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God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue: Martin Buber’s Tools for Reconciliation

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DOI: 10.1007/s11841-011-0282-0

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SOPHIA
DOI 10.1007/s11841-011-0282-0

God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue: Martin Buber’s

Tools for Reconciliation

Alexandre Guilherme

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract ‘Prayer’ can be defined as ‘the offering, in public worship or private

devotion, of petition, confession, adoration, or thanksgiving to God; also the form of
words in which such an offering is made’ (cf. Cohn-Sherbok 2010). In addition to
this simple definition it could be said that there are different forms of prayer: some
are vocal and articulate and others are only mental in nature; some prayers are
communal and liturgical and other prayers are spontaneous or at least composed by
the one saying the prayer (cf. Stump 1999). Accordingly, it is evident that there are
manifold intricacies involved in any characterisation of ‘prayer’. In this article my
aims are twofold. First, I explore the implications of Martin Buber’s philosophy,
particularly of his conception of God as Thou for our understanding of ‘prayer’;
second, I will argue that Buber’s understanding of ‘prayer’ as dialogue serves as a
way for the individual to seek reconciliation with itself, with others, and with God.

Keywords Martin Buber . Prayer . Hasidism . Reconciliation

Introduction

On commenting on ‘prayer’, Abrahams (1908:272) notes that:

the ordinary Hebrew verb for praying (hithpallel) comes from a root meaning
‘to rend,’ then it may follow that with the primitive Hebrews prayer implied
‘cuttings of the flesh,’ by which men sought to influence the Deity…Some
religious students are rather depressed by such theories; they seem to think that
religion is being degraded by the connections suggested between their own
most cherished ideas and…unlovely rites of savages. […] One has reason for
pride, not shame, that human nature has shown itself capable of transforming,

A. Guilherme (*)
Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
e-mail: aguilher@staffmail.ed.ac.uk
 A. Guilherme

under the impulse of the divine spirit, the ugly into beautiful, magic into
religion.
Whatever are the true etymological and historical roots of ‘praying’ and ‘prayer’
one cannot but agree with Abrahams’ comments that it is a beautiful phenomenon
that must be appreciated with pride by human beings – given that we were, and are,
‘capable of transforming, under the impulse of the divine spirit, the ugly into
beautiful, magic into religion’.
‘Prayer’ can be defined as ‘the offering, in public worship or private devotion, of
petition, confession, adoration, or thanksgiving to God; also the form of words in
which such an offering is made’ (cf. Cohn-Sherbok 2010). In addition to this simple
definition it could be said that there are different forms of prayer: some are vocal and
articulate and others are only mental in nature; some prayers are communal and
liturgical and other prayers are spontaneous or at least composed by the one saying
the prayer (cf. Stump 1999). With these definitions in mind, in this article my aims
are twofold. First, I enquire into the implications of Martin Buber’s philosophy, and
particularly of Buber’s understanding of God as Thou, for our understanding of
‘prayer’; second, I will argue that Buber’s views serve as a way for the individual to
seek reconciliation with itself, with others individuals and the wider community, and
with God.

Martin Buber’s Philosophy

In I and Thou Buber establishes a typology to describe the kinds of human relations
into which a human being can enter. According to Buber, human beings posses a
two-fold attitude towards other human beings, the world, and God, which are
indicated by the foundational concepts ‘I-It’ (Ich-Es) and ‘I-Thou’ (Ich-Du).1 These
concepts are pivotal for a proper understanding of Buber’s philosophy.
The I-Thou relation stresses the mutual and holistic existence of two entities. It is
an encounter of equals, who recognise each other as such. It is a dialogue. Buber
argues that the I-Thou relation lacks structure and content because when two free
rational human beings encounter one another and recognise each other as equals,
then an infinite number of meaningful and dynamic situations may take place. Any
sort of preconception, of expectation, systematisation prevents the I-Thou relation
from arising (cf. Theunissen 1984: 274–275; Olsen 2004:17; Lee 2006:140). Despite
the fact that it is difficult to establish this kind of relationship, Buber argues that it is

