Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 65 Stipulate That the Purpose of Politics Is to Maintain the State, It Refusestoallow Politics Its Autonomous Existence

Samuel HayimBrody Is TheopoliticsanAntipolitics?

Martin Buber,Anarchism, and the Ideaofthe Political

We havecome to recognize that the political is the total, and as aresult we know that any decision about whether something is unpolitical is always a political decision... – Carl Schmitt, “Preface to the Second Edition” of Political Theology (1934)

Hereisthe serpent in the fullness of its power! – Martin Buber, “Letter to Gandhi” (1939)

Introduction:The Shape of the Theopolitical Problem

“Antipolitics,” writes Michael Walzer, “is akind of politics.”¹ Thispuzzling state- ment occurs in Walzer’srecent discussion of the Bible, which he calls “apolitical book,” but one that has “no political theory” in it; its writers are “engaged with politics” but are “not very interested in politics,” although he admits that “writers who are uninterested in politics nonetheless have alot to saythat is politi- callyinteresting.” Walzerhas always been aclear writer,and if this series of statements seems convoluted, this maybedue to the subject matter itself. Close examination of the relationship of religion and politics has away of calling into question our very understanding of the natureofboth “religion” and “politics” as distinct and separate spheres that can each be described according to its own special set of characteristics. This, of course, is an inconvenient state of affairs for university departments like PoliticalScience and Religion, which would like to assume thatthe objects of their studydoinfact exist. This essayexcavates and explicates the potential contribution of Martin Buber to the contemporary resurgence of interest in the borders between religion and politics, through an examination of the category “theopolitics” in Buber’s mature work, particularly Königtum Gottes (1932), as well as his later biblical writings.² Interest in Buber,both during and after his lifetime, has centered on

 Michael Walzer, In God’sShadow:Politics in the HebrewBible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), xiii.  The essayispart of alargerproject on Buber’stheopolitics. That project addresses manytop- ics beyond what spaceallows here,including the historical contextoftheopoliticsinWeimar Germanyand its manifestation in aunique form of Zionism. What follows,however,will

DOI 10.1515/9783110402223-005, © 2018 Samuel Hayim Brody, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 62 Samuel HayimBrody his introduction of Hasidism to Western audiences,aswellashis “philosophyof dialogue” as represented by Ich und Du (1923). During the vogueof“religious existentialism” in the 1950s and 60s Buber was abest-seller; the waning of this trend dimmed his star somewhat,and he settled into his current position: an im- portant figure in Jewish ethics, who is stillread in Protestant seminaries and liberal rabbinical schools as an exemplar of modernJewishthought outside the strictures of halakha.³ Fewscholars have focused on Buber’spolitical thought, and thosewho do often complain about theirlack of company. Robert Weltsch, for example, writes: “To manyitmay appear that Martin Buber is not apolitical scientist. He is regarded as areligious thinker and as asocial philosopher,not as aman of politics. Such aclassification, however,would be afallacy.”⁴ Twenty years later,Steven Schwarzschild remarks thatlittle has changed:

Much has been written about virtuallyall the vast and diverse aspects of the life and works of Martin Buber.His political philosophyand activities areastrikingexception to this state of affairs,although socio-political matters wereclearlyoffundamental importance to him… In at least some instances this exception is made tendentiously: Buber’sreputation is to be used for institutional and political self-advancement,but the natureofhis political thought and programme would resist such purposes.⁵

Whether for the reason Weltsch suggests, that scholars simply do not see Buber as apolitical writer,orfor the more insidious reason proposed by Schwarzschild, that they find the topic dangerous,itremains the casetwo more decades later that thereisnodefinitive treatment of Buber’spolitics.⁶

focus primarilyonthe theoretical tenets of theopoliticsasitrelates to other discourses that ex- amine the border between religion and politics.  One could further speculateonthe reception of Buber’s “successors” as applesofthe schol- arlyeye in the 1970sand 80s:Scholem’sseeminglyhard-headed and scientific interpretation of Jewish mysticism displaced Buber’s “romantic” vision of Hasidism, while Levinas’sontologyof alterity came into fashion for those whowereattracted to the “philosophyofdialogue.” Levi- nas’spopularity,sometimes mediated through the prism of Jacques Derrida, in turn contributed to the “stayingpower” of Heideggerand Rosenzweig,both acknowledgedinfluencesonLevinas, as the discourse of “existentialism” faded into that of “postmodernism.”  Robert Weltsch, “Buber’sPolitical Philosophy,” ThePhilosophy of MartinBuber,The Library of LivingPhilosophers Volume XII, eds.PaulArthur Schilpp and MauriceFriedman (La Salle, IL: Open Court Press,1967), 435 – 449.  Steven Schwarzschild, “ACritiqueofMartin Buber’sPolitical Philosophy: An AffectionateReap- praisal,” ThePursuit of the Ideal: JewishWritings of Steven Schwarzschild,ed. MenachemKellner (Al- bany: SUNY Press, 1990),185 – 207. Originally publishedas“ACritiqueofM.Buber’sPolitical Philos- ophy—An AffectionateReappraisal,” LeoBaeck Institute Yearbook XXXI,1986, 355– 388.  Some scholars denythat he has apolitics at all: “…[T]he two poles of Jewish life that would hold [Buber’s] primary interest [were] the cultural and the spiritual.With the exception of his Is TheopoliticsanAntipolitics? 63

Weltschisright that scholars and the general publicalike have simplybeen more interested in other aspects of Buber’swork. But surelyitisnot that Buber just happens to be seen as anon-political writer,but that something about his work actively encourages the formationofsuch aperception. Politics seems to be consistentlysubordinatedtoother elements in his thought,lacking the proper independent treatment it receivesinwriters we recognize as belonging to the political theory canon. The latter insight has been articulatedmost explicitlyby those who treat Buber as aphilosopher.Evenwhen Buber is recognized as having apolitics,and even when this politics is investigated with respect,itischar- acterized as an adjunct to his philosophy: the political utopia Buber soughtis related to his existential meditations on the I-Thou relation.⁷ Thisstance makes eminent sense if we takeontology (or ethics) to be first philosophy, and read the philosophyofdialogue as Buber’sontology (or ethics). From the dialogical perspective,Utopia is that configuration of society with the fewest possibleobstaclestothe fundamental human desire for acommunity based on recognition and mutual concern. Social structures thatdiscouragesuch re- gard, and demand subservience to laws of instrumentality,such as the state and the market, obstruct I-Thou encounters, although they maystill take place under these conditions.Such social structureswould be transformed in utopia, and would constituteadirect connection between Buber’sphilosophyand his politics. Bernard Susser sums up this approach: “[F]ederalism as Buber under- stands it is the principle of dialogue writ large and socialized.”⁸ Thus, it would seem that one could achieveamore political readingofBuber simplybybracketingphilosophyand attemptingtoisolate apolitical doctrine. However,significant disciplinary tendencies still militate in the direction of clas- sifying Buber as “really” an ethicist or “really” atheologian. Foremost among these is the idea that if politics is to be treated as asubjectinits ownright,

