Martin Buber
Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a scholar, philosopher, author of Hasidic tales, and Zionist political writer. He founded neo-mysticism.
From 1923-1933, Buber occupied
the only chair for Jewish philosophy of religion and ethics in a German
university. With the rise of Hitler, he was exiled from Germany in 1933.
In 1938, Buber settled in Palestine and
became a professor of philosophy at Hebrew
University.
Martin Buber is best-known for his book I-Thou, which he wrote in 1923.
It focused on the way humans relate to their world. According to Buber,
frequently we view both objects and people by their functions. Dong this is
sometimes good: when doctors examine us for specific maladies, it's best if they
view us as organisms, not as individuals. Scientists can learn a great deal
about our world by observing, measuring, and examining. For Buber, all such
processes are I-It relationships.
Unfortunately, we frequently view people in the same way. Rather than truly
making ourselves completely available to them, understanding them, sharing
totally with them, really talking with them, we observe them or keep part of
ourselves outside the moment of relationship. We do so either to protect our
vulnerabilities or to get them to respond in some preconceived way, to get
something from them. Buber calls such an interaction I-It.
It is possible, notes Buber, to place ourselves completely into a relationship,
to truly understand and "be there" with another person, without masks,
pretenses, even without words. Such a moment of relating is called
"I-Thou." Each person comes to such a relationship without
preconditions. The bond thus created enlarges each person, and each person
responds by trying to enhance the other person. The result is true dialogue,
true sharing.
Such I-Thou relationships are not constant or static. People move in and out of
I-It moments to I-Thou moments. Ironically, attempts to achieve an I-Thou moment
will fail because the process of trying to create an I-Thou relationship
objectifies it and makes it I-It. Even describing the moment objectifies it and
makes it an I-It. The most Buber can do in describing this process is to
encourage us to be available to the possibility of I-Thou moments, to achieve
real dialogue. It can't be described. When you have it, you know it. Buber
maintains that it is possible to have an I-Thou relationship with the world and
the objects in it as well. Art, music, poetry are all possible media for such
responses in which true dialogue can take place.
Buber then moves from this existential description of personal relating to the
religious experience. For Buber, God is the Eternal Thou. By trying to prove
God's existence or define God, the rationalist philosophers automatically
established an I-It relationship. This is Buber's major problem with Hermann
Cohen.
Like a person we love, we can't define God; we can't set up preconditions for
the relationship. We simply have to be available, open to the relationship with
the Eternal Thou. And when we experience such an I-Thou relationship, the moment
doesn't need words. In fact, the most intense moments we experience with another
person take place without words. Nor is the intensity of the experience
significant. Buber wasn't encouraging mystical moments. The I-Thou relationship
changed the sharers, but it did so naturally, sometimes almost imperceptibly.
For Buber, it is possible to have an I-Thou relationship with God through I-Thou
moments with people, nature, art, the world.
Finally, Buber offers us a Jewish insight into the I-Thou relationship. After
our redemption from Egypt, we as a people encountered God. We were available and
open, and the Sinai moment was an I-Thou relationship for an entire people and
for each individual. The Torah, the prophets, and our rabbinic texts were all
written by humans expressing the I-Thou relationship with the Eternal Thou. By
reading those texts and being available to the relationship inherent in them, it
is also possible for us to make ourselves available for the I-Thou experience
with the Eternal Thou. We must come without precondition, without expectation
because that would already attempt to limit our relationship partner, God, and
thus create an I-It moment. If we try to analyze the text, we again create an
I-It relationship because analysis places ourselves outside of the dialogue, as
an observer and not a total participant.
For Buber, to do an action because it has been previously legislated is
meaningless. Only our response at the moment of I-Thou can have meaning. Because
of that premise, Buber disagreed with Rosenzweig
over the importance of traditional practice in daily life. It was enough to
respond to the I-Thou encounter in whatever individualized way the moment
created.
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