God in Search of Man

A full statement of Jewish religious thought by the rabbi and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, published in 1955 as a companion to his earlier Man Is Not Alone. Heschel argues that philosophy of religion should begin not with proofs but with the situations in which people first become aware of God. The book has three parts. The first, on God, describes three ways to that awareness: sensing the presence of God in the world, through wonder, radical amazement and the sense of the sublime and of mystery; in the Bible; and in sacred deeds. The second, on revelation, defends prophecy as an event in which God addresses human beings, while admitting the limits of language in describing it. The third, on response, discusses faith, the commandments and Jewish law, insisting that halakhah and aggadah, law and inner meaning, need each other. Heschel calls on readers to take a leap of action, learning the meaning of the commandments by doing them.

It is one of the most widely read modern philosophies of Judaism, and its accounts of wonder, prophecy and the holiness of deeds speak to readers of any faith or none.