Martin Buber

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Ian W. Alexander: BERGSON Arturo Barea: ·tJNAMUNO • E. K. Be:tiriet~: sTEFAN GEORGE w. H. Bruford: wHEKHOV ' .. . ... . Ill Roy Campbell: i.o~cA. J. M. Cockin:g: PRousT. · Wallace Fowlic~: PAUL ci.AUDEL Hugh Garten: GERHAR'I' HAU:P'I'MANN ·.Marjorie Grene: MAR'I'.IN \fELDEGGER .· C. A. Hackett: RIMBAtio · tJ Hanns Hammelinanri:. :HOFMANNS'I'HAL Rayner Heppenstall: LE~N BLOY. H. E. Holthtise~: ItiL KE M. Jarrett~Kerr~~C.R.: ¥AURIAC P. Mansell Jones: 'BAlrDELAIRB P. Mansell Jones· :!!MILE VER~AEREN ~nko Lavrin: GONtHAROV t> Rob Lyle: MIS'l'RA;L Richard March: KLEIST Jose Ferrater Mora: ORTEGA Y GASSE'I' Iris Murdoch: SAR'l',RE . L. S. SaJzberger: HO.LDERLIN Elizabeth Sewell: PAUL VALERY . CecilSp.rigge: BE~EDET-'I'O CROCE Enid ·starkie: ANDRE GIDE J; P. Stern: ERNS'I' JUNGER · ·Anthony Thodby: F.LAUBER'l' E. W. F. Tomlin: SIMONE WEIL · Martin Tu.rnell: JAcQuEs RIVIE·RE Bernard Wall: MANZONI

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Other titles are in preparation

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BOWES & BOWES

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First published in 1957 in the Series ..

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Studies in Modern European Literature and Thought Bowes & Bowes ·Publishers Limited, London

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CONTENTS

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IV~ Man's Way in the World

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Biogra:phical Notes

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Th~ Bibie an~ Hasidism .

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First Principles: I and Thou ·

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Introduction

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Printed in Grea~.Britain by Richard Clay and Company Ltd., . Bung~y, Suffolk .

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in the year o£ the death of King Uzziah, Isaiah ·the prophet beheld the ihrone of . God, and the host of seraphim ranged about it. Each called to ··the other t,he thd~e~spoken Holy. Itis then, atnid · the experience of having seen God with his own · eyes, that Isaiah observes his own corruption artd up.worthiness. . . . . . In· The ·Idea of the Ho[y, Rudolf Otto argues convincingly. that. the· -development. of man's .. response to God is .made in terms of the holy. . The constellationofterror, awe~ infinite distance, .dangerous proximity,. and P<>'Yer. constitutes the primary phase of .awareness. Moses .casts .the foreskin into the face of the arigel of heavep.; . Moses andJoshua rell16vetheir shoes on sacred ground; Uriah dies when he touches the ark. Tl1ese attest to the activity of the holy-direct, · pre-rational,. terrifyin.g. ·God is manifest in the ·terror ofhis presence. He·is·commandirtg power:· he ~~sks · of man and he .takes from man. It· is .only at that moti1,ent in religious history when it beC;onies apparent that· God not only requires but .7 ~I

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·.<. ~:;,. ·. needs as well, that his holiness is co~plemented by his glory. The display of God in his glory is; by contrast to the terro~ of sheer powerf a mitigation of that power~ a complementing of that power by art asking ~fWoJ:ship a11d a statement of glory. Isaiah says,

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" Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts; The. whole earth is full of his glory. .

