"This moving awareness of God's
cares and sorrows concerning the world,
the Prophet's communion with the divine
in experience and suffering,
is of such evident and striking power and authority,
evincing such complete surrender and devotion,
that it may offer a basic understanding of religious existence.
Perhaps it is in sympathy that the ultimate meaning,
worth and dignity of religion may be found.
The depth of the soul becomes the point
where an understanding for God
and a harmony with transcendent possibility spring to birth.
This, perhaps, is the reward and distinction
of prophetic existence: to be attuned to God.
No one knows the measure of such intensity,
the degree of such accord.
It is more than a feeling.
It is a whole way of being.
In contrast to ecstasy, with its momentary transports,
sympathy with God is a constant attitude."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophet-