1
Walter Kauffman in his translation of the work points out that Du is the German personal pronoun one
uses to address friends or family, people with whom one has a close relationship. This is in contrast with
Sie which is the personal pronoun used to address people one is not familiar with or that one does not have
a close relationship or that is used as a sign of respect (e.g. elders). This distinction is present in many
languages (e.g. French: Tu and Vous). The English archaic personal Thou does not capture the idea of
informality present in Du, which is perhaps better translated in English as you (something which
Kauffman actually does in his translation – he only kept the original Thou of the title). This is perhaps an
improvement in the right direction though it is still problematic as the English language has lost the
distinction between formal and informal pronouns. I have opted to keep Thou throughout this discussion
as this is the term used in the wider literature (cf. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kauffman, New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972).
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

real and perceivable. Instances illustrating the I-Thou relation in our day-to-day life
are: two lovers, two friends.
Whilst in the I-Thou relation two beings meet and dialogue, in the I-It
relation entities meet but fail to establish a dialogue. Instead, in the I-It relation
a being confronts another being and does not recognise it as an equal by
objectifying it. That is, in the I-It relation an individual being treats things,
including people, as objects to be used and experienced: they are means to an
end. We live in this worldly reality and require, to some extent, to manipulate
nature, e.g. seek resources to fulfil our needs, and sometimes to use people as
means to ends, e.g. take a taxi from A to B. The I-It relation fulfils our basic
needs. This does not mean that it is an ‘evil’ relation, but if it becomes too
dominant then it is the source of some undesirable pre-established expectations
(and prejudices in some cases).
The I-Thou and I-It relations can be further elucidated by referring to
another work by Buber. In Between Man and Man, Buber (1969:19–20)
describes three kinds of dialogue: genuine dialogue, technical dialogue, and
monologue. The genuine dialogue is a spoken or silent communication ‘where
each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and
particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living
mutual relation between himself and them’. The technical dialogue is a
conversation founded on the need for acquiring information and objective
knowledge. And finally, there is monologue, a form of disguised dialogue, ‘in
which two or more men, meeting in space, speak each with himself in strangely
tortuous and circuitous ways’, it is ‘a conversation characterized by the need
neither to communicate something, nor to learn something, nor to influence
someone, nor to come into connexion with someone, but solely by the desire to
have one’s own self-reliance confirmed…’. From this, it is clear that only genuine
dialogue corresponds to I-Thou relations, and that technical dialogue and
monologue fall within the domain of I-It relations.
Buber understood that human existence consists of an oscillation between I-Thou
and I-It relations, and that the I-Thou experiences are rather few and far between.
Prima facie, it seems that there is a sharp dualism at play between I-Thou and I-It
relations, but this is not the case. For Buber there is always an inter-play between the
I-Thou and the I-It rather than an either-or relation between these foundational
concepts. The I-Thou relation will always slip into an I-It relation, but the I-It
relation has always the potential of becoming an I-Thou relation (cf. Stevenson
1963:194; Silberstein 1989:132; 142; Casey 1999:72). I draw the reader’s attention
to the fact that this oscillation is very significant for it is the source of
transformation; that is, through every I-Thou encounter, the I is transformed and
this affects the I’s outlook of the I-It relation and of future I-Thou encounters.
Putnam (2008:67) notes that ‘the idea is that if one achieves that mode of being in
the world, however briefly…then ideally, that mode of being…will transform one’s
life even when one is back in the “It world”’.
This I-Thou/I-It typology is a description of the two kinds of relationship a human
being can establish not only with other human beings, but also with nature and with
God. It is perhaps interesting here to refer to a now well-known example from
Buber’s I and Thou – the case of a tree. I quote Buber (2004:14):
 A. Guilherme

I consider a tree. I can look on it as a picture: stiff column in a shock of light,

or splash of green shot with the delicate blue and silver of the background…I
can perceive it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of
roots…In all this the tree remains an object, occupies space and time, and has
its nature and constitution [I-It relations]. It can, however, also come about, if I
have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in
relation to it. The tree is now no longer it. I have been seized by the power of
exclusiveness....I encounter no soul or dryad of the tree, but the tree itself [I-Thou
relations] [my brackets].
With this example, Buber is merely calling our attention to the fact that given the
ontological nature of reality and of the human condition, human beings are only
capable of two kinds of relationships, namely I-Thou and I-It relations; and
moreover, a human being is always necessarily related to another entity (e.g. human
being, nature, or God) through an I-It or an I-Thou relation (cf. Lumsden 2000:228;
Casey 1999:72). In other words, and explaining this in a negative way: given the
ontological nature of reality and of the human condition, it is impossible for a human
being to be unrelated to either another human being, or nature, or God¸ and it is
impossible for a human being to establish a different kind of relation other than I-Thou
and I-It relations (cf. Silberstein 1989:134). Buber’s insight implies a rejection of the
kind of philosophical discourse that permeates philosophical enquiry and that
understands: (i) the human being as an individual entity detached from reality and
from other human beings (i.e. that kind of reductionist discourse that understands the
human being to be merely an autonomous free rational entity, e.g. Descartes, Kant);
and (ii) that kind of discourse that understands that human beings can only establish a
relation of the kind subject-object with reality (i.e. that kind of discourse that
permeates much of epistemology, but which is also defended by capitalism and
socialism when they advocate the domination and exploitation of nature with no
bounds and no respect) and with other human beings (i.e. that kind of ethical talk that
understands the human being as an hedonist, or an egoist, in nature). It is particularly
interesting to note here that Buber understands that (ii) legitimises modes of social
relations that hinder human development, such as in the case of racism and prejudice
(cf. Silberstein 1989:106; Guilherme and Morgan 2009; Morgan and Guilherme
2010).