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Notwith5tanding his .distance _and inaccessibility, >the holiness of God breaks through to human .·peh:eption ... The affirmation: ofglory is a judg- _. ·• ment ·upon the holy, an. isserdon o( man's en- . counter with holiness. In the fact ofthe.simple worshipper B'eholding this holiness th¢ earth is · filled with glory. It is at this moment in the development of the religious sense thafmanhecomes · aware that God may be approached and praised. Not. distance and circumspection, hut the awe of . recognition and-participation become· manifest. The power of the Holy and the glory of the Holy ·are joined, for the distance and nearness of God are disclosed at the same meeting,focusedthroughthe heart of man, spoken forth as the supernal sub(; ject of mari's. subject.. Isaiah speaks these W.t;3tds . -at such- a moment, for God is, ·as the Hebrew word for. sacrifice signifies, being approached. 8. Oil

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He is distant and remote, yet accessible. and near. The reality of his holiness lies in the fact that it is visibly'.testified, that the heavens -open 'and a man beholds. At this moment one. speaks· holiness i!l aw~, wonder~ a&d am,azement. The history of the holy is circuitous in the West. There have bee'n retreats into sheer terror. There have been equally profound expressions ®f the Unity of power and glory, as in _·.·· the titne ofSt Augustine, St Fiancis,.,and the· Hasidim. At such .times the nature and activity .._. ,_ ._ ofGod were manifest. God was :p1:ese11t and. •- -' '·• .. could make his presence significantly lelL ·•:.·- : ·..- , ;-_,;•(;:;:. . The pe~111iarity ~f our'"tirrte is that God is 1l.b.t·:':·;-~-;!~~,;~~j-~-;;··· efficacious~ The presiding view <Jf our age has·-· ; -;:,:rf·· . · been- tP,a.f he i$- dead. ~ietzsche's statement -· ·; :,> .. ·ann~l.l.nCing:this conclusion i~ peculiarly appr~- •· · pr1ate. It should be noted_ that Nietzsche does not affirm an atheism. His statement is that God .· ·.-· · is dead. .This is to say that God is now d~ad, . though _once, presumably, he lived. _Nietzsche believes the. death of. God is the price both .. Judaism and Ch~istianity ·must pay for. their . · piersiste~t freezing of the human spirit, fortheir ·· · hist~1;ical· efforts to ·endose God withiri moral, .. dogmatic, ·ip;d. ritual formu1re. Martin B-t1ber is one who sees the H()lY as the

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.I centre of the human situation, whose view of the ! Holy is essentially_ Hebraic, but whose concern ~ 1 is for the achievement of that human community l. I in which the Holy, beyond creed and catechism, i · may be realized. I do n<Jit t!iink he ~ould ·object .I to being called,. with considerable qualification, a holy fool; ·indeed, the holy fool 'in Western tradition is one nustaken for a.fool, because .the. presence of God is so profmi'ndly i.nternalized· .· · .· .. ·....•.· as to betome one with the life of the body, the . .. ·. intellect, and the spirit. The Phitokalia, the ··.. · . explicit mystic doctrine of the holy fool, is con;. · · cerned with precisely this-.the restructuring .of <: · ·•· ...· .the total personality through the inner presence of · ;.. , · the Holy Spirtt, that thtough'it man's relation to the; world is redefined. . ..,. . . · ·· · ·~What I should like in this briefsfildy ofthe :·life and .contribution of Martin Buber is to con- . . · ·. c~ntrat~ . upon his pursuit of the holy. ··It i~ a .· . pursuit, hotJ.:l reasonable and intuitive, eschewing . mysticism;:· structured out of a· complete . ·awareness of We~tern history and thought. It . . lj seems to me that underlying his doctrine of the . :. \ . F I-Thou is again the PU.~~it of the holy, tqe attempt to illumine its scope, 'rfS reality<;t its l ·t· \/"efficacy in shaping rtian's search for......... true ~-ot:p· II• ............. ..,--.· munity and authen~ic wholen~ss. l " 10

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. Writing . recently with specific reference to illicit metaphysical extrusions in the empirical studies of C. G .. Jurig, Buber comments:

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a doctritle which dea1s with mysteries without knowing the attitude of faith toward mystery is the modern manifestation of gnosis .. Gnosis is .. nbt to be understood as only a historical category, hut as ·~ · universal one. It-and not· atheism, which annihilates God bJcause it must reject hitherto existing images of God-.· is the real antagonist of faith. 1 Gnosis is not merely a specific method of apprehending .G6d. It 'is not a simpl0 Manichreism, though the divine duality of. good and evil has surely recurred. It is morethan any religious or . cultit formulation.· •It is a descriptive category by which the attitude of manbefore the universe niay be indicated, for Gnosis is a view both knowledge andofaction.. It carries·with it more than philosophic consequences, for 'European culture is, at present, .tacitly gnostic. God can, so ·the modern intellect would· have it, he. taken ... priwp.er by the ·mind, rendered helpless by the

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thoroughness of man's despair and at the propitious moment slain without appeal. . One of Dostoevsky's profoundly mysteri~us creations is Kirillov of. The Possessed. H ·is Kirillov who incarnate~ ··one · direc!ion which man's repudiation . of God has taken. in modern history. Man .... stands • constantly before the borders of death.· Kirillov's conviction is that only man's fear of death has tufued hien to God. The sole-function of God is therefore to mitigate man's terror ofdeath .. Yet,qy some inscrutable logic, the present age no lor1ger r(!sts content with a divine vindicaclon·ofdeath, for·it has been ·· nm:nbed to insensitivity:"by death's pervasiveness. Death.has beoome for many an exi~tenclal alternative as appealing and liberating as life itself. Death has. transcended life and seemingly over- · whelmed it. There is nothing to fear, for God's · hold on history has been broken. . The great· threat of destruction and damnation has been overworked. God . has .'wrought' too much violence. ··Man can then destroy God by devising . some means of .overcoming his own fear of. death. K.irillov decides therefore that the .pur~ act of self-destruction; the freely willed and. eon... summated suicide, will break Jhe grip of. God. Each man can become God if he possesses the 12

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courage to will hls own death ... J:n place of God, . whose role rests on his. transc~p.dence · of death, will a:rise the manifold divinities of men who ·achieved God's role through suicide. The ulti.·. . 1!late i!l,eanthg .of life, 'is. k>cated in its destruction~ .· The Absoll.lte is only a protective fl.lSe, which .· each man ca!l drcurrrvent by orie supr~me act.· .. Kirillov commits Dsuicide. He.has:, sphe believes; .. • .. . . . . becoine G.IDd. ·· · ··.· .• God was fashioned, it appears; o~f~f man~s.·.· · · . horror ofa _disea~ed existence.·····Mail's.d;estrll:C:~-~/· clan. of God· is a protest against the ·app#ept\- : failure. of .his .dominion~ What Dost,aev~~y,·:i11 . · .r87o, percdved.through his ch~racter Kir11lol7,·a· ·.··• long· 'line· of ·thinkers .. has. subsequently inter-.· · Iectualized., and .grounded ·m:ore deeply. The ···· · succession froni Nietzsche and Stitner~. Ot:o Heidegger, ·•. S~rtre, and Jung, is.··. an unbroke~ tradition of various but concentrated efforts to co~firtn the death of God and the· bequest of his · · .· ·. •. , .· · _pd~~r to ~ enthroned. and apotheosized ·man~ . . ·· · . · In contrast to. the modetn mood, .da~sic · · philo~ophy was still a'Qle to encounter the deepest 11}ystery with reverence. Its techniques, ·though pre~sposed · to the 'Objectifying detachment of science, were turned to. ultimate reality. . Plato . sought the .eternal harmony without which the · 13

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transiency of the phenomenal world would be · unmitigated · in its·. meaninglessness and fragmentation. Aristotle, although 'purifying' Plato. ofhis unchanging forms, nevertheless acknow-:-. ledges the necessity of~ ·first druse'! unmoyed, yet ordering the sequence of motion, the highe.st . good by' virtue of his· unceasing contemplation .· ··of his own. harmonizing perfectio~..·Ho\vever .. much _lucidity the universe .dfsdos.e