Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

QUARTERLY REVIEW, WINTER 1984
Jesus," 13
Can Jews accept this different way as valid? Can they not just
tolerate it, but revere it as holy?
Heschel's answer is an unequivocal yes (we shall see later that he
asks no less of Christians). This yes is based on two convictions—
both, I believe, revolutionary not only fifteen years ago but still today.
The first, strongly held and repeatedly affirmed, is Heschel's belief in
religious pluralism; not as an evil necessity of which we must
grudgingly make the best, but as desire, even delight, of God. "God's
voice speaks in many languages, communicating itself in a diversity of
intuitions." 14
Why should it not be God's will in this earthly eon that
there be a diversity of religions, a variety of paths to God? Heschel finds
no evidence in history that a single religion for the citizens even of one
country is a blessing. Rather, the task of preparing the kingdom of God
seems to him to require a diversity of talents, a variety of rituals,
"soul-searching as well as. . . loyal opposition." 13 In his December 10,
1972, interview with Carl Stern, which was to be his last gift to us, he
asked Stern if he would really want all the paintings in the Metropolitan
to be alike; or, would the world be a more fascinating place if all human
faces were the same? In this eon, at least, diversity of religion seems to
him to be the will of God, with the prospect of all peoples embracing one
form of worship reserved for the world to come. 16
It is not diversity of
belief that is responsible for today's crisis; we stand on the edge of the
abyss "not because we intensely disagree, but because we feebly agree.
Faith, not indifference, is the condition for interfaith." 17
A second conviction underlies Heschel's belief that respect of each
other's differences is both necessary and good: his insistence that
religion and God are not identical. Religion is only a means, not the
end. It becomes idolatrous when regarded as an end in itself. The
majesty of God transcends the dignity of religion. There is only one
absolute loyalty in which all our loyalties have their root, and to which
they are subservient, loyalty to God, "the loyalty of all my loyalties." 18
God alone is absolute. Everything else, when it becomes its own end,
runs the risk of being idolatrous. Therefore religion stands under
constant judgment and in need of repentance and self-examination. 19
These words, written by Heschel with reference to Vatican II and the
church's need always again to reform itself, had a wider application
for him to all religions, including his own.
The relationship between Jews and Christians which is forged out
of our common ground and differences is today threatened by a
common crisis. We live in a time when all that we hold most dear is in
danger of being lost: moral sensitivity, justice, peace, our whole
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