The "Living Center" of Martin Buber's Political Theory

Dan Avnon

Political Theory, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Feb., 1993), pp. 55-77.

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 THE "LIVING CENTER" OF
MARTIN BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY

DAN A W O N

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A COMMON MISCONCEPTION concerning Martin Buber's social and

political theory is that Buber's importance as a theorist of community
"resides in his stress upon the indispensable role of God as the Center of
community, the creator of its conditions, and the agent who calls it into being
through his relations with his creatures."' This essay advances a different,
almost opposite, proposition. I shall argue that throughout the mature period
of his intellectual life,2 Buber maintained that true community "consists of
men who have a common, immediate relation to a living center [die lebendige
Mitle] and just by virtue of this common center have an immediate relation
to one a n ~ t h e r . "The
~ importance and "indispensability" of God for Buber's
thought notwithstanding, it is a livingperson (although, as we shall see, not
just any person) who is responsible for the creation of a "true" community
(die wahre Gemeinde).' In the conditions of ordinary life, where true com-
munity is but a vision and society is far from perfection, it is a living person,
not the unseen, who is f ~ l l o w e d . ~
In addition to presenting his ideas, this essay also draws attention to
Buber's mode of communicating his vision. Whereas most studies of Buber's
political and social thought focus on his explicitly political essays as com-
municators of his political theory,6the present study illustrates the importance
of Buber's nonpolitical works as indirect communicators of his idea of the

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am indebted t o the audiences at the 1988 annual meeting of the Society
for Values in Higher Educarion and the 1989 annual meeting of the American Politiu2lScience
Association at which I gave earlier versions of [his essay. I also thank J i l l Frank, Norman
Jacobson, Hanna Pirkin, Tracy Strong, and nvo anonymous readers for Political Theory for
commenting on earlier drafts of this essay. While writing [his essay I served as Lecturer in the
Program i n Cultures, Ideas, and Values at Stanford Universify. I acknowledge with [hanks the
friendly and itztellecrually srimulating milieu created by the program's faculty, students, and stafl

POLITICALTHEORY, Voi. 21 No. I , February 1993 55-77

O 1993 Sage Publications, Inc.
56 POLITICALTHEORY I February 1993

living, human center of community. This reading of Buber's intentions

suggests that Buber uses myths and symbols as vehicles for presenting
society with a new paradigm for personal conduct and communal life. In
other words, he attempts to foster the emergence of the "living center" of his
ideal community by presenting his readers with images of such ideal persons;
these become historical metaphors for the mythical reality he envisions.
Considered in this light, Buber may be best described as a political thinker
whose primary vocation is the creation of social and political symbols and
images.' In doing so, Buber is well within the tradition of Western political
theory, where one finds many thinkers who, to borrow from Voegelin's
terminology, reinterpreted their society's symbols in an attempt to redirect
its self-definition, and consequently its self-ill~mination.~
Analysis of Buber's idea of a living center of community would be
incomplete without prior discussion of his notion of relation. It is with that
discussion, therefore, that we begin our investigation.

"In the beginning," says Buber, "is the r e l a t i ~ n . "What

~ is the relation? At
first sight, Buber's responses appear mysterious, obscure: relation is the
category of being; it is readiness (i.e., perfect presence in the face of being);
it is an emptiness filled when the person is present to it; it is "the innate You"
in relation to itself. A person's knowledge of the innate You is the a priori of
relation, yet at the same time "the innate You is realized in the You we
enco~nter."'~
What does Buber mean? And what have these paradoxical propositions
to do with Buber's political thought in particular and with thinking about
politics in general?The innate You, Buber says, is realized in the relationships
through which we live. Relationships (though not just any relationships) are
thus the medium through which the person comes to know the truest part of
his inner world. Considering this self-knowledge a sine qua non of a fully
realized human life, Buber's political and social thought is accordingly
focused on the affinity between the organization of social life and the person's
likelihood of him knowing himself as being, as presence, as You.
There is an additional aspect to these paradoxical questions. The innate
You, the unchanging self that relates to being, attains perfection solely in the
immediate relationship with the "eternal You," the You that in accordance to
its nature cannot disintegrate into any subdivision.'' Buber refers to the
eternal You as God, or "the world of the one truth.'"' (He is quick to clarify
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITlCAL THEORY 57

that his concern is not with a specific appellation but with the primal reality
referred to in different traditions by different names.) Hence Buber's interest
in interpersonal relationships, and by correlation with politics, is inseparable
from his concern with the relation to God.'' Indeed, Buber's political and
social theory is held together by the orientation of the various aspects of
relation toward the common goal of creating social conditions conducive to
the individual member's meeting with the divine, with unchangeable, form-
less being; that is Buber's guiding first principle.
This initial introduction to the orientation and final goals of Buber's
political thought is supported by a reading of the opening words of his
magnum opus, I and Thou. The emphasis on the generation of an appropriate
attitude to relationships, concomitant to the transformation of one's limited,
unreflective attitude to being, is its opening, universal theme: basic modem
ontological convictions notwithstanding, "the world is twofold for man in
accordance with his twofold attitude."I4 Buber's intent in I and Thou, as in
many of his later works, is to bring his reader closer to a twofold attitude to
being. Buber considers change of attitude to the nature of being the hidden
but nonetheless decisive factor determining one's perception of reality.
Change in perception of reality, in turn, leads to change of conduct. This
ontological change is Buber's version of Plato's single "least change" nec-
essary for the establishment of a true ~ o m m u n i t y . ' ~
Buber points to the nature of the desired change by concocting the notion
of the "basic word." "Basic words" project into the external world the state
of one's inner being; they establish a mode of existence.I6 Basic words point
to the attitude underlying a speaker's enunciation rather than to the words he
or she utters. I-It and I-You are two such "basic words."
An attitude to relation that ensues from a fragmented self Buber calls I-It.
In such a state, a person distances him- or herself from the other, to create in
the interpersonal a quality of relationships characterized by an accentuation
of differences. In contradistinction, when the other is addressed from a state
of being originating in a unified "I," in the innate You, the interpersonal is
permeated by an I-You mode of existence. This constitutes a movement to
relation and establishes in the interpersonal space a quality Buber refers to
as "[hebetween."" "The between, " then, belongs to the I-You relati~n.'~ The
significance of "the between" for the attainment of a fuller, inclusive relation
to being may be made clearer by thinking of Buber's notion of society as a
substance that serves as a conduit for the interaction between separate spheres
of being. The metaphor that comes to mind is of electricity: what is needed
to transfer electrical energy between one object and another is a conductor,
a special substance that can transmit that energy.
58 POLITICALTHEORY / February 1993

