Turning to the Other. Donovan D. Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ 5 and 6 lay out some of the contexts of the book as they influenced the development and major motifs of Buber’s thinking. First, chapter 5 explores the existential edge of Buber’s thinking that intensified in the transitional years around World War I. This existential dimension developed along with his specifically Jewish thinking, so that his Judaism and his universalism dialectically reinforced each other. Buber’s change of position on the role of Erlebnis (inner experience) in the spiritual life became a major pivot point in the development of his thinking. This and other changes in his thinking necessitate careful consideration of his controversial early treatise on Taoism in chapter 6 and of the concepts it developed: the teaching, the master, “the one thing needful,” the Tao—all of which came into play in the evolution of Buber’s understanding of Hasidic spirituality. These broad, free-ranging intellectual and cultural contexts all serve as reference points for the reading of I and Thou, and they all intersect in our construction of the meaning of the book.

      Chapter 7, the exposition of part one of I and Thou, is informed by the metaphor of the journey. This metaphor helps us to see connections between Buber’s spiritual initiation and what he points to when he takes us to his window to show us what he sees. As our guide on the journey, he begins by showing us two paths, two alternative opportunities of existence. The first is the dialogical fullness to which he beckons us, even though to some this realm appears to be a will-o’-the-wisp. The second is the world of I-It, the illusory, fractured, consuming stance that to Buber leads to ultimate destruction. Once these two loci are established, Buber traces the journey humanity has already taken from its beginnings in dialogical promise down to the present moment of our complicity with the It-world. He first traces this journey at the broad anthropological level, and then again at the level of individual psychospiritual development. Once he has brought us to the present moment, we are faced with a crisis: we must choose how to proceed on the journey, either to continue on the downward way or to radically change course—to turn so that we move toward the realization of our potential as dialogical beings. In this way part one leads us to this crisis.

      Chapter 8 presents part two of I and Thou as Buber’s exposition of the agon of human existence. Buber traces the decline of humanity into the depths of modern alienation, our being engulfed ever more deeply in the It-world. In the course of his exposition he begins to unfold the alternative to this destructive course as teshuvah, which is the turning to relating that opens the path to renewal and recovery. Buber then shows some of the dynamics of a life characterized by the chiaroscuro of continual teshuvah, turning toward the presence of Thou in each new circumstance. Once the horror and the hope offered by these two paths is laid out, we are presented with a dilemma designed to prompt us to make the existential choice between them: we must choose whether to continue down the path toward destruction or to turn toward relation in dialogue with others and with the eternal Thou.

      Chapter 9 lays out part three of I and Thou, which focuses on the eternal Thou and on the nature of revelation. Part three begins with critiques of obstacles to the dialogical relation to the eternal Thou, both those created by modern spiritual thinkers—Schleiermacher, Otto, Scheler, and Kierke­gaard—and those created by doctrines of absorption in Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist mystical traditions. Buber then revisits how the dialogical is manifested in nature, in interhuman existence, and in the realm of culture. I and Thou reaches a high point in Buber’s exposition of his concept of revelation. For him revelation is that which first opened to him in his spiritual initiation and continues as an ongoing, universal reality. I and Thou as a whole serves as a manifesto of dialogical reality and it is this reality that Buber celebrates as an element of a larger proposed project: the revival of Hebrew Humanism.

      Chapter 10 concludes this study of I and Thou by placing Buber’s call to the dialogical life in our contemporary global context. Accordingly, it locates Buber between exile and homecoming, between tradition and modernity, and between East and West. It then sums up the dialogical core of his vision. Finally, it characterizes Buber’s voice as a prophetic voice that allows us to properly see I and Thou as Buber’s invitation to us to turn toward the other in a life of genuine dialogical existence within the shifting flux of our times.

      1. Buber, cited in Kohn and Weltsch, Martin Buber, 454.

      2. Kaufmann, “Buber’s Religious Significance,” 282–83.

      3. Buber, “Replies to My Critics,” 706.

      4. Buber, I and Thou, §22a; see Buber, “Man and His Image-Work,” 159–65.

      5. Mendes-Flohr, From Mysticism to Dialogue.

      6. Buber, “Afterword,” 214–16.

      7. Buber, “Dialogue,” 13–14.

      8. Buber, “Foreword,” xv–xvi.

      9. Pages 116–45.

      10. Buber, “Baal-Shem-Tov’s Instruction,” 180–81.

      11. Breslauer, Chrysalis of Religion.

      12. Buber continued giving his addresses on Judaism in Prague at the same time he was writing Daniel: Dialogues on Realization.

      13. Buber, “Hasidism and Modern Man,” 41–42; this version follows Avnon’s reading in Martin Buber, 117.

      14. Buber, “Interpreting Hasidism,” 221 (emphasis Buber’s).

      15. Buber, “Holy Way,” 137.

      16. Buber, “Religion and Ethics,” 104.

      17. Buber, “Religion and Ethics,” 105.

      18. Pages 13–40.

      19. Mendes-Flohr, From Mysticism to Dialogue, 9.

      20. Mendes-Flohr, From Mysticism to Dialogue, 10.

      21. Herman, I and Tao, 193.

      22. Herman, I and Tao, 193.

      23. СКАЧАТЬ