The papers in this panel revisit and reframe Heschel’s thought through explorations of time, space, disability, politics, and interreligious engagement. The first paper challenges conventional readings of Heschel’s privileging of time over space, arguing instead for a more nuanced account that reshapes our understanding of Heschel’s Zionism as limited and provisional. The second paper extends Heschel’s notion of Shabbat into the realm of Critical Disability Studies, reimagining menucha as a form of crip time that resists normative temporal structures and opens liberatory possibilities for neurodivergent experiences. The third paper situates Heschel within a mid-twentieth-century debate on Jewish-Christian relations, reexamining his disagreement with Joseph B. Soloveitchik in light of Cold War anxieties, interfaith politics, and questions of Jewish distinctiveness and cultural integration.
Seventy-five years after the publication of Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath, it has become a well-worn truth that that book privileges time over space. That is not quite true; for Heschel, we should use the things of space in accordance with the primacy of time, with a philosophy of history premised on the claim that history is God's to steer, not humans'. Focusing on Heschel's argument in this manner helps to clarify some of the puzzling (and overly aphoristic) claims in Heschel's 1969 book Israel: An Echo of Eternity. Reading that book in light of The Sabbath allows us to see that Heschel's Zionism is limited. The point of Zionism and its historical successes is only to verify that God's promise is still in effect, not to fulfill those promises. And any expression of Zionism that privileges power over others is to be rejected.
Thinking about Shabbat as crip time involves what Alison Kafer calls “a reorientation to time.” For Autistics the Day of Rest provides what Heschel calls a day to “reclaim our authentic state . . . in which we are what we are . . . it is a day of independence of social conditions.” This paper will examine Heschel’s premise through the lenses of Critical Disability Theory, Crip Theory, Critical Autism Studies, and Neuroqueer Theory to explore the meaning and practice of Shabbat as disability justice from an Autistic perspective. As Heschel frames Shabbat, it is a time away from socially constructed enabled time in which neurodivergent people are dis-abled. For an Autistic person who is dis-abled in neurotypical time, Shabbat time then becomes crip time which is both a liberatory practice and a space where “social conditions” are no longer dis-abling for the neurodivergent.
This paper reexamines the mid-1960s debate between Abraham Joshua Heschel and Joseph B. Soloveitchik over Jewish-Christian dialogue following the Second Vatican Council. While often portrayed as a clash between an open and a restrictive vision of Judaism, the paper argues that the debate must also be understood within the specific context of American Judaism in the Cold War era. Analyzing their writings and newly examined archival material, it shows that Heschel’s support for interfaith dialogue was rooted in a vision of a Judeo-Christian alliance grounded in the Hebrew Bible and united against communist atheism and moral nihilism. Soloveitchik, by contrast, opposed this alliance, fearing it would blur religious boundaries and threaten Jewish distinctiveness within a Christian-majority culture. The debate therefore reflects broader struggles over identity, ideology, and cultural integration in postwar American Judaism.