Abraham Joshua Heschel on worship
November 13, 2011
If God were a theory, the study of theology would be the way to understand Him. But God is alive and in need of love and worship. This is why thinking of God is related to our worship. In an analogy of artistic understanding, we sing to Him before we are able to understand Him. We have to love in order to know. Unless we learn how to sing, unless we know how to love, we will never learn how to understand Him.
— Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (p. 281)
(This quote is taken from study materials for today’s “Global Day of Jewish Learning” which is focused on the “Shema” prayer. This particular quote is item 9 on the “introduction” handout.)
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BLT 
No one should think that Heschel is minimizing “theory” or even the literary, as in the Bible. Elsewhere, he has said (again making important contrasts and maximizing what’s beyond theorizing):
Compare with Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2a2ae Q91 which concludes saying:
[Cambridge Blackfriars translation vol. 39 (Kevin D. O’Rourke), 1964.]
(Ironically and anachronistically, it seems here that Aquinas has incorporated all three of Kierkegaard’s stages into the single dialect of religion.)
So Heschel and Aquinas stand at two extremes. Or do they?