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Scanned Using Book Scancenter 5022 ~· . f 'J'"• \ /' ,.,, ' ", /" ~ I ~, ~/ the s A B B A T H its meaning for modern man ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL WITH WOOD ENGRA)IINGS BY ILYA SCHOR FAR R AR , \)Jr J.vtfs'7 - - AND G I ROUX NEW YOR~ ______ ..,._ --..._ ____,..,--- ~ ---~ ' /""'------- i l' 1 / Famu-, Straus and Giroux ./ 19 Union Squm, West, New Yorlt 10003 Copyright C 1951 by Abraham Joshua Hesehel Copyright renewed O 1979 by Sylvia Heschel CONTENTS Introduction copyright O 2005 by Susannali Hesehel All rights l'eilerved Distributed in Canada by Douglas & Mclnryre Ltd. rnTRooucTION hy Susannah Heschel vii Printed in the United States of America Published in 1951 by FJrm, Stfl!WI and Giroux PRoLocuE Architecture of Time 2 This paperback edition, 2005 One Library of Congress Control Number. 2005926224 1. 12 ISBN-13: 97S.0.374-52975-8 A Palace in Tune ISBN-10: 0.374-52975-2 1,. Beyond Civilization 26 Designed by Marshall Lee Two III. The Splendor of Space 34 www.fsgboob.com IV, Only Heaven and Nothing Else? 44 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 l l v. "Thou Art One" 50 v,. The Presence of a Day 58 Three vu. Eternity Utters a Day 64 VIJI, Intuitions of Eternity 72 IX. Holiness in Time 78 x. Thou Shalt Covet 86 EPILOGUE To Sanctify Time 94 "'-·~,.,\ I ' .,/ Introduction 'e by Susannah Heschel When my father raised his kiddush cup on Friday evenings, closed his eyes, and chanted the prayer sanctifying the wine, I always felt a rush of emotion. As he chanted with an old, sacred family melody, he l blessed the wine and the Sabbath with his prayer, and i also felt he was blessing my life and that of everyone at the table. I treasured those moments. I Friday evenings in my home were the climax of the week, as they are for every religious Jewish family. Mx mother and I kindled the lights for the Sabbath, and l all of a sudden I felt transformed, emotionally and even physically. After lighting the candles in the din­ ing room, we would walk into the living room, which had windows overlooking the Hudson River, facing west, and we would marvel at the sunset that soon arrived. The sense of peace that came upon us as we kindled the lights was. created, in part, 'by the hectic tension of Fridays. Preparation for a holy day, my father often said, was as important as the day itself. During the busy mornings my mother. shopped for groceries, and in the afternoons the atmosphere grew increasingly -....nervous as, she~cooked. My father came home from his ~ ...... ·-... ' / - ---- offi~·~ hour or ·two before sunset to take care of ' vi ii INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION ' his own preparations, and as the last minutes of the When we had guests for dinner, \hey were nearly al­ workweek came close, both of my parents were in, the ways academic refugees from Europe~ and the conver­ kitchen, frantically trying to remember what they might sation at the t~le was always focused pn Europe. have forgotten to prepare-Had the kettle boiled? Invariably;th~y talked about German scholats they had Was the blech covering the stove? Was the oven turned known: Jews who had fled to t\ie-U.S. or Israel, others on? who had perished. They did not talk about the murder Then, suddenly, it was time: twenty minutes before process of the Holocaust, nor did they use that word in sunset. Whatever hadn't been finished in the kitchen those days, but they would talk about•the non-Jewish we simply left behind as we lit the candles and blessed sc~olars who had been exposed as Nazis in Max Wein­ the arrival of the Sabbath. My father writes, ''The Sab­ reich's book Hitler's Professors. Like my father, most of bath comes like a caress, wiping away fear, sorrow and my parent's friends had studied before the war at Ger­ somber memories." man universities and they remained shocked, twenty My father rarely went to the synagogue on Friday and thirty years after the war ended, that scholars evenings, preferring to pray at home, and our dinners whose work they had admired had become Nazis. Ger­ were usually quiet, sl~w, and relaxed. My parents did man culture always colored those conversations. I grew not socialize very much, but every two months or so up hearing about Goethe and Heine, Schopenhauer they would invite a few friends or colleagues to Shah­ and Husserl, long before I read Hawthorne, Melville, bat dinner. The meal was always the ;ame: our challahs Emerson, or Thoreau in school. Given the cultural came from our local bakery, and my mother made world of my parents' home, l have always had a sense chicken soup, roast