Radical Amazement, Creative Maladjustment. Episode 471
We are invited into Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's philosophy of wonder and radical amazement. It's a call to break free from habitual thinking and approach life with fresh curiosity. We explore together what it is to take nothing for granted and to practice 'maladjustment' to what we already know and feel sure about. And through all of that we invite ourselves, and you, into deepened care for all that surrounds us all.
Hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Our source for this week:
The greatest hindrance to knowledge is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental clichés. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is, therefore, a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is. Standing eye to eye with being, we realize that we are able to look at the world with two faculties-the first we try to explain or to adapt the world to our concepts, through the second we seek to adapt our minds to the world…
Wonder is a state of mind in which we do not look at reality through the latticework of our memorized knowledge; in which nothing is taken for granted. Spiritually we cannot live by merely reiterating borrowed or inherited knowledge. Inquire of your soul what does it know, what does it take for granted. It will tell you only nothing is taken for granted; each thing is a surprise, being is unbelievable. We are amazed at seeing anything at all; amazed not only at particular values and things but at the unexpectedness of being as such, at the fact that there is being at all.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
Photo by Anuj Yadav on Unsplash