On Sunday, August 30 at 3 pm Eastern Time Dartmouth Jewish Studies Professor Susannah Heschel will be our guest for a Casual Conversation about the writings and teachings of her father, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. This is Professor Heschel’s third time with us, but this topic is one she has not explored in public settings. That she is available to discuss her father’s work with us is due to the good work of classmate Bruce Alpert, chair of the Jewish Culture Group.
From Professor Heschel’s Dartmouth faculty page:
“Susannah Heschel is the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and chair of the Jewish Studies Program and a faculty member of the Religion Department. During the academic year 2025-26 she is the Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard University. Professor Heschel's scholarship focuses on Jewish and Protestant thought during the 19th and 20th centuries, including the history of biblical scholarship, Jewish scholarship on Christianity and Islam, and the history of antisemitism.”
Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel is on of the best known figures in 20th century American Judaism. From the entry in Brittanica online:
“Abraham Joshua Heschel (born 1907, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire [now in Poland]—died Dec. 23, 1972, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was a Jewish theologian and philosopher, noted for his presentation of the prophetic and mystical aspects of Judaism and for his attempt to construct a modern philosophy of religion on the basis of the ancient and medieval Jewish tradition.
“After a traditional Jewish education, Heschel went on to higher studies at the University of Berlin and the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. He taught at the latter school, at the noted Jüdisches Lehrhaus at Frankfurt am Main, at the Institute of Jewish Studies in Warsaw after being deported from Nazi Germany (1938), at the Institute for Jewish Learning in London, and at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, before taking the chair of professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City (1945), a post he held until his death.
“Heschel sought to evoke in 20th-century man the inner depth of devotion and spontaneous response that he discerned in traditional Jewish piety. He also emphasized social action as an expression of the ethical concern of the pious man and was at the forefront of protests and demonstrations in the 1960s and ’70s intended to secure equal rights for American blacks and to end the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam.”
Professor Heschel wrote about her father:
"When he came home from Selma in 1965, my father wrote, 'For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.'"
The books suggested by Professor Heschel for our discussion are:
“The Earth is the Lord’s”
“The Sabbath”
“Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity” (a collection of my father’s essays that I edited)
The usual rules apply. Email me at arthur.fergenson@ansalaw.com by COB the Friday before, August 28, if you wish to be part of this discussion.
Arthur Fergenson