Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

HESCHEL'S SIGNIFICANCE
We opened our hearts to one another in prayer and contrition and
spoke of our own deficiencies, failures, hopes. At one moment I
posed the question: Is it really the will of God that there be no more
Judaism in the world? Would it really be the triumph of God if the
scrolls of the Torah would no more be taken out of the Ark and the
Torah no more be read in the Synagogue, our ancient Hebrew
prayers in which Jesus himself worshipped no more recited, the
Passover Seder no more celebrated in our lives, the Law of Moses no
more observed in our homes? Would it really be ad tnajorem Dei
gloriam to have a world without Jews? 26
As I reflected on this passage some time ago I began to wonder what
Weigel had said in reply. Heschel does not tell us. I thought that
perhaps Mrs. Heschel would know, so I went to see her. She
remembered Heschel coming home late that night very moved by his
conversation with Weigel, but did not recall his speaking of the
Jesuit's response. So the two of us sat there wondering and talking,
and soon we were joined by Susannah Heschel and a friend, who
were visiting that Sunday. We read the whole passage aloud, slowly.
And suddenly the answer emerged, quite clearly. "We opened our
hearts to one another in prayer and contrition and spoke of our own
deficiencies, failures, hopes." That was how their discussion began:
in prayer and contrition. How could Fr. Weigel's response to what
followed have been anything but a profound affirmation of Judaism as
Judaism? The four of us, as we sat in the Heschels' living room that
sunny Sunday afternoon, felt in agreement, reassured, and at peace.
"Would it really be to the greater glory of God to have a world
without Jews?" When presented in such terms, it is difficult to
imagine even the most fundamentalist of Christians answering, yes!
But alas, we do not have enough Heschels in the world—men, and
women, whose love of their God and people and tradition is so
radiant that it is quite obviously sacred, so that it becomes
inconceivable to wish it away. Convert Heschel to Christianity? A
monstrous idea. It is unlikely that the effort was ever made. Why,
then, the profound indignation that resounds in his famous—and to
many of us so shocking—statement, made at the time of Vatican II and
repeated still in the 1972 Stern interview: "I'd rather go to Auschwitz
than be the object of conversion"? His indignation was no doubt
rooted in his identification with his people's repeated suffering in the
course of history and the fear that, unless Vatican II explicitly
renounced mission to the Jews, the indignity and suffering would
continue.
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