The I-You attitude to relation is not a permanent state of being and can-
not be sustained over an extended period of time. The "I" cannot retain a
permanent state of unity; it is subject to recurring fragmentation into sepa-
rate "1"s. Persons are thus subject to continual alternations between states of
being, between inner unity and fragmentation. This proposition is the basis
for an additional distinction Buber draws between two basic orientations
contending within each person for mastery over one's essential attitude to
being: the "ego-oriented I" and the "person-oriented I." For an ego-oriented
I, self-knowledge is knowledge of a limited, partial aspect of one's existence,
yet considering it the whole; for the person-oriented I, self-knowledge is
knowledge of self as being.I9The person-oriented I is one who can shift from
an erroneous perception of him- or herself as the center of being, to a
recognition of relation as the center of being.
Buber emphasizes that the ego-person duality represents two poles of
one's intrinsic humanity, nol two kinds of human beings. No human being,
says Buber, is pure person, and none is pure ego: "each lives in a twofold I.
But some men are so person-oriented that one may call them persons, while
others are so ego-oriented that one may call them egos."20Consequently, for
Buber the primary reality of the I-You dialogue lies in neither of the subjects
of the relation, I and You, but in the relation itself, in that which is indicated
by the hyphen. It thus becomes crucial for him to present a vision of
community that would, above all, emphasize the quality of interpersonal
relationships wished for by all members.
It follows that Buber's distinction between an ego orientation and a person
orientation harbors implications beyond individual existence. Indeed, he
establishes a clear connection between the prevailing ontology and the
culture and modes of association stemming from it:

[The] more a human being, the more humanity, is dominated by the ego, the more does
the I fall prey to inactuality. In such ages the person in the human being and in humanity
comes to lead a subterranean, hidden, as it were invalid existence- until it is ~ u m m o n e d . ~ '

Buber's analysis leads him to conclude that uniquely human enterprises (such
as civilization, culture, history, and individual biographies) are created
between the poles determining personal and collective identity, between the
ego orientation and the person orientation. The respective directions and
contents of human enterprises are determined by the dominance of one
orientation over the other. Thus Buber appears to suggest that today the
person orientation has only a marginal existence and that consequently the
sphere of relationship, into which contemporary humans are born and within
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 59

which they act, is dominated by the ego orientation, which posits separation
as the determining characteristic of the human condition.
The domination of the ego orientation in modem societies is most bla-
tantly manifest in the primary form of social organization created by modem
men - the nation-state. The nation-state may be a collectivity of sorts, but it
is not a community in the Buberian sense: the "typical individual" of
contemporary times relates to the nation as if it were his "expanded ego"22
and to the state as if it were the highest authority within his reach. Conse-
quently, for Buber the central challenge facing today's societies and their
social theorists and activists is to clear the (ontological) way for the emer-
gence of a community characterized by the predominance of the person
orientation. Buber assumes that a redress of the modern imbalance between
the ego orientation and the person orientation, occurring as a result of
transformations in single persons'relations to being, would give rise to a form
of social organization that would reflect this new balance between the
competing orientations. Such action would be in line with Buber's belief that
the human world is meant to become a single body through the efforts and
deeds of men themselves.

Many students of Buber's social thought overlook Buber's emphasis on

the human role in effecting ontological, and hence social, change. There is a
tendency in scholarly literature to depict the founding of a Buberian commu-
nity as a metaphysical act of grace (see quote in the opening paragraph of
this essay). God, the eternal You, is indeed the agent of the person's perfect
knowledge of hisor her innate You. Yet for this perfect relation to materialize,
or for i t to make an impact on humanity, modem society and politics must
undergo an ontological transformation on the scale of that which humanity
underwent in the first millennia B.C., when, as Jaspers suggests, "Man, as
we know him today, came into being."23 During that creative epoch, persons
such as the Buddha, Confucius, the Hebrew prophets, and Jesus transformed
their respective societies' understanding of the human and of the transcen-
dent. Following that historical precedent, Buber endeavors to bring into
modern awareness a deep consciousness of the role of great founders in
effecting this newfound r e a l i ~ a t i o n . ~ ~
In a key passage of I and Thou, Buber asserts unequivocally that at the
center of true community is a living person he calls the builder. A true
60 POLlTlCALTHEORY / February 1993

community does not exist if people merely "have feelings for each other."
There are two further requirements:

all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and
they have to stand in a living reciprocal relationship to one another. The second event
has its source in the first but is not immediately given with it. A living reciprocal
relationship includes feelings but is not derived from them. A community is built upon
a living reciprocal relationship, but the builder is the living, active center [aber der
Baumeisier ist die lebendige wirkende ~ i t t t - 1 . ~ ~

Buber emphasizes that the relationship at the heart of true community is

not grounded in mere feelings, sentiments, or ent ti mental it^.'^ Neither a
sense of shared devotion to God nor a romantic sense of shared "feeling" or
"love" can replace for Buber the human, living center of community. Feel-
ings, intense as they may be, are by nature transient and ephemeral. Buber
would thus have serious reservations about a theory of community like that
developed by Frank Kirkpatrick (partly on the basis of Buber's writings)
which is to be constituted and maintained by "mutual affe~tion."~'The
members of a true community may indeed share feelings of mutual affection
and even love, yet Buber explicitly states that a community "includes feelings
but is not derived from them."
It is evident from this passage that the members of a true community aspire
to share a common relation to a divine center, the "eternal You"; however, it
is equally obvious that the emergence of such a relation is dependent on the
prior creation of social frameworks that allow for this shared attitude. The
attitude is developed in the context of lived relationships, not in solitary
contemplation or worship.
The living centers of community, the builders of community, thus generate
in the social world that quality of relation that constitutes "the between." The
importance of these agents of social change for Buber's thought may be
further clarified by a glance at the social and political theory predicated on
them. One might formulate the goal of that theory as rendering the modem
state, its institutions and its characteristic forms of relationship (power and
domination) obsolete~%ubstitutingthe modern system of nation-states with
a global "community of c ~ m m u n i t i e s . "This
~ ~ goal is to be attained in three
ways: first, by founding "true" communities as the basis for new societal
modes. However, second, the creation of separate true communities is a mere
step on the way to a "community of communities," a commonwealth of
communities bound together by a common trust, a shared relation to the
"eternal" You." From a third viewpoint, the new (global) social system
establishes social conditions conducive to the generation of "the between"
 Avnon 1 BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 61