later efforts on behalf of Brit Shalom,agroup committed to the reconciliation of Zionism and Arab nationalism, Buber was not particularlyinterested in politics and so did not himself pro- duce abodyofliteratureonthe topic, although he wroteoccasionallyonpolitical matters.” Gilya Gerda Schmidt, MartinBuber’sFormativeYears: From German CulturetoJewishRenewal, 1897– 1909 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995), 118. Schmidtexcludes Brit Shalom from her judgement that Buber is non-political, but Howard M. Sachar,whomshe cites, includes them within this judgement: “The Brit Shalom was an ideological, not apolitical, group.” Sa- char, AHistoryofIsrael, From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (New York: Knopf, 1986), 180.  Paul Mendes-Flohr, “The Desert Within and Social Renewal—Martin Buber’sVision of Uto- pia,” New Perspectives on Martin Buber,ed. Michael Zank (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 219–230, 220.  BernardSusser, “The Anarcho-Federalism of Martin Buber,” Publius 9.4(Autumn 1979),103– 116,104. 64 Samuel HayimBrody then one must focus aboveall on the special rules or laws that are inherent to politics as adistinct sphere of life, what Max Weber called its Eigengesetzlichkeit or autonomy. The idea that politics is acraft demanding special knowledge is as old as Plato’sinquiry into the areté or excellence of the statesman. But the idea of the autonomy of politics,the claim that politics issues its own laws to itself, maybemuch younger.⁹ When Machiavelli is cited as the founder of modern political science,itisusually because he is said to have emancipated politics from its subordination to ethics or religion, enablingittobestudied as an autonomous realm.Politicaltheorists maythen be defined as those who follow in Ma- chiavelli’sfootsteps,placing the recognition of the autonomyofpolitics at the foundation of their work. There is alogical slippagehere, however.Merelytoacknowledge that politics is acraft,like shipbuilding or medicine,demanding aparticulartalent or excellence, is not yettodeclare it autonomous, because it is not yettosay what the telos or purpose of politics is. The areté of aknife is to cut,and the areté of aship is to sail; each possesses its areté to the extent to which it succeedsinfulfilling these purposes. One must posit apurpose for politics, then,inorder to define “the areté of the statesman.” Both Platoand Aristotle, in different ways,dosub- ordinatepolitics to a telos,namely the Good. With Machiavelli, however,the movethat allows his laser-like focus on political technique is preciselythe refus- al to articulate any telos for politics beyond the desire of the prince to “maintain his state,” that is, to continue being aprince.¹⁰ In line with what Weber called the rationalization of every sphere of human life, this isolation of the technique of politics can then be maintainedasthe sine qua non for the existenceofpolitical science as ascholarlydiscipline. This claim, in turn, serves as the foundation for manyshades of political “realism,” includingWeber’sown distinctionbetween a politics foundedinanethics of responsibility,which pays political science its due, and one rooted in an ethics of conviction, which allows comprehensive conceptions of the good to determine political action.The latter politics is vulnera- ble to criticism in the terms usedbyWalzer,as“antipolitics,” since by refusingto

 As we will see, Buber’sview is that the autonomyofthe political is at least as old as the Is- raelite monarchy.  Here Iprescind from the debates swirling around how the Machiavelli of ThePrince does or does not differ from the Machiavelli of the Discourses;whether one or both should reallybeper- ceivedasrepublican or even radicallydemocratic, rather than in the serviceoftyranny, etc. The point is not what the real Machiavelli, whose true doctrineshad to be uncovered by revisionist scholarship, said, but what the Machiavelli who “founded modern political science” said. See Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner,and Maurizio Viroli,eds., Machiavelli and Republicanism (Cam- bridge:Cambridge University Press, 1993). Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 65 stipulate that the purpose of politics is to maintain the state, it refusestoallow politics its autonomous existence. The plea for objectivity that inaugurates political science, namely the demandthat we describe the world as it is,and not as we think it ought to be, ends up smugglingontology and ethics through the back door as it first tells us how the world really is,and then demands that we recognize this state of affairs in order to be responsible. Weber,asthe preeminent social scientistofhis day, sets the terms of the discussion for much Weimar political thought. Maturity in politics for Weber is defined by the ability to recognize and endurethe irreconcilable clashes of value between ethics and religion, on the one hand, and politics on the other.Mean- while, the rationalization of every sphere of life attendant to modernity encourages the growth of bureaucracy,which in turn endangers “the political” itself, defined in aNietzschean manner as Herrschaft [authority/domination] of one person or group of people over another.These basic claims serveasthe nodal point around which numerous “symmetrical counter-concepts” form concerning the question of the autonomyofpolitics.¹¹ Here Iwill seek to define Buber’stheopolitics as one such counter-concept,and to place it into dialogue with another, the “political theology” associatedwith CarlSchmitt.Following Christoph Schmidt,Iarguethat theopolitics functionsasaradical inversion of political theology: Buber uses “theopolitics” onlytodefine the proper relationship of the religious to the political, while “political theology” describes what theopolitics becomes if it betraysits proper task.¹² Theopolitics concerns itself with the same Weberian problems as does political theology—from secularization and technicity to representation and charisma—and thinks through them with ahighlysim- ilar vocabulary,but it comes to diametricallyopposite conclusions on one point

 Heinrich Meier speaks of the “conceptual symmetry” between Carl Schmitt’spolitical theol- ogyand LeoStrauss’spolitical philosophy; “Preface to the American Edition” of TheLesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political Theology and Political Philosophy, Expanded Edition,trans. Marcus Brainardand Robert Berman (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2011), xv.The phrase recalls Reinhart Koselleck’suse of the term “symmetrical counter- concepts” in his description of Schmitt’sFriend-Foe dichotomy, “adescription of oneself or of one’sFoe that is open to simultaneous use by both sides.” Futures Past: On the Semantics of His- torical Time (Cambridge:MIT Press,1985), 197.  Schmidt, “Die theopolitischeStunde. Martin Bubers Begriff der Theopolitik,seine prophet- ischen Ursprünge, seine Aktualität und Bedeutungfür die Definition Zionistischer Politik,” Die theopolitische Stunde: Zwölf Perspektiven auf das eschatologische Problem der Moderne (Mün- chen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2009), 205–225. See my translation of arevised version of this essay, “The Theopolitical Hour: Martin Buber’sConcept of Theopolitics, its Prophetic Origins, and its Relevanceand Significancefor the Definition of Zionist Politics,” in Jacques Picardet al., eds., Thinking JewishModernity (forthcoming). 66 Samuel Hayim Brody after another.Both question the continuingintellectual validityofthe liberal border between religion and politics, but to radicallyopposed ends: if political theologydeploys the power of the divine in the service of the authoritarian state, theopolitics denies anypossibility whatsoever of legitimizing institutional human power.Ifpolitical theologyborders on the fascistic, theopolitics is its anarchistic antipode.¹³ But acloser look at the scene laid out by Webermust pre- cede consideration of Schmitt and Buber.

