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CHAPTER 1
Hasidic Warsaw, 19071925
Born in Warsaw, Abraham Joshua Heschel embodied several Jewish cultures that flourished there before World War II. This center of Congress Poland, which from 1815 to 1915 belonged to the Russian Empire, enjoyed the fullest autonomy of any province controlled by the tsarist regime. Its Jewish population steadily became the largest and most influential in Europe. By 1917, when Heschel was ten years old, Jews comprised 41 percent of the city's population. Jewish culture, secular and religious, was thriving. There were Zionist organizations, youth movements, labor unions of various political tenor, and numerous Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers and periodicals. The legacy of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) favored translations of European masterpieces into Yiddish or Modern Hebrew.
The Warsaw community was traditionally religious, and Hasidism the largest grouping among observant Jews, inspired in the eighteenth century by Rabbi Israel Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov (the Master of the Good Name). In 1880 two-thirds of the three hundred officially sanctioned synagogues in Warsaw were Hasidic, as were many small shteibls (houses of prayer and study). Heschel was born into this pietistic movement.
Despite his insular community, Heschel received a complex political education. Absorbing the instability of a turbulent world, East European Jews were devastated by the First World War, caught in the crossfire of national and regional interests over which they had no control. Local pogroms, the Russian Revolution, and the ensuing civil war forced Jews to migrate. Jewish soldiers in the opposing camps were drafted to the slaughter. Ancestral towns were decimated. Thousands chose to flee. Large numbers of Mitnagdim (opponents), traditional Jews suspicious of Hasidic exaggerations of prayer and ecstasy, arrived from various parts of Eastern Europe. Cities such as Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna provided safe havens for the survivors.
As a result, the traditional religious life that had flourished now became precarious. As refugees came to Warsaw, some maintained their essentially medieval way of life, but others brought worldly trends and radical fervor. Many yeshivot (academies of Torah and Talmud study) closed. Sacred learning declined, while socialism, communism, Zionism, and other movements captivated young Jews. Believers feared that such freedom would threaten faith and destroy communities.
As a precocious child, Heschel felt the power of these competitions in which the soul of Jewishness was at stake.
HESCHEL'S SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION
Heschel's Hasidic identity included both legend and harsh historical events. He was the scion of a spiritually regal tradition, which he had been trained to embody. He could proudly trace his pedigree (in Yiddish, yichus) back to the fifteenth century. Later, in fact, in the United States, he would consecrate his ancestors by drawing up, probably from memory, a list of 250 family members, going back several centuries.
His dynastic prototype (and namesake) was Rabbi Abraham Yehoshua Heschel (17481825) of Apt (in Polish, Opatow). Five generations separated the boy from this ancestor, known by the title of his book, Ohev Yisrael (Lover of the Jewish people). This "grandfather" (as Jews refer even to distant predecessors) was also known as the Apter Rav (the latter word meaning "rabbi") because he exercised the legal authority of a community rabbi. Venerated for his diplomatic as well as spiritual skills, the Apter Rav mediated disputes among Hasidic leaders during a period of extreme factionalism. After the death of Hasidism's founder, the Baal Shem Tov, the Apter Rav became a spokesman for the third Hasidic generation.
Heschel's paternal ancestors came from Medzibozh (in Polish, Miedzyborz), where the Apter Rav was buried next to the Baal Shem Tov. In the autobiographical preface to his final book, A Passion for Truth (published posthumously in 1973), Heschel recalls his father's stories as his earliest sources of inner identity: "That little town so distant from Warsaw and yet so near was the place to which my childish imagination went on many journeys. ... For most of the wondrous deeds my father told about either happened in Medzibozh or were inspired by those mysterious men who lived there."
These mythic origins became concrete. Heschel's grandfather — also named Abraham Joshua Heschel (1832-1881) — established his family in Medzibozh, where he became rebbe, the charismatic leader of the community. Heschel's father, Moshe Mordecai Heschel (1873-1916), was born there, as were his uncles and aunts.