and hence to the encounter with the "eternal You." Interpreters of Buber's
political and social thought, such as Paul Mendes-Flohr and Bernard Susser,
who emphasize the source of renewed community in a shared revelation or
in a shared relationship to a transcendent archetype common to all, refer to
the second and third levels of Buber's political and social the or^.^' However,
on thefirst level, the basic unit and point of departure for the other levels of
the envisioned social system, the decisive focus is on transformation of
society by creating autonomous communities, and the builder is a t the center
of that process.
Existing studies of Buber's social and political thought curiously omit
(without explanation) Buber's explicit reference to the pivotal role of the
builder of community. Why overlook the idea of the builder when discussing
the passage from I and Thou that deals explicitly with the founding of true
community?'2 One possibility is that the idea of the builder of community is
considered an anomalous (and perhaps embarrassing?) indiscretion that
detracts from what are perceived as more important aspects of Buber's theory
of community. This line of reasoning would justify omission on the grounds
that mention of the idea of the builder would create unnecessary confusion
among students of Buber's thought. Another possibility is the fear among
scholars that the idea of the builder of community would be (erroneously)
associated with unattractive, antidemocratic, and illiberal conceptions of
community." The latter fear is, of course, very much a reflection of the times:
the twentieth century has taught many to be wary of ideas that evoke initial
associations of strong leaders whose personal charisma may blind their
followers to the ramifications of their deeds.
If these possibilities are indeed the reason for the exorcism of the builder
from studies of Buber's philosophy, then the underlying rational is based on
a fundamental misinterpretation of Buber's intentions. We therefore turn to
clarify Buber's intentions when referring to the builder, the living center of
community.
Buber does not have in mind some form of benevolent authoritarianism,
as some commentators fear an inattentive reader may erroneously assume.
Buber, whose personal biography includes a childhood in late nineteenth-
century Eastern Europe and adulthood in pre- and post-World War I Ger-
many, recognized as well as others the dangers of misguided leadership.
Buber refers to Mussolini and Hitler as the most dangerous examples of
leadership without the guidance of a true way.34Such commanding leaders
base their rule on their ability to manipulate to the utmost the political power
immanent in the centralized structure of the modern state. Totalitarian states
whose leaders' rule is based solely on their control of political power are the
62 POLITICALTHEORY / February 1993

extreme instances of the exploitation of the organs of control made available

to the leaders of the modern state. A totalitarian leader takes over the organs
of state by using what Buber calls "negative charisma" and, in the name of
grace, strips real freedom and judgment from the ruled.3s Such a leader is
totally immersed in the political ends of attaining and retaining power. In
terms of the themes we have discussed, such a leader (regardless of his
fallacious self-conception) is thoroughly identified with his egotistic self and
devoid of relation to his innate You or to the deity.
Considered in the context of the categories of 1and Thou, Buber says that
such leaders fall outside the scale of the I-You and I-It relation. He refers to
leaders of the likes of Hitler as the "demonic You," persons who, like
Napoleon, know only their association with their cause and know no real
relation to any You. Such leaders recognize no one as being, so that every-
thing around them becomes an I and subservient to their cause. This, says
Buber, is the elementary historical barrier at which the basic word of
association, I-You, loses its reality, the character of reciprocity: the demonic
You for whom nobody can become a
Buber's personal experiences in Europe and his writings attest, therefore,
to his sensitivity to the problem of "unattractive" leadership; he obviously is
not attempting to present a radically antidemocratic and illiberal conception
of community. What, if so, does he mean when he speaks of the builder of
community?
When he speaks of "builders" of community, the paradigmatic figures
Buber has in mind are those who encountered being and left in the wake of
their encounter cultures and inclusive attitudes to being that attest to the truth
of their experience: these are the "powerful revelations that stand at the
beginnings of great communities, at the turning points of human time.""
These are not primarily political leaders but rather the great founders, those
who established ways of life within which human beingscan more fully know
themselves, whose way leads to a radical reevaluation of the meaning and
significance of relation. Buber cites examples from the very origins of
contemporary cultures. The Buddha, for one, found the way to "confront the
undivided mystery ~ndivided."'~It was from a "relational process that
became substance that his deed came, clearly as an answer to the YOU."
Hence, the great accomplishment of the Buddha was his generation of a
movement that transformed the I-You relation into substance, into that quality
of the interpersonal Buber refers to as "the between."
Socrates, too, knew the "I of infinite conversation." In Buber's terms,
Socrates believed that being is immanent in each person and sought to address
that part of his interlocutor. His interpersonal dialogue was sustained by the
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 63

dialogue with "the world of one truth": when the "human world falls silent
for him, he hears his daimonion say That twofold attitude to being is
what granted Socrates his extraordinary influence over his listeners.
Finally, to conclude this illustrative list of originators of true community,
one may mention Buber's portrayal of Jesus. When Jesus says I, "he can only
mean the I of the holy basic word that has become unconditional for him."
The I of Jesus does not derive its power from a detached perspective,
untouched by relation: "In vain you seek to reduce this I to something that
derives its power from itself, nor can you limit this You to anything that dwells
in Once again, we see that the world of Jesus is twofold in accordance
with his twofold attitude, and that twofold attitude is twofold in accordance
with the two basic words he can speak, I-You and I-It.4'
In sum, Buber's builder is based on the paradigm of conduct established
by the founders of great civilizations, not on the deeds of modern totalitarian
leaders. The idea, therefore, is not as embarrassing as it may appear to some.
Yet this symbol of the person is difficult to convey and, as suggested by its
omission from existing studies of Buber's political and social theory, is easily
misunderstood. Buber himself chose to convey the idea of the builder
indirectly, and to this aspect of his work we now turn.

Buber appears to have been aware of the problematic nature of a theory

of community predicted on a notion of a fully realized person at its center.
His explicitly political works (that examine issues properly considered
political, such as alienation and universal mistrust, socialism, Zionism, and
the Jewish-Arab conflict) include only obscure references to the living center
of comrn~nity;~' they do not explicitly attempt to explain how the living
center is to come about. That explanation is indirectly communicated through
Buber'snonpolitical works, primarily those that deal with tales of the hasidic
masters, biblical interpretation,43the origin and meaning of hasidism," and
dialogue and the dialogical persons.4s These discourses are instances of
indirect teaching; if the reader is attracted to the ideas or images of human
perfection they convey, Buber has brought his reader closer to the perceptual
transformation that is the necessary foundation of the social revolution he
aspires to initiate.46
Buber's justification of his mode of communicating his ideas appears
grounded in his observation that the distinctive worldviews (Weltam~hauung)~'
generated by the originators4' of great cultures and societies are always repre-
64 POLITICAL THEORY 1 February 1993

sented by "universally valid images" of the person.49Buber asserts that such

images are "invisible and yet living in the imagination of all individuals. . . .
The imitation of them out of the material of the person is the educating, the
forming of man."50
Buber considers the lack of such a basic unifying symbol of the person a
troubling characteristic of modern Western culture. The "typical modem
Westem mann5' is guided by images of the fully realized life that uphold
erroneous notions of fulfillment; he is presented with images of historical
success, of men who had set ends for themselves, accumulated the necessary
means of power, and had "succeeded" with these means of power. Yet these
historical figures are divorced from the primary reality of man, from an un-
derstanding of "the original being of the human s ~ b s t a n c e . "Consequently,
~~
Buber states that "upon the real mastering of [a universally valid image of
the person] depends whether this epoch will fulfill its meaning or not."53
Buber's favorite image of a true community established during the modem
era is that of the Jewish hasidim and the tsadiks4 (the Just one) in their midst.
He relates that, as a child, "when I saw the rabbi striding through the rows of
the waiting, I felt, 'leader,' and when I saw the hasidim dance with the Torah,
I felt, 'community [Gemeinde]."55 Buber suggests that this image represents
the "living double kernel of humanity: genuine community and genuine
leadership (wahrhafie Gemeinde und wahrhafte Fuehrersch~ft)."~~ In fact,
he claims that the impression evoked by this image was to determine the goal
of his life's work. In an essay written in 1918, prior to the publication of I
and Thou, Buber relates that reading a book entitled Tsava-at Ribesh (the
testament, the legacy, of the founder of the Hasidic movement, Rabbi Israel
Baal-Shem) led him to realize that "Man's being created in the imageof God"
is not a mere description; rather, it implies an active becoming, a task:

The image out of my childhood, the memory of the tsadik and his community, rose up-
ward and illuminated me: I recognized the idea of the fully realizedperson [wllkommenen
Menschen]. At the same time I became aware of the summons to proclaim it to the
world."