God as Thou

‘In each Thou we address the eternal Thou’ (Buber 2004:14). For Buber allowing
I-Thou relations to arise, that is, addressing the other as a Thou, represents an
encounter with the eternal Thou. This may sound strange and difficult to grasp
until we tap into the Hasidic2 influences on Buber’s thought. Buber acknowledges
this in Between Man and Man. I quote Buber (1969:224):

2
Hasidism is a popular religious movement that emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century in
Eastern Europe. During the nineteenth and twentieth century it spread to other regions, notably Palestine
and the United States. It has a focus on communal life and charismatic leadership as well as on ‘ecstasy’,
‘mass enthusiasm’, and close-knit group cohesion (cf. Hasidism 2007).
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

Since 1900 I had first been under the influence of German mysticism from
Meister Eckhart to Angelus Silesius, according to which primal ground of
Being, the nameless, impersonal Godhead, comes to birth in the human soul;
then I had been under the influence of the later Kabbala and of Hasidism,
according to which man has the power to unite the God who is over the world
with his shekinah dwelling in the world.3
And on commenting on this aspect of Buber’s thought Wodehouse (1945:29)
writes:
The glory of God, said the Chassists, was poured out in the beginning over
weak vessels that broke and could not hold it; but every fragment still retains a
spark of that divinity, and the Presence of God goes into exile with these
sparks, and man co-operates with it to bring them back into manifestation and
into reunion with the one Light from which they came.
Hasidism understands that all genuine relations converge into the Eternal;
whenever human beings genuinely relate to one another, and to other entities, they
relate to God – it is this aspect of Hasidism that greatly influenced Buber. This turns
I-Thou relations into the key to a religious life and to religion as establishing I-Thou
relations in our daily lives brings sanctity to daily tasks and routine (cf. Silberstein
1989:210). Hence, for Buber every time we allow I-Thou relations to arise, every
time we address the other as a Thou, we cease to be alone because we allow the
‘spark’ of the Eternal that resides in us to connect with the ‘spark’ of the Eternal that
is in the other – and this aspect of Buber’s thought blurs the commonly held
conception of God as an entity transcendent to reality.4
This ‘spark’ is better described by referring to the Hasidic concept of shekhinah
(i.e. divine presence). In Hasidism and the Modern Man, Buber (1958:37) elaborates
on this when he says that ‘the sparks which fell down from the primal creation into
the covering shells and were transformed into stones, plants, and animals, they all
ascend to their source through the consecration of the pious [Hasid means pious in
Hebrew] who works on them in holiness, uses them in holiness, consumes them in
holiness’ [my brackets]. This idea is not particular to Judaism and Hasidism as it is
also present in other cultures; for instance Blenkinsop (2004:79) notes the

3
In Hasidism and the Modern Man and The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism Martin Buber argued that
Hasidism popularised the Kabbalah. As it will become evident later in this article, Buber’s philosophy
seems to have been influenced by some of Rabbi Isaac Luria’s teachings (i.e. Lurianic Kabbalah) because
it incorporates the idea that shards of the divine remain contained in the material world and that rightful
deeds by the pious [‘repair of the world’ (Tikkun Olam)] will help in releasing this divine energy (cf
Silberstein 1989:46–48).
4
The reader will note that Buber is advocating a metaphysical conception of reality, although he does not
do so overtly. Much has been made of this aspect of Buber’s thought. See for instance: Hugo Bergmann,
‘Der Physiker Whitehead’, Die Kreatur, Berlin, vol. II [1927–28], pp. 356–362; Maurice Friedman,
Martin Buber: Mystic, Existentialist, Social Prophet, pp. 326–331, 428, The University of Chicago, June
1950; University of Chicago Library, Microfilm T 809 (i.e. Friedman’s doctoral thesis); and Charles
Hartshorne, ‘Buber’s Metaphysics” The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice
Friedman. The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. 12, La Salle: Open Court, 1967, 49–68; ‘Martin
Buber’s Metaphysik’, in Martin Buber, herausgegeben von Schilpp u. Friedman, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer
Verlag, 1963, 42–61).
 A. Guilherme

