Background
Martin Buber was born on February 8, 1878, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). When he was 3 his parents were divorced, and he was raised by his paternal grandparents in what is now Lvov in the Ukraine.
(Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious th...)
Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious thinkers of the twentieth century. In this short and remarkable book he presents the essential teachings of Hasidism, the mystical Jewish movement which swept through Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Told through stories of imagination and spirit, together with Buber's own unique insights, The Way of Man offers us a way of understanding ourselves and our place in a spiritual world. 'There is something', he suggests, 'that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfilment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands.' Challenging us to recognize our own potential and to reach our true goal, The Way of Man is a life-enhancing book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415278295/?tag=2022091-20
( Martin Buber contrasts the faith of Abraham with the fa...)
Martin Buber contrasts the faith of Abraham with the faith of St Paul and ponders the possibilities of reconciliation between the two. He offers a sincere and reverent Jewish view of Christ and of the unique and decisive character of His message to Jew and Gentile.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815630344/?tag=2022091-20
(2014 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Full facsimile of the origi...)
2014 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Scholar, theologian and philosopher, Martin Buber is one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. He believed that the deepest reality of human life lies in the relationship between one being and another. "Between Man and Man" is the classic work where he puts this belief into practice, applying it to the concrete problems of contemporary society. Here he tackles subjects as varied as religious ethics, social philosophy, marriage, education, psychology and art. Including some of his most famous writings, "Between Man and Man" challenges each reader to reassess their encounter with the world that surrounds them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1614276935/?tag=2022091-20
( The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke directly to t...)
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke directly to the most profound human concerns in all his works, including his discussions of Hasidism, a mystical-religious movement founded in Eastern Europe by Israel ben Eliezer, called the Baal-Shem (the Master of God's Name). Living in the first part of the eighteenth century in Podolia and Wolhynia, the Baal-Shem braved scorn and rejection from the rabbinical establishment and attracted followers from among the common people, the poor, and the mystically inclined. Here Buber offers a sensitive and intuitive account of Hasidism, followed by twenty stories about the life of the Baal-Shem. This book is the earliest and one of the most delightful of Buber's seven volumes on Hasidism and can be read not only as a collection of myth but as a key to understanding the central theme of Buber's thought: the I-Thou, or dialogical, relationship. "All positive religion rests on an enormous simplification of the manifold and wildly engulfing forces that invade us: it is the subduing of the fullness of existence. All myth, in contrast, is the expression of the fullness of existence, its image, its sign; it drinks incessantly from the gushing fountains of life."--Martin Buber, from the introduction
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691043892/?tag=2022091-20
(Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious th...)
Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious thinkers of the twentieth century. In this short and remarkable book he presents the essential teachings of Hasidism, the mystical Jewish movement which swept through Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Told through stories of imagination and spirit, together with Buber's own unique insights, The Way of Man offers us a way of understanding ourselves and our place in a spiritual world. 'There is something', he suggests, 'that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfilment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands.' Challenging us to recognize our own potential and to reach our true goal, The Way of Man is a life-enhancing book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806500247/?tag=2022091-20
("The condition Buber calls the 'eclipse of God' is the re...)
"The condition Buber calls the 'eclipse of God' is the reality that modern life and the teachings of many scholars have in many ways destroyed the opportunity for intimacy with an eternal, ever-present, Thou, or God. Based in part on a series of lectures he gave in the United States in 1951, this book examines Buber's interpretations of Western thinking and belief around this notion of lost intimacy or direct contact with the Divine, focusing particularly on the relationships between religion and philosophy, ethics, and Jungian psychology." Reference and Research Book News
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573924016/?tag=2022091-20
( This new paperback edition brings together volumes one ...)
This new paperback edition brings together volumes one and two of Buber's classic work Takes of the Hasidim, with a new foreword by Chaim Potok. Martin Buber devoted forty years of his life to collecting and retelling the legends of Hasidim. "Nowhere in the last centuries," wrote Buber in Hasidim and Modern Man, "has the soul-force of Judaism so manifested itself as in Hasidim... Without an iota being altered in the law, in the ritual, in the traditional life-norms, the long-accustomed arose in a fresh light and meaning." These marvelous talesterse, vigorous, often crypticare the true texts of Hasidim. The hasidic masters, of whom these tales are told, are full-bodied personalities, yet their lives seem almost symbolic. Through them is expressed the intensity and holy joy whereby God becomes visible in everything.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805209956/?tag=2022091-20
Martin Buber was born on February 8, 1878, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). When he was 3 his parents were divorced, and he was raised by his paternal grandparents in what is now Lvov in the Ukraine.