Similar to the omission of the builder from analysis of the key passage from
I and Thou given earlier, the idea of the "fully realized person" that Buber
claims to have been summoned to "proclaim" has also been overlooked by
interpreters of his social and political thought, this despite the fact that this
passage too clearly indicates that Buber considers the idea of the "fully
realized person" the heart of his work.5B
The implicit connection between the fully realized person and his com-
munity, encountered in the recollection of the tsadik and his community, is
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 65

spelled out explicitly when Buber says that in the midst of a true community,
such as that of the hasidim,

stands the ~sadik,whose function is to help the hasidim, as persons and as a totality, to
authenticate their relation to God in the hallowingof life and just from thisstarting point
to live as brothers with one another.59

The tsadik helps the members of the community "authenticate their relation
to God" by considering his encounters with them as opportunities to "[ele-
vate] their need before he satisfies it."60
What is the essence of this "need" the tsadik sets out to elevate? We may
begin our inquiry with an examination of the Tsava-atRibesh, the book Buber
called the source of his inspiration regarding the fully realized person. The
Ribeslt is quoted there as saying that there are two types of just men.6' The
first is concerned only with fulfilling God's commandments; such a tsadik is
a tsadik only to himself. The way of the second type of tsadik includes the
extra merit of bringing additional persons closer to God, an experience the
Ribesh refers to in terms of the Jewish " t e s h u r ~ ~ . " ~ ~
Teshuva can be translated literally as either "answer" or "turning." In its
essential meaning, it is similar to the Greek notion of periagogt? (or its
corollary, metastropht?, conversion), most commonly associated with Plato's
prisoner of the cave, who "is suddenly compelled to stand up, turn around,
walk, and look toward the light."63In the Jewish context, teshuva is associated
with the notion of answering the call of God, of effecting a (re)turn to God.
This notion appears as a central theme in Buber's work; he understands it as
an inner turning, an opening to a presence previously unnoticed. Citing the
Jewish prophets, Buber says that the turning is "not a return to an earlier,
'sinless' state; it is the revolution of the whole being- in whose process man
is projected into the way of God."64
In Buber's philosophical work we encounter a German rendering of the
Hebrew teshuva in the concept of Umkehr, that means turning around, re-
~ e r s a lBy
. ~phrasing
~ in a term devoid of particular religious connotations the
experience he considers so important for the fulfillment of a complete human
life, Buber appeared to be pursuing his basic goal: to direct modern indi-
viduals' attention to "the fundamental separation between the sacred and the
pr~fane."'~T he way to overcome this ontological interval is for the person to

find his own self, not the trivial ego of the egoistic individual, but the deeper self of the
person living in relationship to the world. And this i s . . . contrary to everything we are
accustomed to.67
66 POLITICALTHEORY / February 1993

From this perspective, the "need" of which Buber speaks is the need to seek
one's deeper self, the self that is aware of the basic unity underlying the world.
Buber's depiction of hasidism emphasizes the unique role of the tsadik at
the center of the transformed community. Indeed, the collections of hasidic
tales that constitute the bulk of his literary work focus on the deeds and lives
of the hasidic masters.68Buber portrays the tsadik as one who uses ordinary
daily events and relationships to bring about in the persons he meets an
immanent experience of his or her incompleteness; by recognizing that lack,
the pcrson is awakened to his or her need. Those whose ordinary needs are
elevated to more meaningful ones join together in a fellowship centered
around the meeting with the tsadik and with one another. These are the
hasidim, " 'the devout,' or more accurately, those who keep faith with the
c~venant."'~
Although clearly the indispensable pole of the relationship, Buber pres-
ents the tsadik as depcndent on his followers as the hasidim are dependent
on him. The wholeness of this relationship iscaptured in the following image
attributed to the rabbi of Rizhyn:

Just as the holy letters of the alphabet are voiceless without the vowel signs, and the
vowel signs cannot stand without the letters, so tsadikim and hasidirn are bound up with
one another. The tsadikim are the letters and the hasidirn who journey to them are the
vowel signs. The hasidirn need the tsadik, but he has just as much need of them. Through
70
them he r u n be uplifted. Because of them he can sink- God forbid!

The dialogue between tsadik and hasid, sealed by the common aspiration to
realize higher levels of being," grants Buber's image of the tsadik an
intrinsically social dimension. The dialogue among the members of commu-
nity is dialectically intertwined with the individual member's dialogue with
God: to unveil the deeper self, to come closer to one's being, one needs to
enter into meaningful, purposeful human relationships; to be capable of
entering such human relationships, one needs an affinity to the greater reality
represented by the idea of God. By serving as a living example of the way to
conduct reciprocal relationships in the various circles of community, Buber's
tsadik exemplifies the paradigmatic conduct of one at the center of a com-
munity of persons committed to the fulfillment of this human need.
This reading of Buber's ideal hasidic community in the service of his ideal
image of the person may shed additional light on the famous controversy
regarding his "creative misreading" of hasidism and of the biblical sources.72
Schatz-Uffenheimer criticizes his rendering of hasidic life on the grounds
that
 Avnon I BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 67

Buber's realistic, activistic approach - in contrast to hasidism - ignores the ontic line of
thought on such basic problems as God and world, and from the first confines itself to
the realm of the relalionships of man to God and to his world. The hasidic sources
themselves distinguish between the ontic problem of the world and that of man's
relationship to it; thus in hasidism the problem becomes greatly complicated."