similarities between shekkinah and an Ojibwa (a Native North American group)

story. I quote:
Once upon a time, the world was black, without any color. The only exception
was during rainstorms when the sun shone and two perfect, parallel rainbows
would appear. Now, of course, the animals and plants were intrigued by this
brilliant color and so one day Raven decided to investigate and flew off toward
the rainbows. Raven ended up flying too close and managed to fly into the
upper rainbow shattering it into an infinite number of pieces which cascaded
all over the earth transforming everything they landed upon. This is why there
is color on the earth, why raven remains black, and why on some perfect,
rainbow days you can see the remains of a second rainbow just above the first.
Hasidism understands that we are responsible for finding, for drawing forth, for
re-connecting with the sparks, and each and every entity must be approached with
the intent of uncovering the spark and merging it with our own. However, sometimes
the sparks become too hidden from us, through ignorance and/or choice, and this
creates a receptacle that enshrines them, and our challenge is to break through and
uncover these sparks (cf. Blenkinsop 2004:80). And in Hasidism and the Modern
Man, Buber (1958:103) comments that ‘the sparks are to be found everywhere. They
are suspended in things as in sealed-off springs; they stoop in the creatures as in
walled-up caves, they inhale darkness and they exhale dread; they wait’.
The true religious experience is not something particular to the religious virtuoso
who enters into a mystic union with the deity (e.g. union as either absorption as in
the Gospel of St John, or as identification as in the Vedānta; cf. Friedman 1976:414)
but something that happens in our daily lives when we encounter the other
through I-Thou relations. Buber rejected religious solipsism because he insisted
on the ethical and collective aspect of religion (cf. Stroumsa 1998:97–98; Burke
1979:80; Casey 1999:82); Buber (and Hasidism) does not call upon us to became
saints but to be ‘human’ (cf. Friedman 2002a:121).5 I quote Buber:
I am against gnosis…because and insofar as it alleges that it can report events
and processes with the divinity. I am against it because and insofar as it makes
God into an object in whose nature and history one knows one’s way about. I
am against it because it in the place of the personal relation of the human
person to God it sets a communion-rich wandering through an upper world,
through a multiplicity of more or less divine spheres.6
The point here is that religion and everyday life are not two separated spheres;
rather they are intrinsically interconnected. It is interesting to note that this aspect of
5
The Hasidic influence in Buber’s thought is something worth noting because as Mendes-Flohr
(1986:118) notes: In Buber’s gracefully written and elegantly produced books [Die Geschichten des Rabbi
Nachman (1906) and Die Legende des Baal Schem (1908)], the Hasid, for so long an emblem of
putatively backward, uncouth Ostjuden, was no longer an object of disdain and ridicule…Buber disclosed
a remarkable spiritual universe of mystical profundity. He rendered Hasidism respectable…by integrating
this distinctive expression of Jewish spirituality into the general discourse and idiom of the fin-de-siècle....
By virtue of Buber’s inspired presentation, Hasidism – and the millennial Jewish mystical tradition from
whence it emerged – was deemed relevant to the concerns of the educated individual [my brackets].
6
Passage quoted by Maurice Friedman in Martin Buber’s Life and Works III: The Later Years 1945–1965,
Detroit: Wayne State University, 1988, pp. 182–183; cf. Stroumsa 1998:99.
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

