"Torah from Heaven," a curious translation of Heschel's original three volumes "Torah Min Hashamayim" or in his alternate English, "The Theology of Ancient Judaism," is, perhaps, his masterpiece. Published over many years in Hebrew, it has now been made available in clear, idiomatic English (Continuum, 2005). Heschel once told me, with his uniquely accurate and typical exaggeration, that every word he wrote was a quotation form classical Jewish literature. This book comes close to being exactly that. It is an anthology of viewpoints clustered in two posing constellations.In the 42 years since the first volume of the Hebrew original of Torah Min Hashamayim appeared we have had time to consider the meaning of Rabbi Heschel's monumental study of rabbinic dualism. Can the school of Akiba and that of Ishma'el be ultimately reconciled? Can a Hegelian synthesis be accomplished? Does Heschel himself prefer one of the schools to the other? We might have expected that he would incline to the mystical-transcendent pole, but that does not seem to be the case. Indeed, he is most eloquent expounding the human aspect of Torah.

Gordon Tucker (and Leonard Levin) have done a superb job of assembling, editing, abridging, and translating a huge, not quite-finished manuscript. Others literally died trying to translate this sprawling masterpiece. There may be some dissent from the inevitable emissions, some few typos, some doubts about Tucker's interpretations. But on the whole, the introductions to each chapter, the explanatory notes on almost every page (including identifying Heschel's often obscure sources) are wonderful aids in working through this massive work. Here, now, the greatest Jewish thinker in American history, the true inheritor of Polish now, the greatest Jewish thinker in American history, the true inheritor of Polish Hasidism and German Jewish scholarship, the friend of Martin Luther King and the Pope, our master and teacher, Abraham Joshua Heschel, becomes at last, the major interpreter of classical Judaism. May God, who makes all things possible, be blessed." -- Arnold Jacob Wolf, Current Theological Writing, 2007.