Martin Buber
1) His Biography:
The I-Thou and I-It notion was invented by renowned philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965) and is now widely and frequently used throughout the world. He put forth the notion that communication and interpersonal skills are the two most crucial factors connecting and relating people. He wrote more than 800 articles and books based on this idea, emphasising that the most essential skill is getting to know others.
Carl Buber and Elise Née Wurgast welcomed Martin Buber into the world in Vienna, Austria, in 1878. Buber’s parents divorced when he was four years old, in 1882. His grandparents, Soloman and Adele Buber, raised him for the next ten years while he lived in Lemberg. His grandpa was a well-known academic who wrote some of the first publications of contemporary rabbinic literature.
Buber’s grandma taught him at home when he was a little boy. Later, he studied at a number of universities between 1896 and 1899, including the Universities of Leipzig (1897–1898), Berlin (1898–1899), and Zurich (1899). His main areas of interest were poetry, philosophy, literature, and art history. The writings of Nietzsche, particularly his idea of “recurrence of the same,” strongly impacted Buber during his time in Vienna, and this effect is extremely apparent in the majority of his later works. Additionally, Buber actively supported the German War effort.
Buber relocated to Berlin after meeting Paula Winkler in 1900. His passion in Judaism also grew at this time, and he began fighting for the Jewish cause, which included reviving the Jewish community. This included the Jewish cultural, spiritual, and religious resurgence. Martin Buber and his wife relocated to Heppenheim in 1916 from Frankfurt, where he had previously worked as an editor.
Buber met Franz Rosenzweig while living in Frankfurt, and he later offered him a position as a lecturer at the Freies jüdisches Lehrhaus (Centre for Jewish Adult Learning). Buber was then convinced to accept a position as a lecturer in Jewish religious studies and ethics at the University of Frankfurt. Buber relocated to Jerusalem in 1937 and spent the majority of his time there teaching social philosophy.
Buber’s early philosophical work concentrated on Kant’s prolegomena of the phenomenon and noumenon, which connected the differences between what is “seen” by humans and what “really exists” in time and space. He added his own theory to this and came to the conclusion that noumenon always comes before phenomenon. Nietzsche, a well-known philosopher who believed that human beings were superior and that life itself was supreme, also appears to have affected Buber’s philosophy. Buber also had a keen interest in social philosophy, and for the Frankfurt Publishing House, he produced a forty-volume series on “society” (Die Gesellschaft).
His I-Thou and I-It paradigm, which centred on the duality of relations, is possibly his most well-known and significant contribution. He created a book on this idea in 1923 and later abandoned his plans to turn it into a five volume series. By describing how humans might have I-thou moments with God and nature, and how art and music can be methods of obtaining those moments, he also introduced this idea into religion. Therefore, Buber created a novel method for studying religion rather than developing the religion’s philosophy.
Buber passed away in June 1965 in the Talbieh neighbourhood of Jerusalem. After having surgery for a fractured leg, his health had been declining. He had been bedridden for about a year before passing away at 87 years of age.
2) Main Works:
I and Thou:
The book’s main subject is that relationships are where human life gets its significance. According to Buber, every one of our interactions ultimately leads to a connection with God, who is the Eternal Thou. According to Martin Buber, whenever someone uses the pronoun “Thou”, they are obliquely addressing God. People can refer to God as Thou or as God. Buber underlined that “You need God in order to be, and God needs you for that which is the meaning of your life”. Humans are represented by the word pairs I-It and I-Thou, according to Buber.
The Tales of Rabbi Nachman:
The stories of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav, the last of the great Jewish mystics, are told here by the best living Jewish philosopher and interpreter of Hasidism. A rare spiritual figure, the founder of Hasidism’s great-grandson frequently shared his esoteric knowledge with his followers through symbolic fairy stories. These well-known stories are preceded by an insightful introduction to mysticism and its background, a biography of Rabbi Nachman, and a critical assessment of his stories by Buber.
3) Main Themes in his Writings:
I–It and I–You:
The idea that there are two ways that a person can interact with the outside world is the fundamental foundation of all of Buber’s philosophy. Experience mode is the initial mode (the mode of I-It). In experience, we interact with the world as an impartial observer rather than a participant. We collect information through the senses and arrange it so that reason can make use of it. The method of science and philosophy is experience; it is the method by which we acquire knowledge and put it to practical use. According to Buber, the majority of Western civilization has come to believe that this is the only way for humans to interact with the outside world. The other mode, which is more essential to our continued existence as humans, is one we frequently overlook.
