Irene Kajon Religio Today: The Concept of in Martin Buber’sThought

The aim of my contribution is to bring out the originality and contemporary rele- vanceofBuber’sconcept of religion. First,Ishalltry to show how original this concept is compared with the meaningsthathavebeengiven to the term religio in the history of thought and culture. This term has been adopted by var- ious European languages: in present usage,the German word Religion,English religion,French religion,Spanish religión,and Italian religione have the same meaning the Latin term religio had. Therefore, probingthe denotations attributed to the original Latinterm perforceentails pondering the phenomenon of religion in present dayEurope and in all the societies influenced by European culture – from Western to Eastern countries.Second, Ishalltry to show how relevant Bub- er’sconcept of religion is for us, giventhe often unfortunate consequences reli- gio,ifcharacterized by violence and intolerance, has. The following exposition is divided in three parts. In the first Ishallfocus on the various meanings religio had in the Romanand Christian world, and note the historical impact these conceptions of religio have had up to present-day society. In the second part of the paper,Ishall consider the meaning that Buber givesthe term “religion,” with particular reference to Ichund Du (1923). Specifically, Iwill highlight his distinctive interpretation of religion as the onlypossibleway out of the existential crisis of contemporary man. In the third part,Ishalltry to clarify brieflyhow through meditations on biblical and philosophical texts – which he publishedinthe forties and fifties of the previous century – he sought to illumi- nate for his readersameans to re-appropriatereligion.

The term religio: Does it derive from relegere or religare?

In the Roman world it was (106–43 BCE) who provided an etymologyof the word religio when he distinguishesitfrom superstitio (superstition). In his work De naturadeorum he writes:

Accipimus […]deorum cupiditates, aegritudines, iracundias.[…]Cultus autemdeorum est optimus idemquecastissimus atque sanctissimus plenissimusque pietatis ut eos semper pura, integra, incorrupta et menteetvoce veneremur.Non enim philosophi solum,

DOI 10.1515/9783110402223-007, © 2018 Irene Kajon, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 102 Irene Kajon

verum etiam maiores nostri superstitionem areligione separaverunt.Nam qui totos dies precabantur et immolabant ut sibi sui liberi superstites essent superstitiosi sunt appellati, quod nomen patuit postea latius.Qui autem omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent dil- igenterretractarent et tamquam relegerent,sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo ut elegantesex eligendo tamquam adiligendo diligentes, ex intellegendo intellegentes; his enim in verbis omnibus inest vis legendi eadem quae in religioso. Itafactum est in superstitiosoetreligio- so alterum vitii nomen, alterum laudis.¹

We receive […]the desires, diseases and furies of the gods. […]But the cult of the gods is excellent,absolutelypureand holy, and full of piety so that they areworshipped with both an uncorrupted mind and voice. Not onlythe philosophers, but our ancestors tooseparated superstition from religion. Those whooffered prayers and sacrifices every daysothat their children might survive them arecalled superstitious, aword[whose meaning] was extend- ed afterwards, while those who diligentlyreconsidered and seemed to be goingoverand over again everythingthat concerned the cultofthe gods,are called religious from relegen- do (reread),just as they arecalled elegant from eligendo (elect) and diligent from diligendo (favour), and intelligent from intellegendo (understand); all these verbs have the same force as “re-read” in religious.Inthis waythe superstitious and the religious acquired aname that was either reprehensible or praiseworthy.

Ciceroascribes to the word religio ameaning that corresponds exactlytothe con- ception then current in ancient Rome regarding the proper attitude one was to assume towards the gods: those who follow scrupulouslythe ceremonies and practices established by tradition are deemed religious;those who love their children more thantheir parents,and so are incessantlyintroducing new forms of worship and prayer,almostasifthey wanted to forcethe gods to protect and defend their progeny,evenafter their death, are superstitious. Religio in the Roman world is expressed through the link between past and present,and be- tween the individual and the gods who dominate every particularaspect of life: religio consisted of liturgical and sacred practices in pre-determined times and places,either to be held in certain seasons of the year or on certain set oc- casions, or,inthe case of events that weresurprising or unexpected, of practices that could be introduced without breakingthe rules that allow continuity be- tween generations, however differentlythose rules might be applied. In the Christian worlditwas the Church Father Lactantius (250 –327) who in disputing Cicero’sconception of religio,also dwelt on the term’setymology. In book four, “De vera sapientia et religione”,ofhis work Divinae Institutiones,Lac- tantius, like Cicero, underlines the differencebetween religio and superstitio:

