Insights from Abraham Joshua Heschel Toward a Reconception of Congregational Education

What follows is a small section of a paper on the topic of congregational education adapted from “Heschel’s Spiritual Humanism: Jewish Education for the Twenty-first Century,” an article originally published in Modern Judaism (2009) 29 (1). I shall attempt to bring to the discussion around the reconception of the afternoon school some insights I have gained over the years from studying the writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Of course only I can be responsible for conclusions drawn and suggestions made that do not come directly from Heschel, although as I think you will see, he did offer direction and guidance to the synagogue schools of his time, and did so rather forcefully.

I would suggest we start in the realm of philosophy. What is the purpose of these schools? Heschel sets us on this path with the following words:

A central concern in Jewish thinking is to overcome the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective, to reduce history exclusively to God’s actions or to man’s action, either to grace or to man’s initiative. The marvelous and the mundane, the sacred and the secular, are not mutually exclusive, nor are the natural and the supernatural, the temporal and the eternal, kept apart. The heart of the relationship of God and man is reciprocity, interdependence. The task is to humanize the sacred and to sanctify the secular. 1

Are not the sacred and the secular mutually exclusive? Somehow our entire educational system—and not just parochial Jewish schools—is convinced that they are. Heschel’s charge to “overcome the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective” represents a paradigm shift in educational thinking.

We have become wedded to a false idea, that the quantity of education our children receive determines quality. This may, of course, be so in the realm of skill acquisition. But in the realm of values, identity development, and the broader issues of critical thinking (or what Heschel might have called “overcom(ing) the tendency to see the world in one dimension, from one perspective”), quality of time far exceeds quantity. In other words we can stop feeling sorry for ourselves because we are relegated to a few hours per week and honestly face the fact that what we deliver and how we deliver it will be the index against which our success or failure will be (and already is) measured.

While virtually all contemporary educators speak of teaching “critical thinking skills” they (ironically) often practice a highly dogmatic way of thinking critically. They do not accept the necessity of thinking critically in order to force the student (and teacher as well) to reach into the deepest recesses of their beings. And they certainly do not think about the relationship between God and human (if they think about it at all) as being one of “reciprocity” and “interdependence.” Heschel’s conceptual elevation has profound implications for all power relationships: teacher and student, parent and child, citizen and government, small nation and large nation, etc. Heschel is making clear that when you break down the assumed divide between conceptual realms, you produce vital and vibrant relationships.

And then, as he often does, he drops the bombshell of his thought at the end of this already overwhelmingly powerful paragraph. The way to reach this goal of non-compartmentalization is to change the model, by “humanizing the scared and sanctifying the secular.” To sanctify the secular sounds almost blasphemous. But it is highly unlikely that Heschel could ever be accused of blasphemy. Integrating our thinking this way builds our interdependent and reciprocal relationship with God, nothing less and much more. Heschel turns the tables of our accepted way of thinking upside down.

Heschel recognized the positive power of the openness of American society. In contrast to other mid-20th century rabbis of comparable eastern European descent, he welcomed the new intellectual and social environment that America offered. America’s open society led him to imagine a significant role for himself in the social struggles of the 1960s. Rather than keeping the traditional distance from non-Jews, Heschel embraced them, considered their theology seriously, taught in their seminaries, entertained and studied with their clergy, and spoke in their churches. By being engaged within and outside the Jewish world, he could come closer to fulfilling the teachings of the prophetic tradition that so captivated him throughout all of his adult life.

In contrast, contemporary Jewish education can rightly be characterized by its insularity and an unspoken practice that is often little more than “survival training” cleaned up for the public audience by its nickname “continuity.” This model of Jewish education often consists of inoculations against threats, real and imagined, posed by the “outside world.” Heschel challenged this perception of Judaism with the following words:

The significance of Judaism . . . does not lie in its being conducive to the survival of this particular people but in its being a source of spiritual wealth, a source of meaning relevant to all peoples. 2

Heschel’s words offer a challenge to radically re-conceptualize the Jewish educational enterprise. We are not engaged in a circular and self-serving endeavor, he said, and we cannot fulfill our mission if we do not engage “the other” in curriculum, program and experience.

Seeing the Jewish school as a place to teach the significance of Judaism as a source of “spiritual wealth . . . [and] meaning relevant to all peoples” would require us to shed our fears of outside influences. It would allow us to understand ourselves with a greater sense of integrity while welcoming the opportunity to be the place where Jewish children first and most forcefully recognize the “creative” beauty in different religions, worldviews, and of course races, languages, and cultures.

Peter A. Geffen is the founder of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York City, and in 1999, he created (and continues to direct) KIVUNIM, which became the largest Israel-based, teacher-training seminar from North America. In September 2006, he launched KIVUNIM: New Directions, a year-long post–high school/precollege gap-year program based in Israel studying about and traveling to countries around the world to learn the origins and integration of Jewish life and culture throughout the world. His career in Jewish education began with his design of the unique and unprecedented Park Avenue Synagogue High School program in 1967, where he served as principal until 1985. In 2012 he was selected to receive the Covenant Award, the highest recognition in the field of Jewish education. Peter holds a BA from Queens College, an MA in Religious Education from New York University, and a Certificate in Psychotherapy and Counseling from the Alfred Adler Institute in New York City. Peter had the honor of accompanying Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to Dr. Martin Luther King’s funeral in 1968, and has been active in numerous civil rights and social justice causes for decades.

1 Abraham Joshua Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity (New York, 1969), p.159.

2 Abraham Joshua Heschel, “Jewish Education,” in The Insecurity of Freedom (New York, 1966), p. 226