A ‘Bourgeois’ Politician:Secularism, Polytheism, and Anarchism in Max Weber

WolfgangMommsen argues foraconnectionbetween Weber’spolitical doctrines and hisconceptionofscholarship.BothdatetoWeber’searly studies of theincreas- ingpopulation of Polish migrantagriculturalworkers in the East Elbian region, as demonstrated by his 1895inaugural address at theUniversityofFreiburg. Weber argued againstprotectionist policies that would artificially freeze Germanagriculture at its current point of development; neither did he favorallowingthe high rate of Polish immigration to continue,despitethe fact that the Junker landlords benefited economicallyfromemployinglower-paid Poles.Weber’sprimary concern wasthe Germancharacterofthe national economy, and to that end he supportedstate sub- sidization of German small farmers in EastElbia, even if this ranafoul of the Junkers andthe march of capitalism. “Ostensiblypurescientificvalue systemsofwhatever varietyalwaysappeared to standinthe wayofsuch aconsciouslynational economic policy,” accordingtoMommsen. “ThereforeWeber strove to refute thevery exis- tenceofscientifically-valid normative categories.Atthe outset,his programfor a value-free sciencerestedlargely on an effort to establish theideal of the national

 Vincent W. Lloydhas helpfullydelineated threesenses in which the term “political theology” is used in recentdiscussions:1)anarrow sense, in which it refers to claims made by Schmitt concerning the roleofreligious concepts in political theory;2)anextremelybroadsense, in which the phrase is interchangeable with almost anyform of the conjunction “religion and politics”;3)a“sectarian” sense, in which it refers to abranch of theology (usuallyChristian) that deals with political matters. Vincent W. Lloyd, “Introduction” to Race and Political Theology,ed. Vincent W. Lloyd(Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press,2012), 1–21.Ideal with political theology in the first,narrowsense, sincethe context in which it emergedand had its original reception is relevanttomydiscussion. My portrayal of it as fascistic and in the serviceoflegitimation maybe contested as ahistorical readingofSchmitt; it is, however,merely intended to conveyBuber’s own conception of where theopoliticsstood. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 67 stateasthe sole indisputablestandard.”¹⁴ Mommsen’s “therefore,” controversial amongcontemporaryadherents of Weber’ssociology,may be toostrong. Nonethe- less,hedemonstratesaconnection betweenWeber’sunderstandings of powerand of scholarship that others have sincebroadened anddeepened.¹⁵ Weberhimself onceput it this way:

Politics is atough business,and those whotake responsibility for seizingthe spokes of the wheel of political development in the fatherland must have strong nerves and should not be too sentimental to practice secular politics.Those whowish to involvethemselvesinsec- ular politics must aboveall be without illusions and…recognize the fundamental reality of an ineluctable eternal war on earth of men against men.¹⁶

This eternal war, accordingtoWeber,iswhat social science, includingthe science of politics, must acknowledge from the very beginning if it is to maintain its status as ascience. And this science, in turn, is the necessary basisof“secular politics.” As Leo Strauss would later comment: “Conflict was for Weber an unambiguous thing,but peace was not: peace is phony, but war is real.”¹⁷ This view of conflict as fundamental naturallyextends to the realm of values. Reason is incapable of judging between irreconcilablydifferent value-systems—some scholars, drawing on Weber’sown imageofincommensurable values as warring gods demanding allegiance, have called this his “polytheism.”¹⁸ The metaphor of cosmic warfare mayclue us in thatWeber will not opt for the Anglo-American liberal responsetowhat John Rawls much more mundanely calls “the fact of rea- sonable pluralism,” namelythat the public sphere should avoid making decisions about ultimate values. ForWeber,this is simply impossible; political decisions always refer to values and are ultimatelynon-rational. Thisisone more reason that they cannot be basedupon an objectivesocial science, and this is also whythe increasingbureaucratization of politics, the attempt to make it function accordingtoset regular laws, endangers the ability of politics to pre- serveaspace for individual decision at the highest level.¹⁹

 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, 1890–1920,trans. Michael S. Stein- berg(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1984), 40.  Cf. e.g., Sheldon S. Wolin, “Max Weber:Legitimation, Method, and the Politics of Theory,” Political Theory 9(1981), 401–23.  Ibid., 41 (emphasis).  LeoStrauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1950), 65.  David Owen and TracyB.Strong, “Introduction: Max Weber’sCalling to Knowledge and Ac- tion,” in The Vocation Lectures,trans.Rodney Livingstone (Indianapolis:Hackett,2004), xlvii- xlviii.  “…if youchoose this particular standpoint,you will be servingthis particular godand will giveoffense to everyother god…As long as life is left to itself and is understood in its own terms, 68 Samuel HayimBrody

Weber defined himself on manyoccasions as arepresentativemember of his class, a “bourgeois” politician. Thismeant,onthe one hand, thathelacked sym- pathyfor the claims of the dying aristocratic landownerclass, which was strug- glingduringthe Wilhelmine period to hold on to its oligarchic privileges; on the other hand, he cast askeptical eyeonthe quest of the organized workingclass to seize power,whetherthrough political means or direct economic actions such as strikes.With respect to the latter group, he argued forcefullythat Marxism could have validity either as adiagnostic scholarlyapparatussubmitting falsifiable claims to social science in an attempt to increase understandingofmoderncap- italist societies, or as apurelyethically-derivedcall to overthrow an unjust social order,but never both. Since the majority of the organized workingclass in Ger- manyoperated through the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD), which was officiallycommitted to an “orthodox” formulation of Marxist doctrine, this meant that therewerefew socialist activists who framed their work in amanner acceptable to Weber; when he came across them, however,hetreated them with great respect and even befriended them. Such figures,includingthe sociologist Robert Michels and the playwright Ernst Toller,weremost often closertoanar- chist syndicalism or Tolstoyan thought thantoMarxism, as the anarchist tradition lacked the Marxist aversion to depicting the struggle for socialism as volun- tarist and dependent on the workers’ ownactions, rather thanasaninevitable consequenceofthe march of the forces of history. Despite his friendlypersonal relationship to figures such as Michels and Toller,however,Weber considered the anarchist quest for asociety freefrom domination as the very paradigm of utopianism in politics. In fact,Mommsen argues, Weber basedhis famous description of the “ethics of conviction” on Mi- chels.²⁰ Weber took for granted that the anarchist society was both impossible and undesirable (because it would eliminate Herrschaft,aprimary sourceof human excellence, leadingtoableak world of Nietzschean “last men”), but he admitted that this was avalue-judgment and that he could not dismiss it on the basis of reason. Rather,heshifted the grounds of disagreement onto the question of the ethics of practice, depicting an anarchist committed to revolution no matter what the short-term consequences of revolutionary actions might be,

