"Exclusive manipulation results in the dissolution of awareness of all transcendence. Promise becomes a pretext, God becomes a symbol, truth a fiction, loyalty tentative, the holy a mere convention. ManÂ’s very existence devours all transcendence. Instead of facing the grandeur of the cosmos, he explains it away; instead of beholding, he takes a picture; instead of hearing a voice, he tapes it. He does not see what he is able to face. There is a suspension of manÂ’s sense of the holy. His mind is becoming a wall instead of being a door open to what is larger than the scope of his comprehension. He locks himself out of the world by reducing all reality to mere things and all relationship to mere manipulation. Transcendence is not an article of faith. It is what we come upon immediately when standing face to face with reality."
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Philosophers from the United StatesJews from the United StatesPhilosophers from PolandTheologians from the United StatesTheologians from Poland
Original Language: English
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Ch. 5
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Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel l (11 January 1907 – 23 December 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi, considered by many to be one of the most significant Jewish theologians of the 20th century.
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