I saw this recommended as one of the finest books of Reform Jewish theology around. And it is definitely inspiring and poetic. It is also not particularly Jewish, though someone with a wider theological background may disagree. Certainly, I think most members of Abrahamic faiths would find it generally applicable. But as a work of theology, I find it question begging, and not persuasive enough to oust me out of my secular materialism.

Heschel begins with the ineffable, the idea that there is something sublime out there that we can all feel at moments. This ineffable is the touch of God, that which created the universe, which penetrates everywhere. Man is not alone, because God created us out of love, desires us to be righteous, feels us passionately, and we can find piety in every moment of our life.

On the one hand, it is preposterous to say that the universe was created by chance, that chance lead to this moment of sentience on a tiny ball of rock hurling through space. But is it less preposterous to say that there exists an ineffable, insubstantial, omniscient and omnipotent being who created the universe and our souls, who we can commune with but only on a spiritual level and not in any pragmatic suffering-alleviating sense. I've felt a sense of divine communion a handful of times before, at the birth of my son and previously with hefty chemical enhancement. And while I don't need that same high constantly, Heschel has a point that it'd be nice to feel it more often.

Yet the path is also ineffable. Either you get it, or you don't. Heschel is a modern theologian, and by that I mean he wrote in the shadow of Auschwitz and the mushroom cloud. But while he advocates for communion, in practical terms I think he also advocates for retreat.