Buber’s philosophy (and of Hasidism) has also been interpreted as inherently present
in Christianity. For instance, in Dr Zhivago Boris Pasternak (1959:42) writes:
It has always been assumed that the most important things in the Gospels are
the ethical teaching and commandments. But for me the most important thing
is the fact that Christ speaks in parables taken from daily life, that he explains
the truth in terms of everyday reality. The idea which underlies this is that
communion between mortals is immortal, and that the whole of life is symbolic
because the whole of it has meaning.7
Hence, it is arguable that what is significant about the Gospels is Christ’s use of
parables and examples from everyday life to explain ethical truths, which sanctifies
everyday life, providing it with meaning and symbolism, and unifying the past, the
present and the future (cf. Bodin 1990: 385). What Buber (and Hasidism) and
Pasternak are reminding us of is that the Scriptures should not be taken as holy and
separated from us, from our everyday lives, rather, the Scriptures are holy because
they sanctify our everyday lives. This insight has implications for organised religion,
whichever denomination, because it could be argued that the divine is present
everywhere and at all time, and therefore the divine does not privilege places of
worship and/or religious services. Psalm 139:8 suggests this vision – ‘If I ascend to
heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!’ and also ‘Split a
piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there’ – from
the non-canonical text, the Gospel of Thomas. Consequently, ‘religion’ (as the
connection with God) is not just an aspect of life but what brings meaning to life;
Friedman (2001:138) notes that ‘the men of the Bible were sinners like us, says
Buber, but they did not commit the arch sin of professing God in the synagogue and
denying him in the sphere of economics, politics,…Nor did they believe it possible
to be honest and upright in private life and to lie in public for the sake of the
commonwealth’. 8
For Buber the only way a human being has to establish a relation with God is
through the I-Thou relation because this kind of relation is based on an encounter
with a very deep meaning and infinite content. The I-It relation, as will become clear
below, can never account successfully for the kind of relationship between a human
being and God as God can never be addressed as an object, can never be addressed
from ‘above’ by a human being. Vermes (1994:138) notes that:
…the everlasting You preserves the many meanings and shades of meaning
integral to belief in the undefinability and inscrutability of God, yet at the same
time keeps intact, and even enhances, the traditional doctrine of close and
intimate contact with him…‘everlasting’ here reflects no knowledge of God’s
eternity, but only the impossibility of ever being other than You. You must by
7
Bodin (1990:385) continues and argues that: ‘I believe this statement can also be applied to Pasternak's
aesthetics. Since life is symbolic, poetic metaphors exist in life itself. The role of the poet is to see and
articulate these symbols in his works. In this sense the poem is equivalent to a biblical text, for both
explain and interpret life by demonstrating it’. This suggests that we, not just the artist but all human
beings, just need to be open to life’s experiences in order to connect to its symbolisms and sanctity.
8
Buber is not alone in arguing that religion is essentially about one’s direct relationship with God.
Friedrich Schleiermacher and Søren Kierkegaard are other thinkers who also defended this idea (cf.
Schleiermacher 1999; Kierkegaard 1991).
 A. Guilherme

nature be everlasting You. We may experience its absence as well as its

presence, but that absence can never take on the remoteness of an it.
Buber ‘refuses to recognise a God “believed in”. He acknowledges instead a God
“lived with”. A God with believed desires, qualities, plans, likes, and dislikes is for
him an it-God, a subject of speculation but never the vis-à-vis to whom man says
You. The same careful rejection of every temptation to consider God as an object is
conspicuous in I and You, when Buber writes of Him as ‘that Being which confronts
us immediately, momentarily and lastingly face to face, that which can rightly only
be addressed, not expressed’ (Vermes 1994:137). It could be argued that Buber’s
views belong to the school of thought standing ‘in complete opposition to the view
that God is merely a “central object” of attention and to all the theories which
identify religion with magic, sacrament with charm, and prayer with incantation or
impersonal ejaculation’ (Calkins 1911:490).
One may object to Buber’s rejection of the it-God because many people around
the world do believe in a God, or Gods, with desires, qualities, plans, likes and
dislikes; however, for Buber, ‘we have never found God, recognised and greeted and
worshiped Him, until we have said Thou’ (Wodehouse 1945:29). This may sound
elitist or divisive to some, even fundamentalist to others; however, as Wodehouse
(1945:29) suggests, ‘side by side with this…as well as when this recognition fails, he
[God] may be It, and is so. As all perfections are his, so amongst them is the
perfection of It. He is all the truth that we can find and explain, and all that waits to
be found’. And thus, it could be argued that even those who believe in an it-God are
still in some sort of indirect connection (perhaps, a potential connection) with God,
with the spark of the Eternal (through I-It relations), and eventually, they will allow
for I-Thou relations to emerge with respect to God – this is something in complete
accordance with the oscillations between I-It and I-Thou relations mentioned earlier
– and they will truly find God.
One might also object, just as Levinas did, that Buber is turning God into a friend
or partner, into an equal to us, and thus that Buber is dissolving the height from
which God comes to us. That is, the reader might object, as Levinas did, that Buber
is turning our relation with God into a symmetric relation rather than an asymmetric
relation. The worry here is unfounded because as Kelly (1995: 72) notes:

The word ‘Thou’ merely indicates the initiative on the part of an I of turning
toward and addressing that which confronts the I.... Hence, one allows the
other to be as it is. More importantly, the action of speaking ‘Thou’ is also an
address and turning toward God. In so doing, the I has not reduced God to an
equal, as Levinas fears.
A direct consequence of Buber’s views is that to doubt God is something very
problematic as it creates an existential gap in us, human beings. That is, given that
God is the ultimate or everlasting Thou then if one doubts God ‘life becomes
meaningless’. For Buber the rapid rise of technology and sciences (especially during
the late 19th century and early 20th century) widened the gulf between human
beings and God, as it made it easier for human beings to question, and thus doubt,
God; and as such it made it more difficult for human beings to say ‘Thou’ to God
and to hear ‘Thou’ from God. Buber would say that it is communication with God
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

that has been made more difficult by recent historical developments; in Eclipse of
God, Buber (1952:165) says:

In our age the I-It relation, gigantically swollen, has usurped, practically
uncontested, the mastery and the rule. The I of this relation, an I that possesses
all, makes all, succeeds with all, this I that is unable to say Thou, unable to
meet a being essentially, is the lord of the hour. This selfhood that has become
omnipotent, with all the It around it, can naturally acknowledge neither God
nor any genuine absolute which manifests itself to mean as of non-human
origin. It steps between and shuts off from us the light of heaven.
For Buber, God is silent because we are silent; the eclipse of God leads us to the
eclipse of man. This mutual silence causes us to feel that we are existentially
meaningless (cf. Morgan and Guilherme 2010). On commenting on this aspect of
Buber’s philosophy, Friedman (2001:138) writes:

Modern life is divided into levels and aspects. Modern man enjoys erotic,
aesthetic, political, and religious experiences independently of one another. As
a result, religion is for him only one aspect of his life rather than its totality.
The men of the Bible were sinners like us, says Buber, but they did not commit
the arch sin of professing God in the synagogue and denying him in the sphere
of economics, politics, and the ‘self-assertion’ of the group. Nor did they
believe it possible to be honest and upright in private life and to lie in public
for the sake of the commonwealth.
It is only by trying to re-establish a dialogue with God that this situation of
‘existential meaninglessness’ can be overcome. This re-connection with God, this
religare (which is the root of the word religion) is the only way of bringing back
meaning to life and of bringing an end to God’s silence. God’s silence is something
that causes angst or, as Friedman (2001:154) says, can: ‘appear so terrifying as the
concentration camps of Nazi Germany in which millions of human beings were
systematically and scientifically exterminated as if they were insects’. For Buber, the
re-connection with God is something that can be achieved despite the divisions and
compartmentalisations of modern life, but only by approaching it with an open mind,
with no previous pre-conception, and thus through the I-Thou relation; we must
remain attentive to the ‘sparks’ ‘if we are to respond in a way that fulfils our true
human responsibility’ (Adams 2003:62). In fact, ‘Buber consistently presented the
Bible as a text that can speak to contemporary readers, provided that they approach it
in an open, I-Thou mode…Buber’s understanding of the central theme of the Bible –
“the encounter between a group of people and the Lord of the world in the course of
history” – is that the text will be relevant and accessible to readers in every
generation’ (Wright 2004:212).

Prayer

Buber’s understanding of God as the everlasting Thou implies that God is not an
entity to be merely ‘believed in’, with whom no certain communication is possible;
 A. Guilherme