Quae cum ita se habeant,utostendimus,apparetnullam aliam spem vitae homini esse pro- positam, nisi ut abjectis vanitatibus et erroremiserabili, Deum cognoscat et Deo serviat,

 Cicero, De naturadeorum,II, 70 – 72. Religio Today: The Concept of Religion in Martin Buber’sThought 103

nisi huic temporali renuntiet vitae, ac se rudimentis justitiae ad cultum verae religionis instituat.Hac enim conditione gignimur,utgeneranti nos Deo justa et debita obsequia praebeamus;hunc solum noverimus,hunc sequamur.Hoc vinculo pietatis obstricti Deo et religati sumus;unde ipsa religionomen accepit, non ut Cicero interpretatus est, arelegendo. […]Haec interpretatio quam inepta sit,exreipsa licet noscere. […]Sisemel facere, optimum est,quantomagis saepius?[…]Quod argumentum etiam ex contrario valet: si enim totosdies precari et immolare criminis est; ergo et semel. […]Nimirum religio veri cultusest,superstitio falsi. Et omnino quid colas interest,non quemadmodumcolas, sed quid precere. […]Superstitiosi ergo qui multosacfalsos deos colunt.Nos autemreligio- si, qui uni et vero Deo supplicamus.²

Things beingaswehaveshown, it is clear that human life is givennoother hope than knowingGod and serving God, oncevanities and wretched errorhavebeen abandoned, re- nouncingthis earthlylife and dedicatingoneself to the principles of justicegoverningthe practice of the true religion. In fact we were created [literally, generated], so that we might offer the right and proper signsofsubmission to the God who has created [generated] us, that we might know Him onlyand follow Him only. With this bond of piety we aresubju- gated and bound to God; religion receivedits name from this and not,asCicero interpreted it,from “re-read”.[…]One can see from the thingitself how inappropriate this interpreta- tion is. […]Ifdoingsomethingonceonlyisexcellent,how much moresocan it be to do it moreoften?[…]This argument also holds ex contrario: if it is acrime to prayand sacrifice every day, then it is to do so even once. […]Ofcourse, religion is the cult of the truth, and superstition the cultofthe false. And onlywhat youadorematters, not how youadoreit, but what youpray. […]Sothose whoadoremanyfalse gods aresuperstitious,while we are religious because we pray to the one true God.

Lactantius,wemay note, does not understand Cicero’sthought regarding the op- position of religio and superstitio: he simplyidentifies superstitio with an exces- sive repetition of acts of worship rather than with an attitude of the soul regard- ing those actions which involve arupture between fathersand sons, the past and the present,asmentioned above. UnlikeCicero, Lactantius does not regard con- duct as fundamental to religio,but knowledge of the true God.The God that Lac- tantius appeals to is the God who enters into relation with the individual, with- drawshim from the world, and ensureshis salvation in eternal life. Religion owes its name not to the heart and mind going back over what has already been done, to relegere,but to being bound to aGod who made himself known to men by cominginto the world, to religare. What is essentialtoreligio are truth as astate of thingsrevealed to men, and the relation between man and God: this relation isolates man from the world, obliges him to go back inside himself, to find in his inner life the presenceofaGod who redeems him by suf- fering on his behalf on the cross and rising again to eternal life. Religio means

 Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones,IV, 28. 104 Irene Kajon the bond between God and man: God will save him if he believes in Him and follows His example. In the history of European culture, these two contrasting meaningsofthe term religio – one current in the ancient world, the other affirmedatthe time of the formation of Christian theology – have been interwoven and have given rise to various manifestations. Accordingly, religio became further enriched and took on new connotations. Andthis interweaving and enrichment took place despite the Church’sconflict with paganism at the time of the decline of the . In order to appreciatehow religious practice and profession of the truth of the kinship of manwith God wereequallycelebratedand placed in close connection as two sides of the believer’slife, one need but consider the fact that in manyplaces the Church took over the pre-existing cult of the divin- ities worshipped, for instance,bythe peoples residingonthe borders of the Em- pire that it had converted, transformingitaccordingtoits owntheological teach- ings. The intimate relation between religious practice and confession is also attested to by the fact that conscientious adherencetoceremonialand liturgical rules was conjoined in mediaeval Christian civilisation with the elaboration of the doctrines concerning the revelation, and by the fact that the link between man and God was not considered by Christianityinthe modernage,particularly by Protestantism, as independent of the actions performedinthe world. But the history of religio is also ahistory rivenbywarsand tragic conflicts – areality thatraises until this very dayunresolvedproblems,which are inherent in religio conceivedinterms of these two meanings. In fact, religio as the reiter- ation of acts designed to praise the divinity or to pray for health and prosperity for oneself and those close to one – one’sfamily, one’scommunity,one’speople – might be considered as the precursor of religio as aformoflife characterizinga givengroup of human beingsand setting them apart from other groups and in- commensurable with them. And religio as the relation of man with aGod who redeems man contingent on belief in His revelation, beyond the use of reason or attention towardshuman relations in this world, might be seen as the precur- sor of religio as the unshakable affirmation of atranscendent truth and its at- tendant criticism of away of life inspired onlybyhuman experience.Inthe first case, there is the risk of religious pluralism without anypossibility of com- munication between different religious communities,and the consequent engen- dering of self-enclosure, of aconservative posture bound by rules and regula- tions, wary of all that is new as posing adanger and menace. In the second case there is the risk of dogmatism and intolerance towards thosewho do not share the truth proclaimed by the religious authorities and institutions founded on revelation. While in the first case the human being runs the risk of beingen- chained to the conditions of one’sbirth, to the group he belongsto, and to col- Religio Today: The Concept of Religion in Martin Buber’sThought 105 lective custom, at the loss of individual freedom, in the second case the human being runs the risk of being crushed by atruth that does not admit discussion and differences.Truth in this latter case is imposed on everybody: onlybyrecog- nizing it,isredemption possible, and every other attitude towards God is judged false. Religio,then, whether it derivesfrom relegere or from religare,contains el- ementsthat harbinger religious conflicts. Of course, thepath leadingfromCiceroand Lactantiustoour eraisalongone. Butthe ideas of religio that they sustain arenot wholly innocent of theevilsthat religio produces in our ageand oursocieties. On the other hand,contemporaryphi- losophythat does not appeal to religion – eitherbecause of itssceptical, naturalistic or historicisttendencies,orbecause it has turned towards mysticism, in thewakeof Nietzsche andthe late Heidegger – doesnot seem able to offer an alternative to re- ligionfor those whowant to affirm humanism or defend thedignity of man.³

Religion in “Ich undDu”

Throughout the various stages of Buber’swork, the term “religion” has been in- flected with distinctive meanings: it is never used in either the sense of aseries of practices connected with adivine cult,orinthe sense of arelation between man and atranscendent God,inthe sense thatcrystallized in the earlycenturies of the Christian era. In the lecture entitled Jüdische Religiosität,given in Prague in 1913,latercollected in VomGeist des Judentums (1916), and then in Reden über das Judentum (1923),⁴ Buber opposes Religiosität as aproductive,creative forceto Religion as aseries of forms, ceremonies and doctrines originallyinstantiated by this force. While Religion in Judaism denotes aheritagehanded down in along tradition, the father who teacheshis children about the God in whom they should believe, and inculcates obedience to ritual and liturgical precepts, Reli- giosität means the individual’schoice and decision and the children setting themselvesfree to find their own path to the Absolute. Thus, this earlytext by Buber distinguishes religio in two different moments, one subjective or personal in character,full of vitality,and the other objectiveand stable: the first moment