She is surely correct in pointing to Buber's selective choice of emphasis;

however, in our context i t is interesting to note what he includes in rather
than what he excludes from his revision. Buber emphasizes relationships
within the hasidic community precisely because it is that aspect of human
life he seeks to establish as paradigmatic for the conduct of social life. And
it is not merely relationships that he emphasizes but relationships of a certain
order: between a tsadik at the center of community and his circles of disciples
and followers. As a scholar Buber may get poor grades; as a theorist he is
consistent in his attempt to create a new image of community and the person
at its center.
This reading of Buber's intentions also addresses Gershom Scholem's
concerns. For Scholem, Bubcr's greatest fault is his combining "facts and
quotations to suit his purpose, namely to present Hasidism as a spiritual
phenomenon and not as a historical one."74Again, like Schatz-Uffenheimer,
Scholem's criticism of Buber is justified on the grounds he establishes, that
is, that Buber distorted the historical evidence to serve his own message.
What interests us here, however, is that this distortion and the message it
serves are extensions of a basic concern guiding all of Buber's works and
constitute a central element of his self-conception as a social the~rist.'~ From
a different perspective, this distortion can be perhaps considered Buber's
version of Plato's noble lie.
Hence, although using myths and symbols produced as an integral part of
his culture, Buber did not hesitate to transmit them in a new form. Criticism
of this revision is justified in light of Buber's presenting part of his reflections
on hasidic life in scholarly form; each form of writing presupposes certain
rules, and the scholarly form invites scholarly criticism. In this respect, Buber
is not entirely forthright in those instances where he attempts to refute the
evidence supplied by critics who claim that his works lack sound scholarly
basis. Still, if considered a medium for effecting indirect ontological change,
a change considered by Buber a necessary requisite for social renewal, these
apparent distortions can be reevaluated in light of thegoal they were intended
to support. To return for a moment to the theme guiding this essay, these
myths are part and parcel of Buber's attempt to create a universally valid
image of man and should (in addition to scholarly criticism) be judged in
terms of their contribution to that goal.
68 POLITICALTHEORY 1 February 1993

An additional, most striking example of Buber's nonpolitical works

supporting his goals as a political theorist is his analysis of the life of Moses.
This study exemplifies Buber's attempt to ground the image of the living
center in a historical metaphor by casting his portrayal of an ideal social
revolutionary in the mold of his ideal image.76At this juncture, my reading
of Buber's Moses is presented in the interest of further supporting my reading
of Buber as a political theorist whose mode of theorizing is indirect, using
his literary and scholarly skills to transform existing myths and legends in
the course of transmitting them.
Buber's analysis depicts Moses in a certain light, as one who serves as the
intermediary bond uniting person, community, social renewal, and revela-
tion; he is an archetype of an "originating"77 founder. As such, he serves as
a paradigmatic example of the one at the center of true community. Moses,
says Bubcr, perceived the necessity of establishing a social framework that
would let the Israelites emerge as a holy people, bearers of a sacred teaching.
He established the covenant as a response to the condition and prevailing
attitudes of the people he was destined to lead. They were not holy, not
prepared to assume the responsibilities accompanying their selection as the
people of YHVH (referred to by Buber in parentheses as He-Who-Is-Here,
the Present One).7sThe covenant "shall simultaneously unite the tribes into
a people and bind the people to their God; not merely religiously but in their
living s~bstance."~'Consistent with the basic assumptions guiding I and
Thou, and equally consistent with his rendering of the great founders, here
too Buber emphasizes the role of the covenant in fostering the quality of
relationships that create in the interpersonal "the between."
The idea of the covenant is dual. The covenant between the tribes and
YHVH is also a covenant among the tribes: "they become Israel only when
they become partners in the covenant of God."" This idea of the covenant is
presumably one of the sources of Buber's proposition in I and Thou that a
true community comes into being as a union of those bound in a living
reciprocal relationship to one another, and their concurrent standing in a
relationship to a single, living center." Moses, says Buber, attempts simulta-
neously to unite the tribes into a people and bind the people to their God. God
is the divine center, yet Moses is the one who creates the necessary social
conditions without which the communities cannot experience the bond with
God or join with one another. Moses is thus the living center, the binding
joint.82This combination is what Buber refers to as the "theo-political" idea:
the relation between God and the people ispolitical in its realistic, historical
character; it is religious insofar as it is guided by the attempt to face the
 Avnon 1 BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 69

totality of being, the meeting with God, a goal that is not fixed in time or
place.u3
Buber says that Moses understood himself as a guide; he did not stand
between God and man, nor did he shoulder responsibility for the choices of
others. The covenant he introduced was to create a bond transcending the
merely ritual aspect of religion and to introduce the spiritual into the sub-
stance of everyday life.u4 Moses did not retreat into some metaphysical,
detached realm of being but was firmly established in human society. The
unifying force he brought into the life of the community stemmed from the
conception of a divine force above him and that flowed through him. He
exemplifies Buber's contention that the I-You relation to God and the I-You
relation to one's fellow man are at bottom related to each other.
For Buber, Moses'decisive act was to create social conditions that enabled
the Israelites to experience extraordinary events, such as the crossing of the
Red Sea, in a new way: as an act of God, as a miracle,

which does no( mean (ha( (hey interpreted it as a miracle, but rhar they experiencedir as
such, [hat as such they perceived it. Thisperception at [hefateful hour which is assuredly
to be attributed largely ro [he personal influence of Moses, had a decisive influence on
the coming into being of what is called ''Israel" in the history of the spirit.85

The emphasis is not on the "objective" event but rather on Moses' crucial
role in transforming the people'sperception of the event. Moses led them to
perceive reality in a new, fuller way. This turning to reality is the key to their
experiencing the event as a miracle. Moses led his people to an ontological
shift, to a new understanding of reality that included a sacred dimension.
Moses was, to recapitulate the argument presented here, an intermediary but
not a substitute force; on the basis of this religious relationship, Moses
established a covenant between the God and the community.
The lesson to be learned from Moses is not primarily a religious one. His
life and actions exemplify first and foremost the relationship between per-
sonal and social transformation. The Mosaic attitude, says Buber, "is to
believe i n the future of a 'holy people'; and to prepare for it within history."86
The one who prepares a people does so as an inseparable extension (and
reflection) of his own personal transformation. Thus, for example, Moses
hoped that the desert that had once "purified and freed [Moses] from himself'
would help his people experience the same liberation. His personal experi-
ence, his way to know himself, was therefore a central influence on his
conception of the way to renew his people." Hence, regardless of the degree
of success with which his actions met, Buber maintains that Moses sets an
example on the personal level:
70 POLITICALTHEORY I February 1993

Moses wished for an entire, undivided human life, as the right answer to mankind, and
the right answer to the Divine revelation. But [fragmentation] is the historical way of
mankind, and the [unified] persons cannot do anything more than raise man to a higher
level on which he may therefore follow his course, as long as he is bound by the law of
his history.88

Like the second type of tsadik, the living center's way entails elevating
his contemporaries' level of being. While guided by the wish for the unifica-
tion of the "eternal You," the living center aspires to remain within the
realities and needs of the "laws of his history." The goal of raising mankind
to a higher level is attained indirectly by elevating individual persons' needs.
Yet this goal can be attained only within the context of communities oriented
toward the realities of social and historical existence, guided by the concep-
tion of a divine order of the universe.
Buber's rendition of Moses' exemplary life indirectly points to his under-
standing of the ultimate goal of society and politics: to create and support
forms of communal life whose members share the goal of developing
individually and communally a twofold relation to being within the con-
straints of particular historical conditions. Thus personal and social are
dialectically related for Buber.

