"What characterises man is not only his ability to develop words and symbols, but also his being compelled to draw a distinction between the utterable and the unutterable, to be stunned by that which is but cannot be put into words…The attempt to convey what we see and cannot say is the everlasting theme of mankind's unfinished symphony, a venture in which adequacy is never achieved." (Abraham Joshua Heschel, quoted in Edward K. Kaplan, Holiness in Words. (State University of New York Press, 1996) page 37.
I've returned to Heschel as one who would understand fully, and deeply sympathise with the book by Janet Soskice which I've just finished reading: Naming God. Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology and Scripture. Throughout his writing (and always in his teaching) Heschel emphasised the ineffable, the unutterable otherness and holiness of God, and the inadequacy of human language to describe, explain or in any sense seek to define the reality of the One whose name was given as I AM WHO I AM. Hence the words quoted above.
Heschel is not referenced amongst the several key Jewish thinkers in Soskice's book, but my guess is he would warmly approve the reticence born of reverence, and her strongly argued case that we name God in the context of relationship. Like her, he understood each human being as one called, that call requiring the response of prayer and praise. The place of kneeling is the proper place for the names we use for God – such as my Refuge, my Shepherd, my Creator and Redeemer.
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