 On the nihilistic trend in contemporary philosophy, elucidated – amongothers – by Karl Löw- ith, Leo Strauss, Emmanuel Levinas,and the necessity for contemporary thoughttotakeup againKant’sprogram of the defenceofhuman rights against empiricismonthe one hand, and metaphysical dreams on the other,see Irene Kajon, ContemporaryJewishPhilosophy.AnIn- troduction (London: Routledge,2006).  Martin Buber, VomGeist des Judentums (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff, 1916); Reden über das Judentum (Frankfurt a. M.: Rütten &Loening,1923); 2. ed. (Berlin: Schocken Verlag,1932). 106 IreneKajon proves able to give new impulsetothe second when this becomes onlyasign without asignification. This revitalization of the objectivestructure of religion through asubjective moment is inspired by the dialectic between the “life” and the “forms” propounded by GeorgSimmel, one of Buber’sphilosophyteach- ers in Berlin in 1898–99.⁵ But it was onlyduring World WarOne that Buber ela- borated his idea of religion as the very reality of the relation (Beziehung)between I, Thou – whether belongingtothe world of nature, plant or animal, or human being,or“spiritual entities,” that is, works that have come to be through the cre- ative human spirit – and the eternal Thou (God). Religion is the very fact of this relation, the lyrical-dramatic moment of human existence, the miraculous event that indicates to manhis humanity, the most precious moment of his life. In her book Buber’sWay to “Iand Thou”,⁶ RivkaHorwitz analyzes Buber’s lectures “Religion als Gegenwart” that he delivered at the behest of Rosenzweig at the “Freies JüdischesLehrhaus” in Frankfurt from January to March 1922. She also examines the correspondence between Buber and Rosenzweigregarding the lecture. Horwitz’sstudyreveals that in May1922Buber gave the title of Ich und Du to the text that emergedfrom these lessons. He had not yetgiven up, howev- er,his original plan of writing awork in five volumes whose aim wastodescribe Religion or,more precisely, Religiöses Leben,and explore how it takes shape and the different forms it has in human existence. Thisplan came to naught.But Ich und Du,which was readyfor the press in December 1922,still contains the signs of this broader project: the word Religion is preciselydefined when its meaning in the text is differentiated from that of ordinary usage, formed through the pre- dominant directions of the history of European culture. There are passages in Ichund Du in which the term “religion” appears in in- verted commas.These passages do not present the author’sconcept of religion so much as that of some modernphilosophers (Buber seems to be thinking partic- ularlyofSchleiermacher’s On Religion and Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, though he does not mention them) or the common wayofconsideringreligion. We find, for example, an appealtothe “religiöse Situation” of maninthe third part of the book:here Buber discusses the “antinomy” and “paradox” of

 On Buber’seducation, cf. MauriceFriedman, Martin Buber’sLife and Work,(New York: Dut- ton, 1981), vol. 1: “TheEarly Years1878–1923.”GeorgSimmel expounds his thoughtonthe rela- tion between the “life” and the “forms” in “Der Begriff und die Tragödie der Kultur,” in Simmel, Philosophische Kultur.Gesammelte Essais (Leipzig: A. Kroner,1911), 245–277.  RivkaHorwitz, Buber’sWay to “Iand Thou”:AnHistorical Analysis and the FirstPublication of Martin Buber’sLectures “Religion als Gegenwart” (Heidelberg: Lothar Stiem, 1978). About Buber’s path towards Ich und Du,cf. also Paul Mendes-Flohr, Vonder Mystikzum Dialog. Martin Bubers geistige Entwicklung bis hin zu “Ich und Du” (Königstein i.T.:Jüdischer Verlag,1979). Religio Today: The Concept of Religion in Martin Buber’sThought 107 human existencethatisboth in time and in the eternal, in the finite and in the infinite, in necessity and in freedom, and cannot escape these contrasting real- ities, although one maytry to reconcile them in thought.⁷ Or we find an appeal to the “religiöser Mensch” when he recalls how religion is beyond the pure ethical moment,inasphere in which man is alone before God in silence and detached from the world.⁸ In other passages, however,itisthe author himself who offers his meditation on Religion (this time without inverted commas) starting from the very event to which the Religionen allude and whose deeper sense he is seeking. In the final pages of Ichund Du Buber writes:

Das ewigeDukann seinem Wesen nach nichtzum Es werden;weilesseinem Wesen nach nicht in Mass und Grenze, auch nichtindas Mass des Unermesslichen unddie Grenzedes Unbegrenzten gesetztwerdenkann.[…]Und doch machen wirdas ewige Du immerwieder zum Es, zum Etwas, machen Gott zum Ding – unseremWesen nach. Nichtaus Willkür. […]Das ausgesagte Wissen und das gesetztetun derReligionen – woher kommen sie? […]Die Erklärung hat zwei Schichten. Die äussere, psychische erkennen wir,wennwir denMenschen fürsich, vonder Geschichte abgelöst betrachten; dieinnere, faktische,das Urphänomender Religion,wennwir ihn sodannin die Geschichtewiedereinstellen.Beide gehörenzusammen.⁹