He refers to the second mode as the “mode of encounter”, which we frequently disregard. We interact with the thing encountered while we are in encounter (the I-You mode). The relation between them transforms both the encountering I and the experiencing You. Unlike encounter, which one enters with one’s entire self, experience is entered with merely a portion of one’s self (the data-collecting, analysis, and theorising half). Relationships do not involve the distance that experience does (the distance between the subject and the object, or the I and the It). Additionally, the I of experience perceives the You as much more than just a collection of characteristics and quantity; during the duration of the interaction, the I of encounter sees the entire world through the You.
Unfortunately, most interactions are short-lived. All interactions with other people, animals, and inanimate elements of the natural world are inevitably brief. Eventually, we come to consider the You, to recognise it for all of its attributes, and to evaluate it. The You turns into an It after we do this, and we are then back in the world of experience. There is only one permanent and completely meaningful interaction, and that is with the Eternal You, God.
Buber doesn’t think we should disregard the mode of experience, even though his goal is to assist us to open ourselves up to it and understand that the mode of experience is a possibility for us. Our ability to experience things is essential to our survival. We learn to recognise an order in the environment through experience, which we then employ to acquire the necessities of survival. Science cannot be ignored, but it also cannot guarantee our continued existence as humans.
Argument from Child Development:
According to Buber, our demand for encounter or relation dates back to our prenatal condition. We are in a state of pure natural connectedness when we are in our mother’s womb. The flow of essential components into and out of the womb and the infant is perfect reciprocity. The womb is the fetus’ entire universe, to add to that. As soon as we are forced out of the womb, we start to want for another such relation—perhaps not one exactly like the one in the womb, but one that is similarly immediate and all-encompassing. We seek for a pure spiritual association rather than a pure natural association (a physical one). What Buber refers to as the innate or inborn You is this yearning, which is present in us from birth. It is the impulse to interact with someone or something and say “You”.
Buber claims that through observing a growing infant, we can truly see this inherent You. A new-born baby is obviously less interested in experiencing things than they are in relating to them. The baby stares intently, he “talks” when no one is present to listen, and he extends his hands even when he does not want anything, such as comfort or food. These actions have no intention of gaining or possessing anything, thus they cannot be considered attempts at either. They are rather attempts to relate. Therefore, encounter is truly the fundamental human state—a mode that we currently almost completely ignore. Learning only happens with time.
The following is the development from a state of pure relation to one of experience: First, the infant only connects. The infant is so enmeshed in the relationship that he is not even conscious of an I apart from a You. For him, there is only the relation. But gradually, he starts to perceive an I, some constant that pervades all relationships. The infant can start to interact with the outside environment after he has achieved I-consciousness. He creates the idea of It, which is something distinct, divided, and usable that can be used, examined, and known, from the idea that there is an I and that this I can be detached from things.
Alienation and Meaninglessness in the It-world:
Buber shifts his focus from the individual human psyche to contemporary society in the second half of the book. He describes the contemporary world as an It-world. All of our institutions—our governments, our economies, our educational systems, and frequently even our marriages and other intimate connections, as well as our own emotions—are constructed using I-It relationships rather than I-You interactions. Politicians, for instance, view their constituents as objects to be used, as things with specific wants, needs, and things to contribute. Similar to this, the constituents view their leaders as being able to provide them with services. Both parties are unable to see the other as a You in the current system; doing so would actually cause the system to collapse. The same is true of our economic system and most other systems.
Buber claims that the reason why modern man experiences such high levels of existential dread is because our environment is an It-world. Man thinks like life has no purpose since he is trapped in this It-world. He believes that the enormous, heartless, uncaring machinery of history, psychology, sociology, and physics are imprisoning him forever in the workings of forces beyond his control. Man enters the world of experience to learn how to control things, the natural world, and other people, but when he is trapped solely in an It-world, he begins to feel impotent and lost (though these unsettling sentiments, Buber is quick to add, often only come bubbling up in weak moments, perhaps late at night in the grip of sleeplessness).
The Eternal You:
Opening ourselves up to encounter, especially encounter with the everlasting You, God, would be the medicine for the modern ailment of alienation and meaninglessness. All of our other encounters, which are transient and do not satiate our need for connection, give us a glimpse of the possibility of meeting God. We catch a glimpse of something more—a permanent, absolute relation—in each of these ephemeral interactions. It is with God that we have a lasting relationship.
One must prepare their soul in order to meet God. It will unavoidably happen once the soul is prepared for it. The best approach to prepare for a meeting with God is to want it with all of one’s heart. Furthermore, one needs to “concentrate one’s soul”. Man unites all of his many aspects of his personality and existence and holds them together as a single entity by concentrating the soul. For instance, he binds together the I of encounter and the I of experience.