it knows onlythat the conflict between these gods is never-ending…Which of the warringgods shall we serve?” Weber, “ScienceasaVocation,” in TheVocation Lectures,26–7. Strauss points out herethat this is arecipefor literal pandemonium, in the full sense implied by its Greek ety- mology; Natural Rightand History,45.  Mommsen, “RobertoMichels and Max Weber:Moral Conviction versus the Politics of Re- sponsibility,” in Political and Social TheoryofMax Weber: Collected Essays (Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1989), 88. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 69 in contrasttoaresponsible politician concernedprimarilywith taking responsibility for such short-term consequences. This contrastreaches its sharpest point when it touches the question of violence, for it is at this point thatitreaches what Weber considered the very borders of politics itself:

In the last analysis the modern statecan onlybedefined sociologicallyinterms of aspe- cific means [Mittel]which is peculiar to the state,asitistoall other political associations, namelyphysical violence[Gewaltsamkeit]. ‘Every stateisfounded on force [Gewalt]’,as Trotsky oncesaid at Brest-Litovsk. That is indeed correct.Ifthere existed onlysocial forma- tions in which violencewas unknown as ameans, then the concept of the ‘state’ would have disappeared; then that condition would have arisen which one would define, in this particular sense of the word, as ‘anarchy’.²¹

ForWeber,the stateisthe onlylocus of thepolitical today.The political is defined by thedeploymentofthe meansofviolence by associatedgroupsofpeople; thestate concentrates the “legitimate” useofsuch violenceinone association in particular, which then claims amonopolyofthis means.HereWeber’s “polytheism” manifests in theformofacontrastbetweensecularism and theethics of conviction: “Anyone whomakes apact with the means of violence, for whatever purpose—andevery politician does this…is becominginvolved, Irepeat, withthe diabolical powers that lurk in allviolence.”²² To attempt to create asociety consistingonlyofformations “in which violencewas unknownasameans” would be to attempt “anarchy.” This, of course, is what many in Weber’soriginal audience of student radicals had been attempting to do—for Weber,they were seekingakingdom “notofthis world.”²³ It is this specificgoal, Iargue,and theway in which manyinMunich in 1919 sought to achieveit, thatlinksMartin Buber and Carl Schmitt to central themes of Weberian thought. Both were concernednot just withthe surface-level questionofwhetherthe Bavarian Revolutionwould have good or bad consequences, but with thechallengeposed by anarchism andnon-violencetothe very exis- tenceand coherence of the “political sphere.” Schmitttried to solve theproblem by

 Weber, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” in Political Writings,ed. Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 310.  Ibid., 364–5.  The ‘Politikals Beruf’ lecturewas deliveredtothe FreiestudentischeBund of the University of Munich. Weber resisted giving the lectureatfirst,until the convener,rectorImmanuel Birn- baum, threatened to have Kurt Eisner give it instead; even then, he urgedthat Birnbaum replace him with Friedrich Naumann, founder of the German Democratic Party,a“representative Ger- man politician.” See Strong, “Introduction,” xxxv. 70 Samuel HayimBrody assimilating the kingdom of God to Weber’spolitical; Buber by proclaimingthat “there is no political outsidethe theopolitical.”²⁴

The Charis aboveEvery Law: Anarchy, Legitimacy,and TheologyinBuber and Schmitt

BothBuber andSchmitt were presentinMunichduringthe revolution of late 1918–1919,between theend of theWorld Warand thedawnofthe Weimar Repub- lic. Schmittwas workinginthe censorship office of theregionalmartial lawad- ministration at thetime, while Bubercametolecture andtovisit hisbestfriend of twenty years, theanarchist Gustav Landauer,animportantfigureamong the revolutionaries.²⁵ ForbothBuber andSchmitt, thevisionofthe anarchists wouldbecomeaseminalinfluence—aresource forthe former,abête noire for thelatter—whicheachwould articulate within thefield of Weberian politicalcon- cerns. Schmitt’s Politische Theologie (1922) hadits originsinafestschriftfor Weber, whileBuber’stheopolitics, firstfully articulatedinKingship of God,admitsits debtsnot just to Weber’s Economy andSociety,withits famous sociology of domination, butalsotohis magisterialrepresentationofIsraelite life in AncientJuda- ism. Therelationship betweenanarchism andthe kingdom, or kingship,ofGod, stands behind each thinker’sgrappling with thenatureofrepresentation, the role of charisma in authority, thestate of emergency, thenatureofsecularization, theethicsofpolitical decision-making, andthe politicalsignificanceofrationali- zation andtechnicityinmodernity.But whereasWeber argued that onehad to choose either secularpolitics/polytheism or theotherworldlyanarchist kingdom of God, Schmittand Buberrejectedthis choice in opposite ways:for Schmitt, ase- cularizedtheologywas at work behind and for thelegitimationofpoliticsand domination,while forBuber,the kingship of Godwas itself this-worldly,embrac- ingand encompassing secularpoliticsevenatits most anarchistic.

 “…denn es gibt keine politische Sphäre außer der theopolitischen.” Martin Buber, Königtum Gottes (originallypublished 1932, now available in Martin Buber WerkausgabeBand 15:Schrif- tenzum Messianismus,ed. Samuel Hayim Brody[Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus,2015], 174). Kingship of God,trans.RichardScheimann (Amherst,NY: Humanity Books,1967), 136.  Gopal Balakrishnan writes that Schmitt “experienced at first hand the tension and insecurity generated by the political polarization of the city when his office was broken into by aband of revolutionaries,and an officer at anearby table was shot.” The Enemy:AnIntellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt (New York: Verso, 2000), 20. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 71