In a time like our own, says Buber, agenuine community begins "with the
discovery of the meta-psychic character of reality and rests upon the belief
in this reality. . . . Community in a time like ours can only happen out of
breakthrough, out of t~rning."'~ Thus we return to the archimedean point of
Buber's thought: a new form of community originates in a person's (or group
of persons') newfound perception of the nature of being. These persons
attempt to include others in their circle by bringing them to face their true
needs; they "elevate their needs" before they satisfy them.
When community is imagined as an organic unit predicated on a certain
quality of relationships, relationships that generate "the between," then a
particular set of insights as to its nature are made available. The image that
Buber presents provides an elementary sense of what the political community
is like, of how physically distinct and solitary individuals are joined to-
gether.% Initially, what brings members of a Buberian community together
is a common yearning, a longing deep inside every human being, that Buber
associates with the innate You. At the center of such a community is one who
can transform that yearning from intangible, purposeless sensation to a living
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICALTHEORY 71

response to the as yet unknown object of that yearning: to being itself - being
in the twofold sense of the term: as self and as God.
Michael Walzer comments that the creative genius in political thought is
not a man who invents new symbols;

He is rather a man . . . who elaborates old symbols with a new fullness and eloquence,
o r . . . who explores the meaning of symbols just emerging in the thought and activity of
his immediate predecessors and his c ~ n t e m ~ o r a r i e s . ~ '

Buber for sure is a thinker of the first variety; whether he is also of the second
is as yet unclear. As suggested by Bernard Susser, Buber's vision may turn
out an "ineffable meta-political ideal" that cannot be translated into any real
political program, and thus remain, as he claims Buber admits, "a utopian
vision."" Yet perhaps Buber has seen what others have not: a shift in the
modern perception of persons' relation to themselves and to the cosmos. If
the latter is the case, Buber's voice may represent symbols "just emerging in
the thought of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries."
Whatever Buber's eventual contribution to the history of Western political
thought may be, the "central person" on which he builds his system is a
symbolic figure available for imitation. It represents the human being open
to the twofold nature of being immanent in existence, open to a quality of
relationships that would enable him to fully realize himself as a, properly
speaking, human being. No longer is he an alienated individual of the
alienating modem society. No longer is he a passive object of the impersonal
state's control. No longer are his actions devoid of any relation to the cosmos.
Instead, the person is part of fell~wship,~%upported by a symbolic world that
assigns him a specific task and a promise for self-realization; his movements,
determined by his newfound self-knowledge, are attuned to the callings of
the twofold nature of being; he acts out relation, and relation, for Buber, is
the substance out of which order is perceived.
We can now return to the question of relation with which we opened this
essay. Like the Tao, the relation that can be spoken of is not the relation, for
"the name that can be named is not the name."94 Yet it can be indicated, in
writing and in actuality. That is Buber's Torah "on one foot."95

NOTES

1. Frank G. Kirkpatrick, Community: A Trinity ofModels (Washington, DC: Georgetown

University Press, 1986), 142, emphasis added.
72 POLITICALTHEORY / February 1993

2. Buber's work usually is delineated by scholars into two periods: the pre-I and Thou
(1879-1923) "mystical" period and the post-l and Thou (1924-1965) "dialogical" period.
3. Sydney and Beatrice Rome, eds., Philosophical In~arogatiom(New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1964). 68-69; hereafter noted as Rome. The interview cited took place toward the end
of Buber's life (he died at the age of 87 in 1965).
4. Martin Buber,Iand Thou, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Scribner, 1970),
94; for the original German text of Ich und Du, see Martin Buber Werke: Erster Band-Schriften
Zur Philosophie (Munchen: Kosel-Verlag, 1962), 70-170, at 108; hereafter noted as Werke.
5. Martin Buber, Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1958), 151; hereafter noted as Moses.
6. The most important studies of Buber's social and political thought published in English
in the last decade are Paul Mendes-Flohr From Mysticism toDialogue: Martin Buber k Transfor-
mation ofGermanSocia1 Thought@etroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), hereafter noted
as Mendes-Flohr, 1989; Laurence J. Silbentein, Martin Buber's Social and Religious Thought:
Alienation and the Quest for Meaning (New York: New York University Press, 1989), hereafter
noted as Silberstein; and Bernard Susser, Existenceand Utopia: TkeSocialandPolitical Thought
of Martin Buber (London: Associated University Presses, 1981), hereafter noted as Susser.
Maurice S. Friedman's Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 3d ed., 1976) still serves as a good introduction to Buber's works.
7. Buber suggests that the artistic and philosophical vocations converge at this juncture,
when both are concerned with the creation of images and symbols. This similarity overrides
differences generated by the different concerns, or objects, of these creative activities. Buber
thus finds that when engaged in the figuration of symbols, the two vocations share a common
attempt to express an unmediated relation to being: "The artist does not hold a fragment of being
up to the light; he receives from his contact with being and brings forth what has never before
existed. It is the same with the genuine philosopher." In "Bergson's Concept of Intuition," in
Martin Buber, Pointing the Way (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 64. See in this context
"Man and His Image Work," in The Knowledge ofMan: A Philosophy of thelnterhuman (New
York: Harper & Row, 1965). 149-65.
8. Eric Voegelin, TheNewScience ofPolitics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987),
28-29.
9 . 1 and Thou, 68.
10. Ibid, 78.
11. Ibid., 123-24, 160-61.
12. See "The Spirit of Israel and the World of Today," in Martin Buber, Israel and the World:
Essays in a Time of Crisis (New York: Schocken, 1963), 184.
13. Iand Thou, 171.
14. Ibid., 53.
15. Plato, Republic, bk. 5,473b4.
16."Basic words do not state something that might exist outside them; by being spoken they
establish a mode of existence. Basic words are spoken with one's being. . . . The basic word
I-You can only be spoken with one's whole being. The basic word 1-11can never be spoken with
-
one's whole being." I and Thou, 53-54.
17. The concept of "the between," says Buber elsewhere, "is not an auxiliary construction,
but the real place and bearer of what happens behveen men; it has received no specific attention
because, in distinction from the individual soul and its context, it does not exhibit a smooth
continuity, but is ever and again reconstituted in accordance with men's meetings with one
another." Martin Buber, Between Man and Man (New York: Collier, 1965), 203.
 Avnon 1BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 73

