On Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Part III

One of the distinguishing features of my father's leadership was his critique of his own community. As much as he spoke against racism and the war, he was equally critical of Jewish religious institutions: "On every Sabbath multitudes of Jews gather in the synagogues, and they often depart as they have entered." Prayer had become vicarious, delegated to rabbis and cantors who failed to inspire because they "do not know the language of the soul." He found fault as much with Orthodox as with Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism, as much with educators as with lay leaders. Too much money had been spent on demographic surveys and not enough on education, while educators themselves should make their goal "reverence for learning and the learning of reverence." Worship had lost its fear and trembling and had become a social occasion, rather than a moment of holiness. Society was disintegrating, and Judaism was conforming, failing to convey its resources of integrity. Judaism, he wrote, had become a platitude, when it should be spiritual effrontery. The modern Jew had become a messenger who had forgotten the message. 

-Susannah Heschel in the introduction to the Perennial Classics Edition of The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel, p. xix.