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6. The Life of Dialogue: Letters Following Buber’s First Visit
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78 6 The Life of Dialogue Letters Following Buber’s First Visit Buber and I kept up what I felt was an exhilarating correspondence after his return to Jerusalem as I grappled to understand and thus better explain his work. I was, at the time, as I still remain, fascinated by Buber’s understanding of the dialogue between God and man in the Talmud. “Would it not be correct to say that the reciprocity of the I-Thou relationship implies some action on the part of God,” I asked him in a letter in 1952, “in response to the action of man, as a father may become angry with a son without ceasing to love him, or may realize that the son is not open to relationship and may bide his time without pressuring him until the son is open? I realize, of course, that one may not deduce an action from God from a philosophical proposition.” Will Herberg, a scholar and personal friend, reported to me that Buber had told him that Buber understood God’s revelation not in terms of God’s presence at Mount Sinai but in terms of Abraham’s turning toward God on the way to Sinai. Herberg felt that this statement was a key to Buber’s whole attitude toward revelation, and for him this implied that Buber did not identify himself with “normative” Judaism, with Judaism of the tradition. Herberg’s characterization suggested to me a vision of Abraham as one whom God caused to stray from his home and to wander in an unknown way toward an unknown goal to which THE LIFE OF DIALOGUE • 79 the God of the way led him. This seemed to accord, I told Buber, with his interpretation of the Talmudic phrase that God spoke, “ehyeh asher ehyeh” (“I shall be there as I shall be there”), and with Buber’s thoughts on the dialogue between God and man in “The Biblical Dialogue between Heaven and Earth,” where he had written, “Though his coming appearance resembles no earlier one, we shall recognize again our cruel and merciful God.”1 In a sense, I agreed with Herberg that Abraham’s journey was a key to Buber’s attitude toward revelation, but I did not agree that Buber deemphasized the Sinai Covenant, given his interpretations of that covenant in Koenigtum Gottes, Moses, and The Prophetic Faith. I was especially curious to know whether Buber would distinguish between his interpretations of the tradition and his personal attitudes. Buber replied succinctly distinguishing between the spirit of Judaism implicit in Abraham’s turning toward God and the content of God’s laws once Abraham had met God face to face: “What you say about the spirit of Judaism and Sinai I cannot accept in these terms. What has been given on Sinai is not a special form but rather a special content, meaning a ‘constitution.’” For Buber, the spirit of Judaism was manifest in the eternal revelation of the dialogue between God and Man. The revelation of God through the laws, while central to the tradition’s constitution, did not contain or circumscribe this greater revelation . “This means simply one’s experience is given him really just now,” Buber wrote. “Of course, this personal receiving leads one to the understanding of the great revelations, but the primary fact is not the latter. . . . Eternal revelation means the Presence.” In the case of Abraham, the important moment was his decision to turn toward God, to move in the direction of God on Sinai, and then to enter relation with God. As Buber put it to me, “direction is, relation happens, direction is unilateral (from man to God), relation, bilateral (mutual). I take up the direction, I partake in the relation. Direction is not meeting but going out to meet.” [18.232.88.17] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:17 GMT) 80 • MY FRIENDSHIP WITH MARTIN BUBER The individual “conscience,” which I suggested to Buber calls one to God, “is human and can be mistaken, it is a thing of ‘fear and trembling,’ it can only try to hear. I would never define conscience as a divine spark,” he added in response to the metaphor I had put to him: Terms of assurance should not be introduced here, nothing in human life is just exempt of tragedy. The purpose of my uniqueness may be felt more or less dimly, it cannot be sensed. The objective direction to it does not mean a sensible aim...