From 1896 to 1904 Buber studied philosophy, religion, and art history at the universities of Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, and Zurich, receiving a doctorate from Vienna in 1904. His dissertation was on mysticism, which attracted him both intellectually and personally.
Moving to Israel (then Palestine), he became professor of sociology of culture (social philosophy). Buber became an eminent authority on Hasidism, preserving its treasures by translating its literature and interpreting its spiritual genius to the contemporary Western world. Among his translations of Hasidic classics and studies of Hasidism are For the Sake of Heaven (1945), Hasidism (1948).
Among Buber's famous philosophical writings, besides I and Thou (where he analyzes man's two types of relationship to reality, I-It and I-Thou), mention should be made of Between Man and Man (1947) and Eclipse of God (1952).
In 1923 Buber became the first appointee to the chair of Jewish religious thought at the University of Frankfurt, where he taught for 10 years. During this period he collaborated with his friend, the distinguished Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig, on a new translation of the Hebrew Bible into German which was acclaimed a masterpiece. Buber's deep involvement with the biblical literature led to profound studies in biblical interpretation, such as Moses (1946) and The Prophetic Faith (1949).
For a time he was editor of the series Gesellschaft, which published articles by leading German sociologists, for example, Tönnies (on custom), Simmel (on religion), and Oppenheimer (on the state).
In 1933 Buber was made director of the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education in Germany, carrying out a "spiritual war against Nazism" until forced to leave in 1938. He went to Palestine to become professor of social philosophy at the Hebrew University, where he taught until his retirement in 1951.
Buber worked tirelessly until the end of his life for the new nation of Israel. Ranging over a wide variety of modern issues, such as education and politics, Buber's writings focus especially on the state of Israel, as in Israel and the World (1948).
Honored by people all over the world, he died on June 13, 1965.
( The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke directly to t...)
("The condition Buber calls the 'eclipse of God' is the re...)
( This new paperback edition brings together volumes one ...)
( Martin Buber contrasts the faith of Abraham with the fa...)
(Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious th...)
(Martin Buber was one of the most significant religious th...)
(2014 Reprint of 1947 Edition. Full facsimile of the origi...)
Buber gave up Jewish religious practices shortly after he celebrated his bar mitzvah (at age 13). Buber's explorations into Hasidism, the result of his resolve to become better acquainted with the Jewish tradition, led him into the spiritual dimension of Judaism and thereby into his mature philosophy. Buber believed that Original Hasidism was a deeply joyous, world-affirming mysticism which sought God in a "hallowing of the everyday" and in human community, as the essence of Judaism and of religion itself. Buber believed that the peculiar genius of Hasidic piety was the encounter with the divine in the midst of everyday life with its neighbor-to-neighbor responsibilities and joys. This insight, reinforced by existentialism's intense focus on concrete human life and ethical decision, provided the basis for Buber's "philosophy of dialogue," in which the presence of the divine Thou is encountered within, and for the sake of, the concrete relationships "between man and man. "
Buber also dialogued sensitively with Christians and deeply admired Jesus.
Buber as a student became a member of the Zionist movement, which sought a center and sanctuary for the world's Jews in the ancient Palestinian homeland.
In 1901 Buber edited the Zionist journal Die Welt, but he soon found himself out of sympathy with the purely political program of the majority, aligning himself instead with a smaller group who believed that Zionism must be built upon a Jewish cultural and spiritual renaissance. He retired from active participation for a number of years but later returned to the movement. In 1942, he co‑founded the Ihud party, which advocated a bi-nationalist program.
Buber believed, that in the I-It relation, I deal with the world and other persons functionally, manipulatively, as "things" to be investigated and used. This is an inescapable and necessary relation to reality which is not evil in itself but becomes evil insofar as it constantly tends to dominate and shut out another, more profound relation, the I-Thou. In the I-Thou relation, I encounter the world, other persons, and God as Thou in interpersonal dialogue which opens up the true depths of reality and summons to ethical responsibility in the midst of life.
Quotations:
"When people come to you for help, do not turn them off with pious words, saying, 'Have faith and take your troubles to God.' Act instead as though there were no God, as though there were only one person in the world who could help - only yourself."
"When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them."
"The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda."
He was widely respected for his integrity and moral passion.
Buber was married to Paula Winkler. They had two children: a son, Rafael Buber, and a daughter, Eva Strauss-Steinitz.