Instead, both in the suffering of the Holocaust and in the triumphant
Jewish return from exile, he saw the call of a radical new Christian task: «to see the Jews as God sees them, to love them as He loves them, to
understand their place in the divine plan for Salvation according to the
theological vocation of God's people.»
In such a short book, Merkle can not be faulted for failing to include all the sources of Heschel's life and work, but apart from rabbinic tradition» the legal foundation and
theological speculation that shaped and shapes
Jewish life» he can not be
understood.