“In congratulating ourselves on our past, we neglect the work that must be done in the present”

Author Date

…I wonder whether we’re running the grave risk of turning Heschel into an American-Jewish idol, someone who we put so high up on a pedestal we don’t even bother to try to emulate him. Instead, we become self-satisfied, as if the miles Heschel walked with King count on our own Fitbits. They don’t. In congratulating ourselves on our past, we neglect the work that must be done in the present.

Rob Eshman, “Unhappy Feet”, Jewish Journal (15-21 January 2016), 6.

Related posts:

  1. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks believes that Modern Orthodox Jews will be leading the American Jewish Community
  2. “…the dominant conversation nowadays in American Judaism is about politics”
  3. “…this is what it’s come to. Rabbis today in America have to be proficient in the language of Iranian sanctions…”
  4. “On the surface, it might appear that Heschel’s project and the work of Saul Lieberman had little in common”