Spiritual Quote of the Day (Abraham Heschel, on How the Prophet Disdains ‘Conventional Lies’)

"The prophet is a person who suffers from a profound maladjustment to the spirit of society, with its conventional lies, with its concessions to man's weakness. Compromise is an attitude the prophet abhors. This seems to be the implication of his thinking: compromise has corrupted the human species. All elements within his soul are insurgent against indifference to aberration. The prophet’s maladaptation to his environment may be characterized as moral madness (as distinguished from madness in a psychological sense)." — Polish-born American Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel (1907-1972), The Prophets (1962)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Rabbi Abraham Heschel, on ‘The Prophet’s Will’)

“The prophet’s will does not faint; his mind does not become a mist. Prophecy is consciousness and remembrance of the scandals of priests, of the callousness of the rich, of the corruption of the judges. The intensity and violence of the prophet's emotions do not cause his intelligence to subside…. The prophet is not a person who has had an experience, but one who has a task, and the marks of whose existence are the consistency and wholeheartedness in the dedication to it.” — Polish-born American Jewish theologian Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel (1907-1972), The Prophets (1962)

Quote of the Day (Abraham J. Heschel, on ‘Urgent, Alarming’ Prophetic Utterance)

“Prophetic utterance is rarely cryptic, suspended between God and man; it is urging, alarming, forcing onward, as if the words gushed forth from the heart of God, seeking entrance to the heart and mind of man, carrying a summons as well as an involvement. Grandeur, not dignity, is important. The language is luminous and explosive, firm and contingent, harsh and compassionate, a fusion of contradictions.”— Polish-born American Jewish theologian—and civil-rights activist--Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel (1907-1972), The Prophets (1962)