The eternal Thou cannot by itsvery nature become It;for by virtue of its nature itcannot be established in measure and bounds,not even in the measure of the immeasurable, or the bounds of boundlessbeing. […]And yetinaccordance with our nature we arecontinuallymak- ingthe eternal Thou into It, into some thing – makingGod into athing. Notindeed out of ar- bitraryself-will.[…]What is theoriginofthe expressed knowledge and orderedaction of the ? […]The explanation hastwo layers.Weunderstandthe outerpsychicallayer when we consider maninhimself, separated from history,and the innerfactuallayer,the primal phe- nomenonofreligion,whenwereplacehim in history.Thesetwo layers belongtogether.¹⁰

Religion is constituted by continuous alternation of the relation between man and the eternal Thou and the human expression of that relation as an It:this lat- ter It-expression necessarilygrows out of the primal relation to the Eternal Thou, although it is unfaithful to the essence of religion and to our religious life.Reli- gion refers to the human being who is both an individual, whose soul is before God, and amember of acommunity,which finds itself in aparticularspace and time. Thusreligion embraces within itself both the relation between the Iand the

 Martin Buber, Ich und Du,inBuber, Werke (München-Heidelberg: Kösel Verlag,1962),vol. 1: 142– 43.Cf. Soeren Kierkegaard, FrygtogBaeven [Fear and Trembling], 1843.  Martin Buber, Ich und Du,151.Cf. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ueber Religion. Reden an die Ge- bildeten unter ihren Verächtern [On Religion. Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers], 1799.  Martin Buber, Ich und Du,154f.  Martin Buber, Iand Thou, trans.Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1958),112f. 108 Irene Kajon eternal Thou,and the I-Thou relation that takes place in the world and in history. Buber writes, completing his thought on religion as an elementary,primitive, spontaneous phenomenon of human life:

In Wahrheit […]kann diereine Beziehungzuraumzeitlicher Stetigkeit nur auferbaut werden, indemsie sich an der ganzen Materiedes Lebens verleiblicht. Siekann nicht bewahrt,nur be- währt,sie kann nur getan, nurindas Lebeneingetan werden. […]Die echteBürgschaft derDauer besteht darin, dass diereineBeziehungerfüllt werden kann im Du-werden der Wesen, in ihrer Erhebungzum Du, dass das heilige Grundwort sich in allen austönt.[…]Und so besteht dieechte Bürgschaft der Raumstetigkeit darin,dass dieBeziehungender Menschenzuihrem wahren Du, dieRadien, dievon allden Ichpunkten zur Mitteausgehn,einen Kreisschaffen.Nicht diePe- ripherie, nicht die Gemeinschaft istdas erste, sondern dieRadien, die Gemeinsamkeitder Be- ziehungzur Mitte. Sie allein gewährleistetden echtenBestand derGemeinde.¹¹

Actually[…]purerelation can onlyberaised to constancy in spaceand time by beingem- bodied in the whole stuff of life. It cannot be preserved, but onlyprovedtrue, onlydone, onlydone up into life. […]The authentic assurance of constancy in spaceconsists in the fact that purerelation can be fulfilled in the growth and rise of beings into Thou, the holyprimary wordmakes itself heardinthem all. […]Thus,too, the authentic assurance of constancyinspaceconsists in the fact that men’srelations with their true Thou,the ra- dial lines that come from all the points of the I to the Centre, form acircle. It is not the pe- riphery,the community,that comesfirst,but the radii, the common quality of relation with the Centre. This alone guarantees the authenticexistenceofthe community.¹²

In this way religio in Ichund Du appears as what reallycharacterizes man: it is not aspecial sphere of life, but indicates the highest moment of life, that which allows all the other moments to take on meaning too. The I-Thou Beziehung (re- lation)ismanifest in religion: and this concerns boththe I-Thou relations of human beingswith each otherand with other vital finite beings, and the rela- tions between the I’sand the eternal Thou – the formerevent not being separa- ble from the latter.Objectivity – the world of It – presupposes the kingdom of living,animated subjectivities because these alone are the knowing I’s, and thereforegivecontinuity to time and structure to space: what unites the subjec- tivities is not the Logos, but what Buber defines as “love” (Liebe) – not “senti- ment” (Gefühl), but “reality” (Wirklichkeit) – or as “spirit” (Geist). But “spirit” as it allows the “between” (Zwischen)tobeestablished is not amediating ele- ment thatcan be hypostatized or substantiated: “spirit” is effective onlyinits unifying function of different beings; it is aforcethat is not an independent being.Buber replaces the God or the All of Spinoza and his followers with a God who does not denyhuman freedom: initiallyfreedom is obtained in the re-

