The concept of self-discernment in Abraham Joshua Heschel

Heschel's philosophical and religious view of man is that he is the immanent manifestation of the Divine in every phenomenon of the universe and in every human action. But with the advent of modernity another process was initiated by the fact that civilization said to be modern does not realize that the further it moves away from transcendental values the more it encourages dehumanization. Abraham Joshua Heschel thus identifies the basic poisoning of modern civilization: the eclipse of the Sacred. With this concept he refers to the death of the soul of modern man. Thus the outbreak of barbarism is not a surprise but a dire consequence of the simulacrum of humanism that remained when human beings are no longer seen with the reference that is due to them. In this context it is necessary to take into account the attempts to establish a dialogue with the new situation that modernity has brought to light: the dehumanization of man seen above all in the historical context of the Holocaust. It is essential to consider the concept of self-discernment as a way of responding to human concerns in the face of the new values and new modern directives that plague the Jewish way of perceiving the world.