Uniting Spirituality and Social Change: Learning from Heschel on Prayer, Pyramids and Politics August 6, 2007

This year is the centenary of the birth of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Polish Chassid who’s spiritually rooted social action have had a deep effect on Jewish and Christian thought and action. Rabbi Heschel, who was a friend and coworker of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., taught that the prophets spoke of human suffering as God's own suffering, prayer as the "song the universe sings to itself" and that political activism is prayer. In this course, we will study how Rabbi Heschel grounded his political action in the Spirit and in the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, insisting that prayer address the God who suffers when human beings suffer.

Professor Susannah Heschel, Rabbi Heschel's daughter and editor of a collection of his finest essays, will join the course as a visiting teacher.

Official Website: http://isabellafreedman.org/heschel/