Heschel's father received his vocation from the noble Hasidic dynasty of Rabbi Israel Friedman (1797-1850), rebbe of Ruzhin (in Polish, Radzyn). The Ruzhiner rebbe, Heschel's father's great-grandfather, traced his ancestry back to the biblical King David; some devotees even considered him to be a reincarnation of the Baal Shem Tov.
Yet Israel of Ruzhin was an ambiguous figure, because of his wealth and the luxuriousness of his Hasidic court. Adversaries decried its opulence; followers revered the rebbe's hidden piety and appreciated his compassion. His influence was undeniable. Five of his sons married daughters of other Hasidic dynasties and established their own courts in Sadagora, Zinkov, Husyatin, and Tchortkov.
Heschel's father was about eight years old when they moved to the Hasidic court of Rabbi Dovid Moshe Friedman (1828-1904) in Tchortkov. Dovid Moshe's palace was indeed sumptuous, but he himself led an ascetic life of prayer and study. Heschel's father encouraged his precocious son to emulate a regal attitude that was both compassionate and spiritually elevated.
From his mother, Rivka Reizel Perlow (1874-1942), Heschel inherited the Lithuanian Hasidic tradition. Her father, Rabbi Jacob Perlow (1843-1902), born in Poland, was brought up in the home of her grandfather, Shlomo Hayim of Koidanov (1797-1862), an eminent Lithuanian rebbe. Shlomo Hayim married a descendant of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (1740-1810), a mystic, Talmud scholar, and compassionate friend of ordinary people.
The young Heschel was especially attracted to Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, who defended suffering Jews against God's strict judgment. Renowned for his humility, Levi Yitzhak would intercede to God for mercy on behalf of even the most ignorant Jew. And he spoke directly to God using the Yiddish vernacular of the people, rather than Hebrew, the sacred language favored by the learned spiritual elite.
Heschel's maternal grandparents, Jacob and Chaya Perlow, eventually settled in Minsk-Mazowiecki (known among Jews as Novominsk), an industrial town located about twenty miles from Warsaw. Chaya Perlow gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Alter Israel Shimon and Rivka Reizel; they were Heschel's uncle and mother.
We now enter the modern history of Heschel's parents, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai Heschel and Rivka Reizel Perlow. Married around 1890 in Novominsk, they remained for ten years at the Hasidic court of the bride's father. It was a vibrant traditional environment. Rabbi Perlow built a large yeshiva, the first Hasidic school of higher Torah learning in Poland, where hundreds of students came to live and study. A remarkable spiritual personality, the rebbe of Novominsk combined devotion to Torah study, talmudic learning, and inner piety. He was reputed to inspire teshuvah ("turning" or repentance) by the very sound of his voice.
In 1902, after Rabbi Jacob Perlow died, Rivka Reizel's twentyeight-year-old twin brother, Alter Israel Shimon, became the rebbe of Novominsk. By then the "old Tchortkover rebbe" (as Dovid Moshe was known) advised his stepson Moshe Mordecai to relocate closer to Warsaw.
So, around 1904, Moshe Mordecai and Rivka Reizel, with their five children — Heschel's four sisters, Sarah Brakha, Esther Sima, Gittel, and Devorah Miriam, and his brother, Jacob (Heschel was not yet born) — settled in Warsaw's Pelzovizna district, a poor, predominantly Jewish area on the right bank of the Vistula River. Heschel's father functioned as a vinkl rebbe (a neighborhood or "corner rebbe").
Their next move decided Heschel's future. His father, known as the Pelzovizna rebbe, established his modest Hasidic court at 40 Muranowska Street, in the thriving center of Warsaw's Jewish district. In this new, large apartment building of gray stone blocks where he and his family lived, Moshe Mordecai worked, studied, and prayed.