rather within this perspective God is an entity that human beings’ ‘live with’ and
with whom true communication is, not only possible, but necessary – that is, there is
true communication, true conversation, between human beings and God, there is
always dialogue between a human being and God (cf. Katz 2006:261–263).
An interesting implication of this is that, for Buber, prayers are always dialogical
in character (Widmer 2004:18) and should not be understood as attempts to bring
about a change of outcome or of influencing the outcome of events, which would
equate prayers with some sort of incantation and to fall on superstition; rather,
prayers are about reflecting upon the character and purpose of our lives as well as an
expression of devotion to God through the way events take place (cf. Phillips 1981;
Evans 1998:28; Clack and Clack 2008:150–151); ‘it becomes a harmony between
the human and the divine; it is the divine in man going out to meet the divine in
God’ (Abrahams 1908:288). This understanding applies to ‘prayer’ as public
worship or private devotion (cf. Cohn-Sherbok 2010), to ‘prayer’ as vocal and
articulate or only mental in nature, and to ‘prayer’ as communal and liturgical or
spontaneous and composed by the one saying the prayer (cf. Stump 1999).
To conceive of prayers as an attempt to bring about a change of outcome or of
influencing the outcome of events (e.g. prayers having curative powers; cf. Verber
2007; Franks 2009) is something of an anathema to Buber’s thought as it would be
confusing an it-God with the true Thou-God. An it-God is conceived as having
desires, qualities, plans, likes, and dislikes and thus as an entity that can be
influenced and convinced by the individual to do whatever the individual desires. A
Thou-God is not conceived as such because by the very definition of the primary
word Thou, a Thou cannot be defined, that is to say Thou is to be in a state of
complete openness to the other and to the infinite number of experiential
possibilities. The it-God is an attempt to understand that which cannot be understood
or preconceived, God, and it is for this reason that the Thou word is more
appropriate. We cannot summon the Thou-God as we can the It-God, and therefore
‘we can only be ready to turn, to reorganize our lives – or to open it to be
reorganized – when the Thou addresses us…[and] such happenings…not only
accomplish our own healing; they also redeem things’ (Wood 1994:129). When we
pray we do not rise above our situation, rather we bring our situation into dialogue
with God; ‘the openness to the holy does not mean leaving the everyday for a higher
spiritual sphere but “hallowing the everyday” through a genuine openness to what
meets’ us (cf. Friedman 1976:424).
Hence, I would suggest that if prayers are about reflecting upon the character and
purpose of our lives as well as an expression of devotion to God (i.e. Thou-God)
through the way events take place, then it is arguable that a direct consequence of
praying would be to seek ‘reconciliation’ with that which troubles us. ‘Reconcil-
iation’ is taken here to mean broadly speaking: either the coming to terms with a
situation or problem and a restoration of harmony or the initiation of the process
leading to these. But ‘reconciliation’ here means also much more than this.
‘Reconciliation’ is not merely ‘the sentimental good will that looks away from the
very conflict that is to be reconciled’ or an ‘action or approach’ that assumes that ‘a
tragic situation can be transformed into a harmonious one’; ‘reconciliation’ is rather
the acknowledgment of ‘differences and points of conflict’ and the move towards
‘discovering the standpoint from which some real meeting may take place which
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

includes both points of view’ (cf. Friedman 2002b:75). If prayers are dialogical in
nature then praying is a way of starting the process of, and/or hopefully of bringing
about, ‘reconciliation’ by the individual praying – ‘reconciliation’ with itself, with
other human beings and the wider community, and with God.
Sometimes we feel unhappy about ourselves or about our own lives, sometimes
we feel ashamed or guilty about things we have done or not done, and therefore if
prayers are about reflecting upon the character and purpose of our lives then they
offer us a pathway for understanding aspects of our lives we feel uneasy about, and
in doing so to bring about ‘reconciliation’ with ourselves. This means that one must
allow oneself to encounter oneself as a Thou, one must drop all misconceptions and
prejudices about oneself, and for a brief moment meet oneself as a Thou; and
through encountering oneself as a Thou, one is reconnecting oneself with the ‘spark’
of the divine – this is something with which James (1902:464) would agree as he
says that prayer is ‘every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power
recognised as divine’. In this respect, prayer is a sort of self-applied psychotherapy.
Certainly, ‘reconciliation’ is not something that happens easily as ‘reconciliation’, in
this case, does not merely mean accepting aspects of oneself one feels uneasy about
but also understanding and changing. This is so because if prayers are dialogical in
nature then they take place through I-Thou relations and, as I mentioned earlier,
through every I-Thou encounter, the I is transformed and this affects the I’s outlook
of the I-It relation and of future I-Thou encounters; ‘the idea is that if one achieves
that mode of being in the world, however briefly…then ideally, that mode of
being…will transform one’s life even when one is back in the “It world”’ (Putnam
(2008:67).
Reconciliation with others, and the community is a direct extension from the
situation at the individual level. In praying we willingly and intentionally present
ourselves to ourselves and in doing so we open an opportunity to present ourselves
to the other, which in turn allows the other to present itself to us. Again, this is not
something that happens easily, especially when hideous deeds are involved. In such
situations, if one remains within the realm of I-It relations, then hatred and
vengeance are likely to arise through the objectification of the other, and this in turn
can lead to an escalation of the problem. However, if one allows I-Thou relations to
arise, and this can be done through prayer, dialogical prayer, then the outcome will
be different because it will provide an opportunity to understand the other. But this
does not mean it will be easy or immediate of course. In this case, prayer offers a
way of bringing about a coming to terms for understanding happenings, forgiving
deeds, and this in turn will bring about changes and an attitude of reconciliation into
one’s life – even if this is one-sided to the individual praying.
More problematic are instances of individuals being ‘angry at God’. We find
instances of this in the Scriptures, but also in the wider literature. For instance: ‘Wilt
thou be like a deceitful brook, like the waters that fail?’ (Jeremiah 15:18, RSV),
which accuses God of lying; and ‘Why does your heart carry you away, and why do
your eyes flash, that you turn your spirit against God, and let such words go out of
your mouth’ (Job 15:12–13), which is explicit about Job’s anger. Other instances can
be found in the literature elsewhere such as when one is angry at God for personal
reasons, be this because someone dear to the individual has died, be this because
something terrible (e.g. the holocaust, war, genocide) has happened. If prayers are
 A. Guilherme

