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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2013
Martin Buber (1878–1965) stands among the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century. While many studies have attempted to summarize the scope of Buber's writings, here I will highlight some key implications of Buber's basic insight that there exists a deeply reciprocal bond between genuine interhuman dialogue and the divine-human relationship. Buber characterized authentic dialogue as sacramental, and he suggested that it included four elemental aspects: turning, addressing, listening, and responding. Every genuine dialogue opens out toward transcendence insofar as God's presence can be glimpsed as “absolute Person,” can be tasted as the spirit of elemental togetherness. The fundamental result of engaging in sacramental dialogue, both with others and with God, both in public discourse and private prayer, is the renewal of the entire person. As Buber repeatedly described it, to become who we are created to be—dialogical partners with God—it is the responsibility of every person to participate in God's creative, revealing, and redemptive presence in that part of the world where we stand.
1 Buber, Martin, Between Man and Man, trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), 17Google Scholar (translation modified).
2 Friedman, Maurice, Encounter on the Narrow Ridge: A Life of Martin Buber (New York: Paragon House, 1991), ix.Google Scholar
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10 Ibid., 21.
11 Ibid., 5.
12 Ibid., 4.
13 Buber, Martin, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, ed. and trans. Friedman, Maurice (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1960), 166.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., 170.
15 Ibid., 166.
16 Buber, Martin, The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism (New York: Citadel Press, 1995), 38.Google Scholar
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22 See Kasimow, Harold, The Search Will Make You Free: A Jewish Dialogue with World Religions (Krakow, Poland: Wydawnictwo WAM, 2006).Google Scholar In this book, Kasimow movingly describes his experience as a child of four, when he and his family lived in an underground hole in complete darkness for more than nineteen months while hiding from Nazis in Poland.
23 Buber, Martin, I and Thou, trans. Smith, Ronald Gregor, 2nd ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 75.Google Scholar All future quotations from I and Thou will refer to this edition.
24 Buber, Martin, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy, trans. Friedman, Maurice (New York: Harper Torch, 1957), 127.Google Scholar
25 Buber, , Meetings, 44.Google Scholar
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34 Buber, , Meetings, 46.Google Scholar
35 Buber, Philosophical Interrogations, 85–86.Google Scholar
36 The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Walsh, James (New York: Paulist, 1981), 122.Google Scholar
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38 Buber's good friend, Abraham Joshua Heschel, spoke about prayer a bit differently: “We do not communicate with God. We only make ourselves communicable to Him. The purpose of prayer is to be brought to His attention, to be listened to, to be understood by Him; not to know Him, but to be known to Him.” Heschel, Abraham Joshua, Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954), 10.Google Scholar Agreeing with Heschel's point, which views prayer from God's perspective, Buber also views prayer through the perspective of the relationship between God and the one who prays.
39 Buber, Martin, On Judaism, ed. Glatzer, Nahum N. (New York: Schocken, 1967), 122.Google Scholar
40 Buber, , Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, 91.Google Scholar
41 Ibid.
42 Buber, Martin, Two Types of Faith, trans. Goldhawk, Norman P. (New York: Collier, 1986), 131.Google Scholar
43 Buber, , The Way of Man, 38.Google Scholar
44 Ibid., 29.
45 Ibid., 41.
46 Ibid., 44.
47 Friedman, , Encounter on the Narrow Ridge, 338.Google Scholar
48 Buber, , At the Turning, 49–50.Google Scholar
49 Buber, , Between Man and Man, 17.Google Scholar
50 Ibid., 14–15. My translation.
51 Buber, , I and Thou, 136.Google Scholar
52 Buber, , Between Man and Man, 6.Google Scholar Speaking of Rang, Buber recalled what Rang once said about the most difficult time in his life: “‘I should not have survived if I had not had Christ.’ Christ, not God!” Buber's response indicates remarkable open-mindedness: “I see in all this an important testimony to the salvation which has come to the Gentiles through faith in Christ: they have found a God Who did not fail in times when their world collapsed” (Buber, , Two Types of Faith, 132Google Scholar).
53 Schaeder, , Hebrew Humanism, 365.Google Scholar