On January 11, 1907, Abraham Joshua Heschel was born. To honor his father's line, he was given the complete name of Abraham Joshua Heschel Heschel. (Hasidim often place a full name before the family name.) That designation paid homage to the Apter Rav and his grandfather Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of Medzibozh. As the youngest child, "Avrumele" (little Abraham, in Yiddish) soon became the family's most favored member.
Heschel was trained to become a rebbe. In the family apartment, Hasidic protocol governed domestic relationships by formal but loving rules. When the rebbe entered a room, everyone stood up. Jacob, the eldest son (called Yankele), would later recall that he had rarely remained seated in his father's presence. The children addressed their father in the third person.
Yet Avrumele enjoyed special status. His father recognized him as an illui (prodigy), a precocious and superior intellect, and often spoke with him, sometimes confiding personal thoughts. In turn, Heschel internalized Hasidism by observing his father. Correct behavior was crucial, since a zaddik (a righteous or holy person) had to embody Torah. One's father's entire physical bearing might shape a child's inward self.
Reb Moyshele, as Heschel's father was affectionately called, was fairly tall, and he conducted himself with a noble and gentle demeanor. His aristocratic manners reflected his Ruzhin upbringing; his gestures were as exquisite as his apparel. According to Hasidic standards, every Jew was considered a "prince." So as not to demean himself while eating, Reb Moyshele would not bend to reach his food, but lift it to his mouth. Throughout his life, Heschel would later reflect his father's erect posture and deliberate motions.
Moshe Mordecai's loyalty to ancestral values required courage, for his family lived in bitter privation. He was not a practical man and had very little money. His small and mostly poor following provided modest fees for his advice and blessings. Moreover, he never kept money in his house overnight. At the end of each day, he distributed any remaining cash to the needy.
Heschel's closest childhood friend from Warsaw, Yehiel Hofer, was sensitive to this contrast. He wrote that in Warsaw, "Moshe Mordecai became acquainted with Jewish poverty"; it was said that at the Ruzhiner rebbe's home there were "golden knobs on the doors, the food was brought to the table on golden vessels, and the family rode in coaches drawn by three horses." Even so, Heschel remembered that despite lacking adequate nourishment, his father always had a flower placed on his desk.
GROOMING A HASIDIC PRINCE
Heschel's nascent social conscience and "religion of sympathy" with God in exile emerged. As he saw it, all Jews were exiles. Certainly, Heschel wrote, his father in cosmopolitan Warsaw considered himself to be in exile from Medzibozh, where his holy ancestors were buried: "He confided in me, 'For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews' (Genesis 40:15)."
Yehiel Hofer recalls a childhood scene that Heschel must have witnessed countless times: "The rebbe trembled uncontrollably when poor women burst into the prayerhouse, would fall in front of the Holy Ark, pull the curtain aside, open the doors and, weeping and wailing, grab the Torah scrolls, begging mercy for a desperately ill husband or sick child, or sometimes for a mother of children who was on the verge of leaving this world. He could find no rest." Years later, Heschel recalled a similar story about the Apter Rav: "He was asked by many other rebbes, 'Why are your prayers always accepted and not ours?' He gave the following answer: 'You see, whenever a Jew comes to me and pours out his heart and tells me of his misery and suffering, I have such compassion that a little hole is created in my heart. Since I have heard and listened to a great many Jews with their problems and anguish, there are a great many holes in my heart. ... [God] sees this broken heart ... so He has compassion for my heart and that is why He listens to me.'"
Everyday realities entered Heschel's home by virtue of its urban location. Political conflicts were summoned up by the songs of workers in the tin button factory within the apartment complex. And just a few blocks away from Heschel's home was the street life that epitomized Jewish Warsaw's contradictions, as evoked by Isaac Bashevis Singer: "Here, a bearded Jew with earlocks walked by in a fur-lined hat and satin gabardine ... and soon a dandy came by in modern clothes ... [who] smoked openly on the Sabbath demonstrating his lack of faith in the Torah. Now came a pious young matron with a bonnet on her shaven head, to be closely followed by a girl with rouged cheeks, a kind of blue eye shadow, and a short-sleeved blouse that revealed her bare arms."