 Ich und Du, 156.  Iand Thou,114f. Religio Today: The Concept of Religion in Martin Buber’sThought 109 lation with the eternal Thou,asknowledge and loveofHim, and then it is also manifest in free choice of individuals to pursue this relation. So human beings become what they are onlythrough religion. Subsequent to Ich und Du,inEclipse of God,published in 1952,¹³ Buber would reflectanew on religion as that primary dimension of human existence, which moderncivilisation risks forgetting because it recognizesand givesimpor- tance onlytothe world of It:the religious dimension of existenceneeds to be urgentlyrediscovered in its authentic and original form, still present beneath the institutions created by religions, in society,inthe worldofeconomic rela- tions, and in politics.This can be the onlyway to individual and collective re- demption – to be found in both human resolveand divine grace. In his writings about religio, Buber thus embarked on aradicallynew path compared with those philosophers of religion who continued to follow the path forgedinthe history of European philosophical and theological thought.

Accessing Religion:The meditationonthe biblical and philosophical texts in Buber’s writings of the nineteen forties and fifties

But how,accordingtoBuber,could there be atransition from ahuman condition now almost incapable of enteringinto arelation with God as the eternal Thou and with the other finite Thou’s, to ahuman condition in which this relation will again take place in all aspects of life and in all its intensity?Insome of his writingspublished in the 1940s and 1950s he indicates two paths that might allow mantobecome aware of religion as the realmoftrue, authentic human existence. In Das Problem des Menschen¹⁴ he meditates on philosophy – aphilosophy, however,that is not separated from the philosopher’ssubjectiv- ity,that unifiesthe individual and the universal, and thatbears in mind man’s concrete, everydayexistence, and the multiplicity of his rational and non-ration- al experiences. In this book Buber identifies the foundations of this kind of phi- losophyinPlato, Kant and Husserl. Pondering these philosophers’ anthropolog- ical insights regarding the overarchingquestion “What is Man?”,weare made aware of man’ssimultaneous social essence and infinity,inspite of his living

 Martin Buber, Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Harper &Row,1952).  Martin Buber, Das Problem des Menschen (Heidelberg: VerlagLambertSchneider,1947). 110 IreneKajon in the world bounded by time and space: religion and areligious life, as under- stood by Buber,could be renewed if we attune ourselvestothe insights of these philosophers who, in the history of philosophicalthought, point out the anteri- ority and superiority of ethical life – which allows human beingstoarrive at the Absolute – with respect to theoretical knowledge and science. In Zwei Glaubens- weisen¹⁵ Buber appeals to the conception of informing both in the Old and the New Testamentasaway to understand what religion trulyis: faith is chiefly emuna (trust) for the Jewish people, thatistosay it includes the elements of God’spromises and commandments, the people’sloveofGod, and the relation- ship between God and the people founded on acovenant; faith is aboveall pistis (knowledge)for the Christian community which affirms the truth manifest in JesusChrist’sIncarnation, Passion and Resurrection; however,boththe Jewish people as the foundation or root,and the Christian community as the outgrowth or tree, share an attitude which allows them to attainagenuine religious life. Therefore, an attentive readingoftheirhistory,asnarrated in Scripture, promises to point to away out of the solitude and egotism in which human beingsfind themselvesincontemporarysociety beholden, as it is, to secular philosophy and culture. It is possible that Buber’sinterpretation of Husserl’sphilosophyinDas Prob- lem des Menschen was significantlyinfluenced by Hans Jonas’sinterpretation of Husserlian phenomenologyinhiscommemorative article on Husserl’sdeath.¹⁶ Shortlyafter Buber settled in Jerusalem in March 1938, Jonas delivered acom- memorative address at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in which he charac- terized Husserl’sphenomenological method as underlining the role of the Ego in the constitution of being and as an agent of Reason’sself-responsibility.Reason is, for Husserl, not an abstract faculty of producingideas, but originates in the human heart,belongs to every individual, and embraces in itself the various ways of giving form to objects. Husserl, for Jonas, marks the consummation of aphilosophical tradition which begins with Parmenidesand Platoand continues with Descartes,Kant,Hegel; he is the most radical and rigorous thinker in this tradition because of his obedience to the ethical imperative of uninterrupted self- justification. Hencethe originality and novelty of his teachings. It is possiblethatBuber’sinterpretation of Jewishand Christian faith draws significantlyonthe conception of the dialectical relationship between Judaism and Christianity –“the fire and the rays”–that Rosenzweigexpounded in Der