about reflecting upon the character and purpose of our lives as well as an expression
of devotion to God through the way events take place, then instances of being ‘angry
at God’ represent a greater challenge to the individual who prays, and reconciliation
with God’ a very demanding task. Indeed, we do hear of individuals who are ‘angry
at God’, and/or gave up on any form of organised religion, and/or who lost their
faith. Perhaps, a way of overcoming this situation would be for one to recognise that
one needs to consciously submit one’s humanity to the divine will because as the
Khonds, a tribe of northern India, pray: ‘O Lord, we know not what is good for us.
Thou knowest it. For it we pray’ (quoted by Calkins 1911:496). This is, of course,
not always easy to do or even acceptable to some individuals. In this respect, it is
arguable that it is easier for the individual to seek and/or achieve ‘reconciliation’
with itself, and with others, than it is for the individual to seek and/or achieve this
with God because in this case the focus of upset is also the source of dialogue; but
this does not mean that ‘reconciliation’ with God is impossible as there is also the
potential for the ‘spark’ of the everlasting Thou inhabiting us to connect with other
‘sparks’ present in everything, other entities and events. This leaves it open for the
possibility that the individual ‘angry at God’ will eventually be able to reconcile
itself with God through the transformations it experiences in I-Thou relations.

Conclusion

I have suggested that because God can only be encountered as a Thou, then prayer is
dialogical in nature and praying is a way of starting the process of, and/or hopefully
of bringing about, ‘reconciliation’ by the individual praying – ‘reconciliation’ with
itself, with other human beings, and with God. Certainly, this is not an easy process
and results are not necessarily immediate. Still, through praying, through dialoguing
with God (the Thou-God), one’s:
initially empty natural orientation toward the whole is…filled in a way other
than either the filling of everyday commonsense or even the filling of an
intellectual mastery of portions of the world within and beyond the
commonsense world. It is filled by reason of openness to the mystery which
we touch in every encounter but can never encompass. (Wood 1994:131)
Through praying, through dialoguing with the Thou-God and reflecting upon our
lives as well as the way events take place, we make it easier for I-Thou relations to
arise and to encounter the Thou, the spark of God, within ourselves, and within
others. Prayer, as dialogue, is a tool to achieve this because it provide us with the
‘space’ to reflect upon ourselves and issues troubling ourselves, to reflect upon our
attitudes towards others and other’s attitudes towards us, as well as upon events
taking place in our lives. Prayer allows us to make sense of these and in doing so to
open the pathway for ‘reconciliation’ with that which trouble us.
The ‘spark’ of the everlasting Thou is present in all entities (i.e. other human
beings and nature) and events. We must remain attentive to these occurrences and
facilitate I-Thou encounters if we are to respond to them in a way that fulfils our
humanity (cf. Adams 2003:62). The potential for I-Thou encounters are always
there, in reality; we just need to be open to the other so that we can allow these kind
God as Thou and Prayer as Dialogue

of encounters to take place. These encounters provide us with an opportunity to

achieve ‘peace of mind’, which is something that can only be achieved through
struggling with issues that are troublesome to us, and this struggle ‘must begin
within one’s own soul – all else will follow from this’ (Shapira 1999:58); and ‘peace
of mind’ means also ‘peace in one’s immediate relations with others – in thought,
speech, and action…’(Friedman 2002a: 121), whether the other is our fellow human
being or God, I would suggest. That is, when one achieves reconciliation with
oneself, when one is at peace with oneself then one is also in the pathway of
achieving peace and reconciliation with others and with God (if either of these is
also an issue). This would suggest that in order for one to achieve ‘reconciliation’
one must start by dealing with personal issues troubling oneself; only when these
have been dealt with successfully by the individual can the individual move on and
engage with issues concerning others, and God. Prayer, dialogical prayer, is a tool to
achieve all this.
Dialogical prayer is not the only way of facilitating I-Thou encounters –
education, dialogical education, is another. However, prayer is a useful tool as it is
readily available to the individual, but it is a tool that is often overlooked by those
working in projects related to issues of ‘reconciliation’ at either individual or
community level because they confuse the it-God with the Thou-God and/or because
they forget the dialogical aspect of praying.

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