Although Schmittdoesnot explicitly deal with Buber, andBuber rarely deals with Schmitt, they fitintoeachother’srespectiveworldviewsasperfect foils.²⁶ From Buber’spoint of view,Schmitt epitomizes theexcesses of modern power-politics; from Schmitt’spoint of view,Buber wouldatfirst appear to epitomizean anti-political tendency to remove personal strife from societyand to transform pol- iticsand government into administration by eliminatingdomination.²⁷ LeoStrauss once notedthatfor Schmitt, “theultimate quarreloccursnot betweenbellicosity andpacifism(or nationalismand internationalism)but betweenthe “authoritarian and anarchistic theories.”²⁸ Iargue that if this is so,and ifSchmitt takes up the authoritarianposition, Martin Bubermight just be thecontemporaryofSchmitt’s whomostradically assumesthe anarchistposition. Schmitt,who mayhaveattended Weber’spublic lecturesinMunich at the time, alsocame to place violence at the center of his concept of the political. This is stated most famouslyinthe “friend-enemy” criterion of Conceptofthe Po- litical (1932), but can be seen alreadyinhis first major work, PoliticalRomanti- cism (1919), which, while ostensiblyconcerned with the correct understanding of an eighteenth-century phenomenon, can easilybeseen as an oblique response to his contemporarycircumstances.²⁹ Schmitt argues that political ro-

 Buber’sreferencestoSchmitt begin with “The Questiontothe Single One” of 1936,originallya lecture in November 1933,his only explicitreference; Between Manand Man (New York: Routledge, 2002), 46–97.Healso criticizes Schmitt,without referringtohim by name,in“The Validity and Lim- itation of the Political Principle” (1953),referring to “teachers of thelaw…who, obedient to thistrait of thetimes,defined theconceptofthe political so that everythingdisposed itself withinitaccording to the criterion ‘friend-enemy,’ in whichthe concept of enemyincludes ‘the possibility of physical killing.’ The practiceofstates hasconvenientlyfollowed theiradvice.” In Pointing theWay,ed. and trans. MauriceFriedman (New York: Schocken Books, 1957),216.  Whether Schmitt read Buber is not known. Ludwig Feuchtwangersent Schmitt alengthyre- view of Kingship of God he had written anonymously; Schmitt’sreplyimplies that he read Feuchtwanger’sessaycarefully(“Über Martin Buber kann ich nicht mitsprechen, doch habe ich IhreKritik aufmerksam und mit Nutzen gelesen.”), Carl Schmitt /LudwigFeuchtwanger:Brief- wechsel 1918–1935,ed. Rolf Rieß (Berlin: Duncker &Humblot,2007), 377– 379, 381–382. Ithank Thomas Meyer for directingmetothis source. It was Buber who, as part of the series of mono- graphs he edited, Die Gesellschaft,first published Franz Oppenheimer’s Der Staat,which Schmitt singles out for condemnation in 1932 as “the best example” of “the polarity of state and society” which has as its aim “the destruction of the state.” TheConcept of the Political, Ex- panded Edition,trans. George Schwab (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2007), 76.  LeoStrauss, “Notes on Carl Schmitt, TheConcept of the Political,” trans. J. Harvey Lomax, in Concept of the Political,113.Strauss is quotingSchmitt himself in the latter part of this sentence: “Ihavepointed out several times that the antagonism between the so-called authoritarian and anarchist theories can be traced to these formulas,” Concept of the Political,60.  Originallypublished as Carl Schmitt-Dorotic, Politische Romantik (München: Duncker & Humblot,1919). Second, expandededition: Carl Schmitt, Politische Romantik (München: Dunck- 72 Samuel HayimBrody manticism is found on both the left and the right; it occurs wherever one seeks to avoid afinal political decision, since romanticism aestheticallyprefers to leave all options open and not to confine reality within the limits of the single outcome that attends anydecision: “In commonplacereality,the romantics could not play the role of the egowho creates the world. They preferred the state of eternal be- comingand possibilitiesthat are never consummated to the confines of concrete reality.This is because onlyone of the numerous possibilitiesiseverrealized.”³⁰ The roots of this position are found in Malebranche and his philosophyofocca- sionalism, which treatsGod as the onlytrue agent in the world; everythingelse is simplyanoccasion for God’saction. By centering all order in God in this way, Malebranche reduced the agencyofhuman action; political romanticism inherits this outlook,and thereforeitisalways “at the disposal of energies that are un- romantic, and the sublime elevation abovedefinition and decision is trans- formedinto asubservient attendance upon alienpower and aliendecision.”³¹ We can hear an echo here of Machiavelli’swarning that the good prince will come to ruin among so manywho are not good; Schmitt,however,has shifted the terrain from the unwillingness to take violent action to decision itself—for the political romantic, Schmitt claims, decision itself is violence and therefore must be avoided. Thisisthe origin of the preference for “eternal discussion,” which will soon become atheme of Schmitt’scritiques of liberalparliamentari- anism.³² Schmitt was anxioustosever the perceivedlink between romanticism and Roman Catholicism, and in Roman Catholicism and Political Form (1923)he went on to arguethat not onlywas the Church not romantic, it was in fact poised to become the last remaininghomeoftrue political “form” on Earth.³³ Marxist socialism, anarchist syndicalism, and American capitalism all line up on the side of the increasingde-politicization of the world that comes with increased rationalization of industry. “There must no longer be political problems,onlyor-

er &Humblot,1925). Cf. Carl Schmitt, Political Romanticism,trans. GuyOakes (NJ:Transaction Publishers, 2011).  Ibid., xv.  Ibid., xiv.  Schmitt, Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parliamentarismus (München: Duncker &Humblot,1923); cf. Schmitt, TheCrisis of ParliamentaryDemocracy,trans. Ellen Kennedy(Cam- bridge,MA: MITPress, 1988).  Schmitt, Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form (Hellerau: JakobHegner Verlag, 1923); second, revised edition München: Theatiner-Verlag,1925. Cf. Schmitt, Roman Catholicism and Po- litical Form,trans. G. L. Ulmen (Westport,CT: GreenwoodPress,1996). Is TheopoliticsanAntipolitics? 73 ganizational-technical and economic-sociological tasks.”³⁴ If these ideologies continue to spread, onlythe Roman church will preserveWeberian Herrschaft against the onslaught of modern bureaucracy.True representationempowers one person to act in the name of another—to act freely, without needing to check back with the represented to re-confirm authority,inthe manner of the workers’ and peasants’ councils of the revolution. The Pope, as the Vicarof Christ,isinfallible and sovereign; his decisions carry weight because of his representative function,and therefore do not depend on the personal charisma of the holder of the office. This interest in the ability of true representation to maintain the personality of decision even beyond the charismatic stageofauthority is repeatedagain in Schmitt’sfamousclaim in Political Theology: “Sovereign is he who decides the state of exception.”³⁵ Schmitt was keenlyaware of the potential of religious faith to undermine such personal human sovereignty,however,and in his later yearswroteofthe need to “de-anarchize Christianity”:

The most importantsentenceofHobbes remains:Jesus is the Christ.The power of such a sentence also works even if it is pushed to the margins of aconceptual system of an intel- lectual structure, even if it is apparentlypushed outside the conceptual circle. This depor- tation is analogous to the domesticationofChrist undertaken by Dostoevsky’sGrand In- quisitor.Hobbes expresses and grounds scientificallywhatDostoevsky’sGrand Inquisitor does:torender harmless Christ’simpact on the social-political realm; to de-anarchize Christianitywhilestill leavingitwith acertain legitimizingeffect and in anycase not to renounceit. Aclever tactician renounces nothingunless it is totallyuseless.Christianity was not yetspent.Wecan thus ask ourselves: to whom is the Grand Inquisitor closer, the Roman church or Thomas Hobbes’ssovereign?Reformation and Counter-Reformation revealed themselvesasrelated in direction. Name me your enemy, and Iwill tell you whoyou are. Hobbes and the Roman church: the enemyisour own question as form.³⁶

 Ibid., 65.Schmitt holds that “American financiers,industrial technicians,Marxist socialists, and anarchic-syndicalist revolutionaries unite” on this point,with the result that “The modern stateseems to have actuallybecome what Max Weber envisioned: ahugeindustrial plant.”  Schmitt, PoliticalTheology:Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty,trans.George Schwab(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2005), 1.  Carl Schmitt, Glossarium:Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947–1951,ed. EberhardFreiherr von Medern (Berlin: Duncker&Humblot, 1991), 243. Cited in the combined translations of Raphael Gross, Carl Schmitt and the Jews:The “JewishQuestion,” TheHolocaust, and German Legal Theo- ry,trans.Joel Golb (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007), 85 – 86,and Tracy B. Strong, “Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes: Myth and Politics,” in Schmitt, TheLeviathan in the State TheoryofThomas Hobbes:Meaning and Failure of aPolitical Symbol,trans. George D. Schwab and Erna Hilfstein (Chicago:University of Chicago Press,2008), xxiv. Weber had also mentioned the Grand Inquisitor in “Politics as aVocation,” as acogent analysis of the problems attending an ethics of conviction; see “Profession and Vocation of Politics,” 14. 74 Samuel HayimBrody

Theclaim hereisthat despiteits ostensiblereference to theChurch in Dostoevsky’s text,the GrandInquisitor more closelyresembles themodern stateitself, as repre- sentedbyHobbes’ Leviathan. Schmitt does Machiavelli one better here:lip service to the minimalist formula that “Jesusisthe Christ” is sufficient to claim absolute divine authority forhuman sovereignty and to short-cut apocalyptic attempts to de-legitimize thestatebymeans of theology.Furthermore, as Tracy Stronghas pointed out, “the leviathan (as mortal God, henceasChrist/Messiah) holdsback the kingdomofGod on this earth or at least makes no movetobringitabout. This is whythis is politicaltheology and nottheologicalpolitics.”³⁷ Inone of his moreovertlyantisemiticmoods,Schmitt claims that it was Spinoza, thefirst “liberal Jew,” whoundidthe great serpentand “mortal god” Leviathan by denying it the right to theformula “Jesusisthe Christ” in thenameofreligious freedom.³⁸ Unlikethe aristocratic reactionaries with whom he associated duringthe Weimar era, Schmitt presented himself as highlypreoccupied with political legitimacy per se and not merelywith the legitimacy of the new liberal-democratic Republic. Forpolitical theorists concernedwith legitimacy, anarchism often plays arole analogous to thatplayedbyskepticism for philosophersconcerned with the ultimategroundingoftruth claims: it is like aboogeyman, lying in wait, suggesting by its very existencethe possibilityofthe necessary failureofall proj- ects of legitimation. Schmitt’sstudent turned critic, Waldemar Gurian, sees Schmitt as always seeking a “highest instance of decision” that would bring an end to his “despair at an anarchyidentified behind all its facades.”³⁹ Indeed, Schmitt pays far more attention to anarchist thoughtthan manyofhis contem- poraries. Like Weber,herespects the anarchists’ clear-cut opposition to his line of thinking, in away thatliberals do not.Hedescribes the conflict between the optimistic anthropology he ascribes to anarchism and the pessimistic anthropol- ogyofthe Counter-Revolution as “the clearest antithesis in the entire history of political ideas.”⁴⁰ Schmitt’swords about his hero Donoso Cortés could justas easilybeapplied to him: “[He] was contemptuousofthe liberals while he re-

 “Carl Schmitt and Thomas Hobbes,” xxv.  Schmitt, Leviathan,57. This claim called forth avigorous response from LeoStrauss, whoin- sisted upon the whollysecular natureofthe Hobbesian serpent-state, seeingHobbes and Spino- za not as rivals but as collaborators in the construction of the modern secular polity.See Miguel Vatter, “Strauss and Schmitt as Readers of Hobbes and Spinoza:Onthe Relation between Polit- ical Theology and Liberalism,” New Centennial Review,2004,4(3): 161–214.  Paul Müller [Waldemar Gurian], “Entscheidung und Ordnung:Zuden Schriften vonCarl Schmitt,” Schweizerische Rundschau: Monatsschriftfür Geistesleben und Kultur 34 (1939): 566– 76,567– 68. CitedinGross, Carl Schmitt and the Jews,92–3.  Schmitt, Political Theology,55. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 75 spected atheist-anarchist socialism as his deadlyfoe and endowed it with adia- bolicalstature.”⁴¹ However,there is astrangedualitytoSchmitt’sview of anarchism. On the one hand,hesees anarchism as atheistic and dependent upon aradicallyopti- mistic view of human nature as essentiallygood. He links it intimatelytothe pro- gressive secularization and rationalization of modernity and to the corresponding increaseoftechnicity.Inthis sense, anarchism is aligned with liberalism and Marxism, the other secularizing and depoliticizing forces descended from the Americanand French revolutions.Onthe other hand, Schmitt’srhetorical pre- sentation of anarchism emphasizes its radicalism;the bloodlessness of the technical society is balanced out by the “Scythian fury” of Bakunin, “the greatest anarchist of the nineteenth century,” who “had to become in theory the theologian of the anti-theological and in practice the dictator of an anti-dictatorship.”⁴² In this sense, anarchists would be the very incarnation of the political, which Schmitt defines as “the most intense and extreme antagonism, [which] becomes that much more political the closer it approachesthe most extreme point,that of the friend-enemygrouping.”⁴³ Anarchists embodyafascinating paradoxfor Schmitt: by declaring war against the political, they instantiate the political.⁴⁴ As Strauss recognized, Schmitt does not see the anarchist ideal as utopian and admits that he does not know whether it can be realized. Rather,hesimply abhors it.Initherecognizes apowerful enemy.⁴⁵ Throughout his near-obsession with anarchism, Schmitt always figures it as atheistic and as committed to an irrevocablyoptimistic anthropology.Martin Buber’stheopolitics, however,arguablyrepresents aform of anarchism that lacks these qualities. Moreover,itshares Schmitt’sconcerns about the inhuman- ity of technicity and places equivalent emphasis on the necessity of decision. In Kingship of God, Moses,and TheProphetic Faith,aswell as in anumber of short- er essays and occasional writingsonZionism, Buber provides adetailed account of a “direct theocracy,” what we might call an anarcho-theocracy, atheopolitical