 Martin Buber, Zwei Glaubensweisen (Zürich: Manesse,1950).  Hans Jonas, “Edmund Husserl and the Ontological Problem,” Moznaim,1938, VII, pp. 581– 89 (Hebrew). Religio Today: The Concept of Religion in MartinBuber’sThought 111

Stern der Erlösung (1921).¹⁷ We know from Jonas himself that Buber wasinclose contact with him from 1938 onwards;¹⁸ and Buber himself, in his biblical exege- sis in Zwei Glaubensweisen,which takesupthe main themeshehad developed together with Rosenzweigintheir joint reflection on the translation of the He- brew Bible into German,¹⁹ demonstrates an intimate knowledge of Rosenzweig’s concept of the similarity-differencebetween Christianity and Judaism, presented in his magnum opus.²⁰ Nevertheless,beyond Buber’srelationwith other Jewish philosophers,what is particularlyimportant is to emphasize that regardless whetherheappeals to philos- ophyortobiblical faithaspaths whichcan give new life to religion,henever sep- arates affective life from thought: true philosophers andtrue believersare engaged in reality with theirtotalbeing. Religio itself involvesreceiving in love,feelingactive- ly,and thinking. But,all in all, for Buber access to religion does notdepend so muchonthe readingofbooks,however important andmeaningful these can be. Life is muchmoreinstructive than books.²¹ In order to reclaimreligionasthe ground of true existence,wemust makeaneffort to work, to speak, to be in touch withother human beings in thename of the divine Thou,evenifcontempo- rary social conditions,given theprimacyofthe I-It relations,rendersthis effort dif- ficult.Onlythe event of the “between” (Zwischen)can preserve our humanity.In- deed, for Buber homo religiosus coincides with homo tout court.

 Cf. Franz Rosenzweig, Der Stern der Erlösung (1921), part 3. Rosenzweigwrites in aletter of January 4, 1922 to his wife Edith that he knows that Buber read the Stern,but was not as inter- estedinthe second part,dealingwith the relationship between man and God, as one might ex- pect. Der Mensch und sein Werk.Gesammelte Schriften (Haag/Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976 – 84), vol. 1.2. From Rosenzweig’sletter to EugenRosenstock, letter datedAugust 28,1924, ibid., we learn that Buber was interested in the thirdpart.  Cf. Hans Jonas, Erinnerungen (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 2003), 441–42.  Cf. Martin Buber – FranzRosenzweig, DieSchrift und ihreVerdeutschung (Berlin, 1936). Buber refers to this book when in Zwei Glaubensweisen he deals with thekey words (Motiv-Worte)in the Bible,its ethical teachings,its representation of idolatry,and its conceptof“spirit” (ruach).  LikeRosenzweiginDerStern der Erlösung,part 3, Buberregards thecenter of Christianitytobe the faith in Jesus Christ,whichhedeems essential to Christian evangelical mission, whichimplicitly posits that spaceand time areunredeemed, if not conqueredbyeternity. Buberattributes thiscon- ception of Christianity to Paul andpromoting aspecies of Gnosticism. He furtherargues that the relation between the Jewish concept of divine love and the Greek conceptofLogos in John’sGospel prepares the waytothe negationofGod’stranscendence, the source of theneo-Gnosticism that af- flicts the modern world. Cf.particularly, Zwei Glaubensweisen,preface, chapters4,13–16.  Cf. Martin Buber, Autobiographische Fragmente, Anhang: III.Bücher und Menschen,inMartin Buber,ed. Paul A. Schilpp and MauriceFriedman (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,1963), 32–33.