18. This point has been often misunderstood and led to erroneous presentations of the social
significance of Buber's philosophy of dialogue. See Buber's comment in Rome, 27.
19.1 and Thou, 113-14.
20. Ibid., 114-15.
21. Ibid., 115.
22. "The Spirit of Israel," 186.
23. Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal ofHistory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1953), 1.
24. See Buber's comments on uncreative epochs in Rivkah Horowitz, Buber's Way to "I and
Thou": The Development of Martin Buber 5 Thought and His "Religion a s Presence" Lectures
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988). 27-29.
25. I and Thou, 94; Werke, 108, emphasis added.
26. See Between Man andMan, 31-32; also Robert E. Wood's comments in Martin Buber's
Ontology: An Analysis of I and Thou (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1969).
74-75.
27. Kirkpatrick, Community, 186; on Buber, see 140-46.
28. See the chapter on Landauer in Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon, 1958),
46-57.
29. Ibid.. 138.
30. This is a recurring theme in Buber's works. See, for example, "Hope for This Hour" in
Pointing the Way, 220-30, and I and Thou, 157-68.
31. Paul Mendes-Flohr, "Martin Buber's Concept of the Center and Social Renewa1,"Jewish
Journal ofSociology 18 (June 1976): 19-20; Susser, 52-53.
32. Paul Mendes-Flohr, for example, joins two separate passages from I and Thou and omits
in the process mention of the builder. He quotes the passage we are discussing as follows: "Living
reciprocal relationship includes feelings but is not derived from them. A community (eine
Gemeinde) is built upon a living active center. . . . Men's relations to their true You, being radii
that lead from all I-points to the center, create a circle. That alone assures the genuine existence
of a community (eine Gemeinde)." In Mendes-Flohr, "Martin Buber's Concepf," 20. This essay
is included in Mendes-Flohr, 1989, 121. In a Hebrew version of this article, Mendes-Flohr
corrects the citation by including ellipses instead of the missing sentence; he does not, however,
modify his analysis accordingly. See Paul Mendes-Flohr, "Chevruta ve-chidusha: dm-siah
ke-ekaron meta-soziologi" ("Fellowship and Its Renewal: Dialogue as a Meta-Sociological
Principle"), in Shmaryahu Talmon et al., eds., Kaan ve-Achshav (Jerusalem: Ha- va-ad ha-beyn
Dati be-Yisrael, 1983), 57. See also Mendes-Flohr, "Ha-Leumiut She-Balev" ("TheNationalism
That Is in the Heart") in De-varim Le-Zichro She1 Martin Buber (Jerusalem: Israel Academy for
Sciences, 1987). Reading the same passage from I and Thou, and perhaps following Mendes-
Flohr, Bernard Susser says that "this 'center,' community's transcendent archetype, is the
generating point of contact; the binding joint that permits the movement of individuals toward
each other. Metaphorically speaking, each individual is a spoke off the radiating 'center.' " In
Susser, 52. Laurence Silberstein follows Mendes-Flohr and Susser in omitting mention of the
builder when discussing this passage in Silberstein, 171ff.
33. Communication from anonymous reader for Political Theory, April 1991.
34. Buber calls such leaders "hanhagah ne-ederet torah," literally translated as "leadership
devoid of lorah." Martin Buber, "Am Ve-Manheeg," in Teudoh Ve-Yeud: Selected Writings on
Judaism andZionistA ffairs (Jerusalem: Zionist Library, 1984; in Hebrew), vol. 2, p. 62; hereafter
noted as TV. Buber uses the term "Torah" in its meaning as "instruction," "direction," or a
"teaching." He thus translates Torah into German as Weisung.
74 POLITICAL THEORY / February 1993

35. Although drawing on the sociological definitions of Max Weber, Buberdoes not explain
the difference behveen his notion of "negative" charisma and other notions of charisma. He
assumes a difference and then goes on to refer to examples (Jacob Frank, Adolph Hitler,
Mussolini). This is a major flaw in his argument, forwithout a clear understanding of theelement
that sets "negative" charisma apart from (true?) charisma this concept is of little use as a
sociological category.
36.1 and Thou, 117-19.
37. Ibid, 166.
38. Ibid., 138-39.
39. Ibid., 115.
40. lbid, 11 6.
41. Ibid., 53.
42. See, for example, "The Validity and Limits of the Political Principle," in Pointing the
Way, 218; "Afterword: The History of the Dialogical Principle," in Between M a n and M a n ,
216.17; Martin Buber, A Land for Two Peoples, edited by and commentary by Paul Mendes-
Flohr (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). 119, 202; Pafhs in Utopia, 175, 238.
43. See The Prophetic Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1949), Israel and the World, Moses,
and TV.
44. Hasidrsm and Modern M a n (New York: Horizon Press, 1958); The Origin and Meaning
of Hasidlsm (New York: Horizon Press, 1960).
45. See Between M a n and M a n and The Knowledge of M a n .
46. In this rcspect, they are "self-consuming artifacts": by conveying those who experience
a dialectical movement from rational to irrational understanding "to a point where they are
beyond the aid that discursive or rational forms can offer, [a dialectical presentation] becomes
the vehicle of its own abandonment." See Stanley E. Fish, Self-ConswningArtifacts (Berkeley:
University of California, 1972), 3.
47. Martin Buber, "Education and World-View," in Pointing the Way, 100.
48. In 1922, Buber outlined three different plans for subsequent volumes to follow I and
Thou, which he was about to complete. One outline, titled "The Primary Forms and Magic,"
would have a volume entitled The Person and Community, with chapters on "The Originator,"
"The Priest," "The Prophet," "The Reformer," and "The Lonely Man." Shortly thereafter he
abandoned this plan. What is interesting to note is the unwritten chapter on the originator,
mentioned in l a n d Thou, 103; hence my use of this term. See Horowitz, 188-89.
49. Martin Buber, "China and Us," in Pointing the Way, 123.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 124.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., 121.
54. Tsedek is the Hebrew word for justice. Tsadik is a term usually translated as "the righteous
one" or "the just one." Buber says that it actually refers to "those who stood the test" or "the
proven." Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters, translated by Olga Marx (New
York: Schocken, 1947), I .
55. "My Way to Hasidism," in Hasidism and Modern M a n , 53; Werke, vol. 3,964.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.,59; Werke, vol. 3,968, emphasisadded. I have changed Maurice Friedman's transla-
tion of vollkommenen Menschen as "perfected man" to "fully realized person." Vollkommenen
is difficult to translate; "perfected" does not convey the sense of wholeness and complete
realization incorporated in this notion- hence the choice of "fully realized." Considered in the
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 75