 Ibid., 63. It is open to question whetherSchmitt shares the positionofCortés in this section of Political Theology. Iwould arguethat he does,despiteostensiblydistancinghimself.  Ibid., 50,66. The use of this epithet for Bakuninisone hint that Schmitt does identify with Cortés, who also warned in an oxymoronic fashion about the dangers of “dictatorship of the dag- gers,” meaninganarchists.  Schmitt, Concept of the Political,29. Thus,according to this definition, one cannot reallybe coherentlyanti-political, sincethe stronger one’senmity to politics,the morepolitical one is.  Sorelisrelevanthere. See “Irrationalist Theoriesofthe Direct Use of Force,” TheCrisis of ParliamentaryDemocracy,trans. Ellen Kennedy(Cambridge:MIT Press, 1988), 65– 76.  Strauss, “Notes on Concept of the Political,” 113. 76 Samuel Hayim Brody situation in which the “dangerousness” of man figures centrally.⁴⁶ If thereisone passagethatcondenses most of Buber’stheopolitical thesis into asingle state- ment,itisthe beginning of Chapter Eight of Kingship of God:

The covenant at Sinai signifies,according to its positive content,that the wanderingtribes accept JHWH ‘for ever and ever’ as their King. According to its negativecontent it signifies that no man is to be called kingofthe sons of Israel. ‘Youshall be for Me akinglydomain’, ‘therewas then in Jeshurun aKing’;this is exclusive proclamation also with respect to a secular lordship:JHWH does not want,like the other kinglygods,tobesovereign and guar- antor of ahuman monarch. He wants Himself to be the Leader and the Prince. The man to whom he addresses His will in order that he carry it out is not onlytohavehis powerinthis connection alone; he can also exert no power beyond his limited task. Aboveall, since he rules not as aperson actinginhis own right,but as ‘emissary’ [Entbotener], he cannot transmit power. The realcounterpart of direct theocracy is the hereditary kingship…There is in pre-kinglyIsrael no externality of ruler-ship; for there is no political sphere except the theo-political,and all sons of Israel aredirectlyrelated (kohanim in the original sense) to JHWH, Who chooses and rejects,gives an order and withdraws it.⁴⁷

In this single passage, we see diametricallyopposite positions from each of Schmitt’smentioned so far: God is literallyruler,and not merelydeployed by human authority as alegitimating metaphor;authority inheres in charisma, and does not outlast it in the form of anyinstitutional office; representation is direct,rather than indirect.Schmitt had opposedthe direct-democratic tendency that he sawinforming all the forces descendingfrom the French Revolution, in which representation is reallynomore than delegation, atask being handed out to arepresentative to be performed. This, however,isexactlythe role of Buber’s charismatic leader,who is givenatask by God and retreats into the background once he carries it out.Inthis Buber was perhaps inspired by his friend Gustav Landauer,and the instance of the Bavarian CouncilRepublic (the Auftrag is giventothe Volksbeauftragter).

 The term “theo-political” makes its first appearance in Kingship of God in connection with a discussionofthe Jand E “sources” or redactional trends;Buber holds that the texts designated as Jmaterial originate amongearlycircles of courtlycompilers, “resolutelyattentive to religious tradition, but in the treatment of contemporary or recent history prone to aprofane-political tendency[profane-politischen Tendenz],” Kingship of God, 17.The Ematerials,onthe other hand, originateamong the circle of the neviim,the prophets. These stand in contrast to the Jcircle, as they are “independentofthe court, supported by the people, less gifted in narration, but inspired in message,experiencingand portrayinghistory as atheo-political occurrence [die Ge- schichte als ein theopolitisches Geschehen], contendingfor the interpenetration of religion and politics against every principle of partition which would placethem in opposition.” Ibid.  Kingship of God,136 (emphasis in original). Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 77

Buber distinguishesbetween the “pre-state” [vorstaatliche]and the post-monarchical conceptions of divine kingship. Prior to the institution of ahuman monarchy, the divine melekh demands of His subjects total, unconditional devotion, of which the ritual symbol is sacrifice. With the founding of the monarchy, however,the divine demandiscompromised by those of the human monarch, from tithes to service in war, and the result is akind of secularization, asepara- tion of the religious from the political.⁴⁸ God “is not content to be ‘God’ in the religious sense,” to claim onlyinner devotion, but demands outer devotion as well, not just in ritual but in the full conduct of life, not justfrom the individual but from the people as awhole:

The strivingtohavethe entirety of its life constructed out of its relation to the divine can be actualized by a people in no other waythan that,while it opens its political beingand doing to the influence of this relationship, it thus does not fundamentallymark the limits of this influenceinadvance, but onlyinthe course of realization experiences or rather en- dures these limits againand again.…He will apportion to the one, for ever and ever chosen by Him, his tasks,but naked powerwithout asituationallyrelated task he does not wish to bestow. He makesknown His will first of all as constitution—not constitution of cult and customonly, also of economyand society—He will proclaim it againand againtothe changinggenerations, certainlybut simplyasreply to aquestion, institutionallythrough priestlymouth, aboveall, however,inthe freedom of His surgingspirit,through every one whom His spirit seizes. Theseparation of religion and politics which stretches through historyishereovercome [aufgehoben]inreal paradox. (119,emphasis in original).⁴⁹

Buber’spolemic here is directed against both kingsand scholars—especially those who take the side of kingsorwho make it easiertodoso. The warning against marking the limits of divine influence “in advance,” along with the claim that God’swill determines cult and custom as well as “economyand society” [Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft,the title of Weber’smagnum opus in sociology], stronglysuggest thatWeberian political realism cannot be reconciled with the faith of Israel. The position is radicallyilliberal, in thatitexcludes the pos-

