Two groups misunderstand am segulah for opposite reasons. Anti-Semites read it as supremacy. Interfaith softeners read it as embarrassing exclusivism to be flattened. Both readings are wrong, and the actual content is harder than either.
The English word charity descends from Latin caritas, love. The Hebrew word tzedakah descends from tzedek, justice. Translating one as the other does not just lose a connotation; it inverts the underlying legal and ethical structure. The classical Jewish concept is harder, more demanding, and more interesting than what English makes of it.
Heschel's 1951 essay distills the rabbinic conception of Shabbat into a hundred pages of philosophical-poetic prose that remains, seventy years later, the best short introduction to what the seventh day actually is. The argument that civilization conquers space and Shabbat sanctifies time is not decorative metaphor; it is the structural claim of the book, and it holds up.
The popular reading of Judaism imagines a single Torah, written, sufficient on its own — and the rabbinic literature as commentary added on top. The classical sources tell a different story, and the structural argument for it is harder to dismiss than most readers realize.
The popular understanding of Jewish prayer is a wish list submitted to the Divine. Classical sources treat tefillah as something else entirely — closer to a daily discipline of standing before God than a customer-service relationship with Him.