context developed in this study, vollkommenen is an attribute of the "central person." Also, one
may note in passing that Menschen is not "man" but rather "person" or "human being." (Many
thanks to Matthew Sienna and Ernst Haas for helping me think through the translation of this
passage.)
58. Laurence Silberstein entirely omits the concluding sentence (where Buber speaks of the
idea he feels "summoned" to "proclaim") when citing this passage. See Silberstein, 47. Pamela
Vermes points to the centrality of this idea for Buber's religious thought, yet does not make the
connection between his writings on Jewish matters and Buber's political and social theory. See
Vermes, Buber on God and the Perfect M a n (Chico: Scholars Press, 1980).
59. Rome, 68.
60. "My Way to Hasidism," 68.
61. Tzavoas Horivash (New York: Kehot Publication Society, 1975; in Hebrew), sec. 125,
44-45. In the course of its transmission into Christian discourse, the Hebrew notion of Teshuva
was translated from the traditional sermons into Greek as metanoia, repentance, a weakened
form of the notion of teshuva. See Rome, 101.
62. Buber attributes a similar story, "Two Kinds of Tsadikim," to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn in
Tales of the Hasidim: The Later Masters (New York: Schocken, 1948), 53-54.
63. Plato, Republic, 5 1 7 ~ 7 One
. should not overemphasize the similarity: in Plato's depic-
tion, the turning around is toward the "puppet-like objects," which are the originals of the
shadows and images he had previously been seeing; in Judaism, the turning is toward a higher
and imageless reality.
64. Martin Buber, "The Faith of Judaism," in Israel and the World, 21. See also "Prophecy,
Apocalyptic, and the Historical Hour," in Pointing the Way, 196-97, 206; Two Types of Faith
(New York: Collier, 1951). 63ff., 91ff., 155ff. See also a good analysisof Buber's interpretation
of this concept in Malcolm Diamond, Martin Buber: Jewish Existentialist (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1960), 147ff.
65. The incorporation of the notion of teshuva into Buber's major philosophical statement
IS not surprising; for Buber, the wholeness of life, the essential seamlessness of all that is, is the
other side of the Jewish teaching of the unity of God. See Martin Buber, "Two Foci of the Jewish
Soul," in Israel and the World, 33-34. Walter Kaufmann's translation of Umkehr as "return" is
inaccurate; Wiederkehr would be return. See Walter Kaufmann, "I and You: A Prologue," in I
and Thou, 35-36. (My thanks to Hanna Pitkin for pointing this out to me.)
66. "Hasidism and Modem Man," 28.
67. "The Way of Man, According to the Teachings of Hasidism," in Hasidism and Modern
Man, 158-59.
68. Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters; Tales of the Hasidim: The Later Masters; The
Legend of the Baal-Shem (London: East and West Library, 1955); Ten Rungs: HasidicSayings
(New York: Schocken, 1962); The Way of Man, According to the Teachings ofHasidism (New
York: Citadel, 1966); The Tales of Rabbi Nachman (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press
International, 1988).
69. Tales of theHasidim: TheEarly Masters, 2. Elsewhere Bubersays that hasidut, the social
movement of those called hasid, is "a word that can be translated into English still far less than
the Latin pietas that corresponds to it; its meaning might most easily be rendered through a verbal
paraphrase: to love the world in God." In "The Ba-al Shem-Tov's Instruction in Intercourse with
God," in Hasidism and Modern Man, 179.
70. Tales of the Hasidim: The Later Masters, 54, emphasis added.
71. On the idea of "levels of being," see E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed (New
York: Harper & Row, 1977), 15-25.
76 POLITICALTHEORY 1 February 1993

72. See Silberstein, chap. 2. His thoughtful reading of the Scholem-Buber debate (discussed
shortly) interprets Buber's hasidic works as examples of (what Harold Bloom calls) a "strong
reader" who engages in "creative misreading."
73. Rivkah Schatz-Uffenheimer, "Man's Relation to God and World in Buber's Rendering
of the Hasidic Teaching," in Schilpp and Friedman, eds., The Philosophy ofMartin Buber, vol. 12
of Library of Living Philosophers (La Salle: Open Court, 1967), 404.
74. Gershom Scholem, "Martin Buber's Interpretation of Hasidism," in Gershom Scholem,
The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971), 230.
75. For an illuminating comparison of an original hasidic legend and Buber's revision, see
Pinchas Sadeh, Sipure Ha-Besht (Je~Salem:Carla, 1987). 177-81. Sadeh shows that Buber
exorcised the original text of any mention of magical powers associated with the Besht, of the
Besht's wild, emotional, ecstatic, and, at times, brutal conduct. This diluted version, says Sadeh
(p. 181), creates the misleading impression that a meeting with the tsadik was as tame as "social
visit of two academics at the Library of the Hebrew University" (where Buber was a professor
of anthropology).
76. Buber's favorite example of a true revolutionary is Gustav Landauer: see "Recollection
of a Death," an essay devoted to the memory of Gustav Landauer, in Pointing the Way, 115-20;
Paths in Utopia, 46-57; "Landauer and Revolution," "The Hidden Leader," and "Landauer in
These Times," in Netivot Be-Utopia, edited with an essay by Avraham Shapira (Tel-Aviv: Am
Oved, new ed., 1983). For Landauer's influence on Buber, see Schaeder, 258-64; also Robert
Weltsch, "Buber's Political Philosophy," in Schilppand Friedman, 438-40. For a comprehensive
analysis of Landauer, see Eugene Lunn, Prophet of Community: The Romantic Socialism of
Gustav Landauer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).
77. See note 48.
78. Moses, 66. The capitalized letters are capitalized in the original text.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 112.
81.1 and Thou, 94. See earlier discussion, 8ff.
82. Compare with Susser, 52.
83. Moses, 101, 115, 186-89.
84. See also Martin Buber, "Symbolic and Sacramental Existence," in The Origin and
Meatling of Hasidism, 151-82.
85. Moses, 75, emphasis added.
86. Ibid., 188.
87. Ibid., 69-70.
88. Ibid., 199.
89. "On the Psychologizing of the World," in Martin Buber, A Believing Humanism (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1967), 151. See also "Politics Born of Faith," in same book, 174-79.
90. These concluding comments purposefully echo Michael Walzer's interesting discussion
in "On the Role of Symbolism in Political Thought," Political Science Quarterly 82, no. 2 (June
1967): 191-204.
91. Ibid., 196.
92. Susser, 53. Susser does not say where Buber "admits" that community is a "utopian
vision." He may be referring to Parhs in Utopia, 138, where Buber concludes in the final lines
that "the picture 1 have hastily sketched will doubtless be laid among the documents of 'Utopian
Socialism' until the storm turns them up again. . . . I do believe in the meeting of idea and fate
in the creative hour." If Susser is indeed thinking about this passage, then I do not find here an
admission that his idea of community is a translation of an "ineffable meta-political idea into a
 Avnon / BUBER'S POLITICAL THEORY 77

real political program"; what I d o see here is a concluding note that points to the importance of
the "meet~trgof idea and fate in the creative hour."
93. Buber insisted on interpreting the word socialism along the linesof itsetymological roots.
He thus refers to socialism associalitas, which he presents as "mankind's becoming a fellowship,
man's becoming a fellow to man." In "Three Theses of a Religious Socialism," Pointing the
Way, 126.
94. Tao Te Ching, bk. 1, 1. For a discussion of the influence of Oriental philosophies on
Buber's work, see Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber and the Eternal (New York: Human
Sciences Press, 1986), 102-34. For an overview of Buber's relation to mysticism, see Paul
Mendes-Flohr, "rntroduction" to Martin Buber, Ecstatic Confessions (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1985).
95. "It happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, 'convert me
on condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot'. Shammai drove
him away with the builder's measuring stick that was in his hand. He then came before Hillel
who converted him. Hillel said to him, 'That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.
This is the entire Torah: the rest is commentary -go and learn it'."Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat
31a, cited in Barry W. Holtz, Back to [he Sources: Reading the Classical Jewish Texts (New
York: Summit, 1984), 11.

Dan Avnon is a Lecturer in political philosophy at the Hebrew University oflerusalem.

He is currently writing a book about Marlin Buberk political and social thought.
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The "Living Center" of Martin Buber's Political Theory
Dan Avnon
Political Theory, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Feb., 1993), pp. 55-77.
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On the Role of Symbolism in Political Thought
Michael Walzer
Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2. (Jun., 1967), pp. 191-204.
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