careerand writings, drew much response from Jew-ish and Christia4 readers alike. The day be-fore his death, he had delivered to his pub-Iisher the manuscript of a book which now ap-pears: "A Passion for Truth." Though it canstand by itself, it also is in eontinuity urith twoof h{s ottler best-known books, "Man Is No,tAlone: A Philosophy of Religioa" (1951), and"God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Ju-

The Bookshell"A Passion for frlrth"

BE Rabbi, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Fdndl,Straus & Giroun. 336 pages. $8,95.

the religious thought of both Jews and Chris-tians, had a scholarly grasp of Christianthought, tradition add histo?y. "A Passion forTruth" presents a surprising pa::allel study oftwo figures, the Hasidic tzad,ilik (righteousman, spiritual leader), Reb Menahem Mendlof Kotzk (1?87:1859), and the Christian mystic,father' of Existentialism, Danish theologianSoren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). If that sounds,abslruse or weighty to,you, it may be.so in asense,. but Rabbi Heschel is never heavy andall that he presents in this aphoristic, quota-ble book is cast in terms that touch all ourlives.

iritual history

of two men, the founder of Hasidism, Reb Is-rael ben Eliezer, known as the Baal ShemTov, or "Master of the Good Name" (1690-

1760), and his divergent follower, the aboveReb Mendl, known as the Kotzker.

Rabbi Heschel confronts us with a series ofseeming polarities, but we must rememberthat north and south pole are on the axis ofone planet. "I was taught about inexhaustiblemines of meaning by the Baal Shem.; fromthe Kotzker I learned to detect immensemountains of absurdity standing in the way.The one taug:ht me song, the other-silence"The one reminded me that there could be aHeaven on earth, the other shocked me intodiscovering Hell in the alleged Heavenlyplaces in our world." The one was ecstatic;the other, austere, impatient with the playfulor the rhapsodic. It is from the Baal Shemthat Rabbi Heschel derived his insistentstress on love and awe; from the Kotzker, his

i passion for truth and his indignation at injus-i tice and evilr'.- '

"Love and Truth are the two ways thatlead the soul out of the inner jungle. l,ove of-fers an answer to the question of how to live.In Truth we find an answer to the question ofhow to think" This divrsion, however, is dan-gerous and arbitrary" There is love at theheart of Truth. But is there Truth in ourheart, in our love? Significantly, 'love' is boiha noun and a verb. Yet'truth'is never a verb.

fiie BaaI Shem attracts and exalts, hetranscends, whlle the Kotzker is strugglingwith the daily harshness that confronts us."Neither Kierkegaard nor the Kotzker is aningratiating figure," Rabbi Heschel observes'"It is not the magnetism of their personalitythat attracts us. It is a recognition of oui ownache that drivei us to them."

l-daism" (1955). Ctrris.tian readers to whom heis new rtduld do.well.tg begin with them.

Rabbi Heschel, who like his soqetimeteacher, Martin Buber, had great influenie Ei-

It was brilliant to perceive the spiritualkinship of the Dane and the Jew, whose livesoverlapped but vrho knew nothing of eachother, who were so unlike in surface aspects.The Kotzker taught orally, Ieaving nothing inwriting, in contrast to the prolific Dane. Thepassion for trutl unites them in nadical as-sault upon spiritual complapency.

"Endemic to all traditional religion is th#peril of s,tagaation. What becomes settled andestablished may easily turn sour. F aith is re-placed by creed, spontaneity by hackneyedrepetition. Assaults like those launched byKierkegaard and the Kotzker are acts of lib-eration.

"Both the Kotzker and Kierkegaard con-teSded that tlte essence of religion was wiir- .

fare :-"h-'tight.qgainst spiritual inertia, indoi-ence, callousness. To line wi'th'onds .r_-gligtouscommitment wds to face opposition, to daTe;-to defy. A lack of such commitment meantevading the chal,lenge, drifting with the cur-re4t. . . . Both., rJvere outsiders, anguishedby the moral and spiritua;l predicameht of so-cieties satisfied with their own stability. fiteirdark premoni'tions, their radical attacks,were regarded as exaggerated, bizarre, ordownright fantastic." They "were extremists,radicals who in the eyes of most people went I

too far in their views, their demands. Yet, in '

spite of opposilion, they continue to have p ca- I

ialytic effect on our obtuse, lumpy minds.

'!In his eontempt for the self-centerednessof mari, the Kotzker exacted the abandonmentof all self-interest. Such a demand may seemdisturbing and absurd. Yet in our age, whichthreatens io destroy the world a.hal man with'rs !v svPvrvr

l" i*pi*e*ie_ demands could serve r

st now, I

or seu- |

thers is I

Cynicism envelops many minds just now, !

and that is deathly. In the quest for self- |

knowJedge, on which knowiedge of others is i

built, Rabbi ltresche,l says: "Understandingcan begin only when man undeceives himself,for he cannot survive in deceit. !'or inslance,can peace be secured amorig the nations bY a

I

politics that is laden with deception?" History I

shows that the answer is no, but alas, all ourspiritual insights are unlikely to alter the na-ture of political behavior, since men agree nomore on the insights than on the politics, Per'haps it is enough to keep us aware, alert, andconstart in the effort to do as much as we canfor honesty, first within ourselves and thenwithin our socie'ties.

Much of rabbinical wisdom is embod-ied ina wealth of illustrative stories. Those whowish to sxplore further the rich Hasidic trad!tion might read Martin Buber's mysticalnovel, "For the Sake of Heaven," or his twovolrimes of "Tales of the Hasidim"' It is alsoworth noting that the novels of Oraim Potok,"The Chosen" and others, have great impacton many young readers of utterly dissirnilarhackgrounds.

- As to our spiritual state in difficult andconfusing times, Rabbi Heschel observes:"Job's mistake consisted in his crying outwhen in pain bu.t keeping sil6nt'when all wentwell. Real questioning should occur in bothcases. Why are things so good for me, as wellas why are they so bad? . ' . God does notneed those who praise Him when in a state ofeuphoria. He needs those who are in love withHim when in distress, both He and ourselves.This is the task: in the darkest night to becertain of the dawn, certain of the power toturn a curse into a blessing, agony into a

song;"