For the most part, however, Avrumele's religious education remained insulated from Warsaw's pluralistic society. By age three he entered the male universe of study. Childhood was serious but happy: prayer, learning sacred texts, seeking holiness everywhere. From an early age, he began to closely study Bible, Mishnah (the oral law, the foundational book of Talmud), and the religious codes, as preludes to entering the "sea of Talmud." At home, the cute and lively boy became a star performer in Jewish texts. Notably, he displayed not only a prodigious memory, but also precocious charm and wit. Family members enjoyed it when Avrumele, scarcely more than a toddler, would recite the Kiddush (sanctification over wine) when placed on a table or chair.
As a child of rabbinical aristocracy, Heschel was not sent to heder (religious elementary school). Rather, he began formal studies with tutors by age three or four, when most other boys entered heder. Avrumele had a preceptor (teacher or instructor) who directed his study of texts, accompanied him on walks and visits, and might have even slept in his room. Above all, the little rebbe's character was being formed to announce piety by his very presence.
As an adult, Heschel would offer insight into the cultivation of the rebbe he was meant to become by sharing this anecdote with American readers: "'Why do you go to see the rebbe?' someone asked an eminent rabbi who, although his time was precious, would trudge for days to visit his master on the Sabbath. 'To stand near him and watch him lace his shoes,' he answered."
A TEXTUAL FOUNDATION
The pedagogical method was medieval, the content ancient; the entire day was given over to study and prayer. First, boys memorized the basic Hebrew texts: siddur (prayer book) and Torah (the Five Books of Moses). They recited the weekly Torah selection, translating it into Yiddish. Ideally, teacher and pupil discussed the text's meaning as applied to human situations and spiritual issues. Typically, rote memory was the rule.
The next stage involved Humash mit Rashi, the Pentateuch with the classic interpretations of Rashi (acronym of Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki, 1040-1105), which Heschel also learned by heart. Along with Bible were elements of the Shulchan Arukh, the standard code of Jewish law compiled by the great Talmud teacher Joseph Caro (1488-1575). Traditional rabbis had to master the codes to justify legal decisions and proffer advice.
By age eight Heschel had begun Talmud study, the communal, spiritual, and personal foundation of Jewish life. This text study was a physical and social process. The boys "learned" with a partner, a haver (in Hebrew, "comrade"). One of them recited the text, swaying, or chanted a nigun (wordless melody). Pondering a sacred text was a form of physical prayer; the boys, imitating their fathers and teachers, rocked back and forth (a movement called shucklin), while their singsong voices rose and fell.
Talmud study could later include midrash, theological and creative Rabbinic commentaries on the Bible. As for Hasidic texts, these were written but mostly conveyed orally, accompanying followers of Hasidism throughout their lifetime.
Heschel entered Warsaw's larger Hasidic community at one of the shteibls (home or room for study and prayer that approximated the Hasidic customs of the ancestral villages) associated with the dynasty of Ger. Heschel's Gerer shteibl was near his house, on his street, at 17 Muranowska Street.
The shteibl's rigorous daily schedule typified the regimen of Heschel's childhood and early adolescence. Living at home, the boys woke at five, walked to the shteibl, where they sat at long wooden benches and tables, and began to recite text. From seven to eight they prayed the Shacharit (morning) service with fervor. After prayers the boys returned to their families for breakfast. By ten they headed back to the shteibl, where they studied at their tables until noon. Students used the time between sessions to study non-talmudic subjects, such as the Torah portion, midrash, and Hasidic books recommended by their rebbes. Each day ended with Mincha, the afternoon service, although often the boys returned after dinner to study well into the evening.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Abraham Joshua Heschel"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Edward K. Kaplan.
Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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