It is clear that this process of preparing oneself is not passive; rather, it necessitates an active choice: you must decide that you want to meet God and you must actively take actions to focus your spirit. This choice is described by Buber as “man’s decisive moment”. It is not simple to decide to enter the absolute relation. It is terrible to leave behind the world of experience because it is predictable, comprehensible, and easy to manage, whereas the world of encounter is none of these things. So, in order to prepare for encounter, one must also let go of their desire for self-affirmation, their need for self-protection, and their need to feel in perfect control of themselves and their environment.
Community as Revelation:
The outcomes of this encounter are the only method to verify that an encounter with the everlasting You has taken place. The interaction changes you, making you a person who views every other creature as an extension of yourself. Man leaves an absolute relationship with a loving sense of responsibility for the future of the entire world. He loves everyone and everything, thus he is concerned about everybody and everything. He views the entire universe as You. This change is a manifestation of the divine.
A collection of people who are connected to the everlasting You make up the ideal society or community (the relation to the eternal You never really ceases, it continues to exist forever in the form of the actions which it caused). They can all say “you” to everyone in the world. Their shared relationship with the everlasting You, which has changed them into people who live by encounter, is the foundation of their community. Religion is brought into the world and God is actualized through the development of such a society. Such a group considers every day to be holy.
4) His Legacy:
Buber (1878-1965) was a diligent study of the Hebrew Bible and is most known for his seminal work, I and Thou, which explores the potential of encountering God when fully present to another person. Together with Jewish scholar Franz Rosenzweig, he translated the Bible into German, penned thought-provoking biblical commentaries, and analysed its themes in a number of writings that are still read and debated today.
Buber created a unique method of interpreting biblical texts, particularly in his commentaries. For his contemporaries and perhaps for us as well, his method unlocked the Bible in ways that made it feel new. History and saga are the two categories of narrative that Buber separates. Buber asserts that the historical narrative of the Bible frequently focuses on people acting normally or expressing specific theological ideas. It necessitates comparison to the ancient Near Eastern setting in which the biblical text was written. The remainder of the biblical story is a saga, in comparison. Everything that is factually dubious falls under this category. According to Buber, it is the result of meetings between humans and the divine that have been through the Israelite society’s religious framework.
According to Buber, the reader should take away from saga that the Israelites encountered God; the specifics are not a matter of reality or fiction but rather the biblical method of relating a story that describes what occurred. Take, for example, Buber’s epic of Moses and the Israelite elders ascending Mount Sinai to see God. It is said in the Bible, “they saw the God of Israel: under His feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity” (Exodus 24:10). Buber adds on the biblical tale in his commentary by stating that they “have presumably wandered through clinging, hanging mist before dawn; and at the very moment they reach their goal, the swaying darkness tears asunder… and dissolves except for one cloud already transparent with the hue of the still unrisen sun.… And in seeing that which radiates from Him, they see Him.… now that they have reached unto Him, He allows them to see Him in the glory of His light, becoming manifest yet remaining invisible.”
Buber emphasises the significance of the interaction while subtly putting forth a way to interpret what transpired in terms of the natural world. His poetic retelling of the incident is a work of contemporary narrative in and of itself. “great is the work of the Saga, and as ever it still thrills our heart” he says of the Bible. What should we do with this excitement? We consider the biblical saga to be a “useful history”. The phrase was first used in 1918 by literary critic Van Wyck Brooks to refer to historical knowledge that is focused on the demands of the present.
This historical perspective closely resembles what Buber intended in his 1941 essay “Hebrew Humanism”, which states that “what [the Bible has] to tell us, and what no other voice in the world can teach us with such simple power, is that there is truth and there are lies and that human life cannot persist or have meaning save in the decision [on] behalf of truth and against lies”. That is, rather than wallowing in indecision, the people of the Bible strive to choose good and reject evil in order to live before God. Although they don’t always succeed, their attempts encourage readers to try the same thing in their own lives.
The truth of the Hebrew Bible that Buber is alluding to is a directive to always act before God with purpose and intention, whether at home or in the public sphere. The Hebrew Bible’s timeless message is included in this for him. Despite how significant its literary, historical, and national significance may be, reading it is recommended because of the “human patterns” it demonstrates. The legacy of Buber is his comprehension of biblical narrative as saga and his accomplishment in creating a saga for his own era. They epitomise what a “useful Buber” should be.
5) Some Quotes:
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.”
― Martin Buber
“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.”
― Martin Buber
“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
― Martin Buber
“The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God.”
― Martin Buber
“The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”
― Martin Buber
“We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves.”
― Martin Buber
“All real living is meeting.”
― Martin Buber, I and Thou
“We cannot avoid using power, cannot escape the compulsion to afflict the world, so let us, cautious in diction and mighty in contradiction, love powerfully.”
― Martin Buber
“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.”
― Martin Buber