comish hen, salad,.and vegetables. of being a tourist in America. For dessert, my father would peel a Golden Delicious Just as often, the conversation centered on Eastern apple, trying to keep the peel in one piece, and we Europe, on the Hasidic world my father had come from. would share apple chunks. My mother was not an en­ He loved to tell his guests stories about various Ha­ thusiastic cook and my father was always on a salt-free sidic rebbes, or describe teachings from Hasidic texts. diet, so the food was riot thrilling. Still, at the begin­ Few of my parents' friends came from that world, but ning of every meal, my father lifted his fork, looked at for my father, the Sabbath was always a return to the me, and said, "Mommy is a good cook." Sabbaths of his youth and memories of his family and We had one unusual custom at our Shabbat table: my friends. father had received a gift from nis brother-in-law, the Indeed, on the Sabbath my father's reading habits Kopycznitzer Rebbe, of two long, braided silver spice shifted. He did not read secular books, works of philos­ holders, in which he kept myrtle and eucalyptus leaves. ophy or politics, but instead turned to Hebrew religious Although scented spices are usually blessed and texts. Because writing is forbidden on the Sabbath, smelled at havdalah, as Shabbat ends, we would bless he would sometimes place a napkin or a paper clip and smell the spices just before kiddush, the prayer to mark a page, so that years later I could tell which ... qver the wine, in a Hasidic custom based ona rabbinic bl>oks ""hao been, his Shabbat reading. Those books passage that my father discusses in the Sabbath. brought him back e'ach Sabbath to stories of his child- X INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION hood and to th~ feeling that he had grown up sur­ ter dinner as my parents sat at the table, drinking tea rounded by people of "religious nobility." (Something and reading. During the spring months, the long Shah­ of a corresponding situation existed at one time with bat afternoons became the peaceful and quiet focus of the French edition of The Sabbath, which was ptlh­ the day. lished in France under the title Les Battiseurs du Temps Often my parents would invite students for a Shah­ [Architecture in Time]. According to his letters, the bat afternoon high tea. My mother served cheese and great poet Paul Celan kept a copy of my father's hook crackers, various cakes, sometimes even a magnificent on his bedside table toward the end of his life.) Herrentorte-a loaf of bread sliced lengthwise and On Shabhat morning we attended services at the filled with layers of various kinds of fish and egg salads Jewish Theological Seminary, where my father taught, and frosted with a cream-cheese-and-anchovy spread. and in the congregation sat faculty and students from My father was attentive to each student, asking about the seminary and from Columbia University. It was an his studies, hometown rabbis, and goals for the future. Orthodox service, conducted entirely in Hebrew, and As the afternoon turned dusky, he offered each one a men and women sat separately. Many weeks we heard a Siddur, to pray the evening service. Together we made sermon delivered by a graduating rabbinical student, havdalah, the prayer concluding Shabbat, and then the and on the walk home from the synagogue faculty students departed. members commented, often severely, on the quality of Sunday was once again a weekday. During the winter the sermon. The walk took only fifteen minutes, but my months, my father sometimes taught on Sunday morn­ father had a habit of taking a few steps, then stopping ings, and my mother was at her piano, practicing. to talk over a point before moving on, so that the walk , Nearly every summer, however, my parents rented a often lasted half an hour. When I was small, he some- house in Los Angeles, to be near my mother's brothers times carried me on his shoulders, and as I grew older, and their families. The houses 'Were occasionally too far his 1colleagues helped him entertain me. from a synagogue to walk, so friends would come to my Shabb~t lunch was informal and lighthearted, a time parents' home for services on Shabbat morning. My for joking and teasing. After lunch my parents took mother would prepare a light kiddush for everyone, and their weekly nap, followed by tea.and a walk in River­ guests stayed well into the afternoon. By the time side Park, across the street. There we would meet the Sabbath ended on Saturday night, it was late and friends and colleagues taking their Shabbat afternoon strolls.
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