Theological Differences Poem by gershon hepner

Differences may be exaggerated
by theology, or may be blurred,
problems by it only are created
but not destroyed, because what is absurd
can’t be destroyed by minds when they are in
a mode that focuses on the unreal:
that’s why theology can’t help you win
God’s ear, however hard you may appeal.

Inspired by an article by Edward Rothstein on Abraham Joshua Heschel, “A Rabbi of His Time, With a Charisma That Transcends It, ” NYT, December 24,2007:
In 1965, after walking in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was at the Montgomery, Ala., airport, trying to find something to eat. A surly woman behind the snack-bar counter glared at Heschel — his yarmulke and white beard making him look like an ancient Hebrew prophet — and mockingly proclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned. My mother always told me there was a Santa Claus, and I didn’t believe her, until now.” She told Heschel that there was no food to be had. In response, according to a new biography, “Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America,1940-1972” by Edward K. Kaplan (Yale) , Heschel simply smiled. He gently asked, “Is it possible that in the kitchen there might be some water? ” Yes, she acknowledged. “Is it possible that in the refrigerator you might find a couple of eggs? ” Perhaps, she admitted. Well, then, Heschel said, if you boiled the eggs in the water, “that would be just fine.” She shot back, “And why should I? ” “Why should you? ” Heschel said. “Well, after all, I did you a favor.” “What favor did you ever do me? ” “I proved, ” he said, “there was a Santa Claus.” And after the woman’s burst of laughter, food was quickly served….
“Judaism, ” he wrote, “is not a science of nature but a science of what man ought to do with nature.” No act is permitted to escape scrutiny. These poles of devotion and deed combined in Heschel’s activist politics in the 1960s, resulting in positions that still tend to determine his reputation. At the recent conference one speaker wondered where a contemporary Heschel might be found, someone prepared to take a stand against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the way Heschel did against the Vietnam War. But those political positions are Heschel’s least compelling. In the civil-rights movement his moral stance was clear, but in discussing the Vietnam War, in which the issues were more complex, his statements, affected by the temper of the time, became less revealing, replacing evocation with hortatory proclamations modeled on the biblical prophets. “There is nothing so vile as the arrogance of the military mind, ” he wrote. He used the word “evil” to allude to the “insane asylum” around him. The result was a kind of theological politics. The prophets claim such declarations to be divine revelations, but in the earthly realm acts and consequences must be assessed, their complications untangled. No doubt political issues are sometimes so urgent they demand theological treatment. But there are risks in such a confusion of realms. Theological politics tends to eliminate distinctions and is impatient with differences, empathy and argument. Had those kinds of views shaped Heschel’s perspective at the airport, instead of accepting the eggs from the offending woman, he might have thrown them in her face.

12/24/07