 Buber thus has alow opinion of KingSolomon. He sees a “syncretistic faithlessness” in the man who, “as hospitable as aRoman emperor,allotted holyhigh-places to the melakhim of the neighboringpeoples.” Kingship of God,118. Buber reads Solomon’spious proclamation that one’s “heart should be satisfied with YHVH” (I Kings8:61) as acrafty retreat from the unconditional insistenceonheart and soul and might (Deut.6:5).  The term aufheben,often translated “overcome” or “sublate,” is heavilyfreighted with He- gelian philosophical ballast,but Buber hereplaces the “sublation” historically prior to the sep- aration of church and statecharacteristicofthe liberal order. 78 Samuel HayimBrody sibility of separate “spheres” for religion and for politics. The very idea of “religion” as a “sphere” unto itself is an impoverishment of divinerule.⁵⁰ The tendency towards direct theocracy expresses itself in two ways.First in the community’schoice of acharismatic leader,whom it recognizesastempora- rilyinhabited by the charis of divine spirit.⁵¹ This is the caseofMoses, Joshua, and the various shoftim in the Book of Judges. The second aspect of theocracy occurs between the death of one charismatic leader and the rise of another one. We might refer to this interregnummost appropriatelyasanarcho-theocracy. There is literallyno(human)ruler in Israel and there are no corresponding institutions. The separate tribes tend to their own business, confident that YHVH still rules as Kingevenwhen He declinestoissue new orders. Internally, the people feel themselvestobe underaninvisiblegovernment; externally, there ap- pears to be no governmentatall. To explain the movement between these two stages, Buber turns to Weber’s analysis of charisma and its “routinization” (he also borrows from Weber the concept of “hierocracy,” rule by priestsorsome other religious caste claiming to speakfor the divine, as aname for what is most commonlycalled “theocracy,” in contrasttotrue, direct theocracy,which is the topic of KingshipofGod).⁵² The historical form of direct theocracy,accordingtoBuber,isacharismatic leadership in which the recipient of the temporary charis is recognizedtohold acom- mission to some limited and particular task (never to unlimited leadership). But what is charis,exactly? AccordingtoBuber, “thereishere no charisma at rest, onlyahovering one, no possession of spirit,onlya‘spiriting’,acomingand going of the ruach;noassurance of power,onlythe streams of an authority

 Ibid.,119 (emphasis in original). In this sense, Buber sees the moment of the institution of the monarchynot as amoment of increased “theocratization,” as Weber had argued in Ancient Ju- daism,but in fact as adramatic secularization of the theopolity.Itisthe moment in which the fearsome terror of war causes the people to lose faith in the task for which they wereelected. Unlike Schmitt,who sees secularization as beginninginmodernity with the seventeenth-century transformation of theological concepts into political concepts, Buber sees it as takingplacein the ancient past,whenthe people of Israel first abandoned their true divine Kingfor the comfort of human rule. And unlikeSchmitt,who adopts Weber’sview of rationalization/secularization as an irreversible process,Buber sees it as potentiallyreversible at anytime, if the people simply heed the prophetic call to turn, to return.  The continual use of the Greek term charis here,rather than aHebrewterm, maybeanother indicationofWeber’sinfluence. Charis has connotations of gratuitousness,offree gift,compa- rabletothe Hebrew Chesed.  Buber acknowledgesthat Weber’saccount of hierocracy in Economy and Society does not “touch upon our problem,” but he appropriates the term anywaybecause it aids him in drawing the contrast to theocracy. Kingship of God,215 n.15. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 79 which presents itself and moves away.…Authority is bound to the temporary proof of the charisma.”⁵³ Charisma is thus afleeting,passingquality,evenfor the recognized charismatic, and it requires proof through deeds. But its very transience renders charisma supreme: “The charis accordinglystands superiortoevery enchantment [Zauber]aswell as every law[Gesetz].”⁵⁴ Problems occur,however,with anyef- fort “to exercise theopolitics even when it is amatter of lettingthe charis hold swaybeyond the actual charisma,”⁵⁵ or in Weberian terms, to base an enduring institutional structure upon manifestations of charis. The most fundamental is the question of succession. Adying charismatic leader leavesthe community with these options: 1) Waiting for asuccessor to have an epiphanyand to demonstrate his or her qualifications (allowing an interregnum,potentiallyendangering the cohe- sion and continuity of the community); 2) Securing continuity by one of the following methods: i. The charismatic leader himself namesand designates asuccessor; ii. Upon his death, the followers identifyand acknowledge the qualified candidate; iii. The community recognizes the possibility of transmitting charisma through blood ties or ritual anointing and coronation [Salbung und Krö- nung](aprocess that can lead to hierocracy).

Buber prefers the first option, waiting: “Certainlythe faithful wait for the grace as that alone which they want to follow,and the most faithful of all profess to do it in order to have to follow no one.”⁵⁶ He alsoclaims, however,that the Bible itself favors the first option; accordingtoBuber,the history of pre-stateIsrael knows onlyone instance of the transfer of charisma to asuccessor,namely the succession to Moses by Joshua.⁵⁷ That succession is unique, since Joshua dies without renewingthe process, without establishing asuccession principle, and without leaving anyclues regarding the structure of permanent institutions. The arrival at full anarcho-theocracy,however,and the open embraceofthe interregnum on the part of its supporters,sharpens what Buber calls the “para-

 Kingship of God,140.  Ibid.  Ibid., 141.  Ibid., 149.  In aremarkable literary-critical footnoteonthis passage, Buber actuallysuggests an emen- dation of Numbers 27:18 – 21,the callingofJoshua, so as to eliminateall referencestoEleazar the priest,references which are “to be dismissed as hierocratizingrevision.” Ibid., 215, n.21. 80 Samuel Hayim Brody doxoftheocracy.” This paradoxconsists in the fact that “the highestcommit- ment accordingtoits nature knows no compulsion,” that it applies in all its “existential depth” [existentielle Tiefe]onboth individual and general levels. Forthe individual, it is possibleatany time to “either strive toward acompletecommun- ity out of free will[Gemeinschaft aus Freiwilligkeit], adivine kingdom, or,letting himself be covered by the vocation thereto, can degenerate to an indolent or bru- talized subordination.”⁵⁸ On apolitical level, the same principle confirms “the rightful possessor of the commission, the ‘charismatic’ man,” in his authority, yetalsosanctions the misappropriated and abusedauthority of pretenders and the empty license [leere Herrschaftslosigkeit]ofthosewho indulge in “crass licentiousness and enmity not merelytoorder [Ordnung]but to organiza- tion [Gestaltung].”⁵⁹ Theocracy is thus “astrongbastion for the obedient,but also at the same time can be ashelter to the self-seeking behind which he exalts his lack of commitment as divine freedom..⁶⁰ This double-tiered double bind produces an existencefraught with conflict:

The resultofthis is that the truth of the principle must be foughtfor,foughtfor religio-politically. The ventureofaradical theocracy must thereforelead to the bursting-forth of the opposition latent in every people. Those, however,who in this fight represent the case for divine rulership against that of ‘history’,experience therein the first shudder of eschatology.The full, paradoxical character of the human attitude of faith is onlybegun in the situation of the ‘individual’ [Einzelnen]with all its depths;itisdeveloped onlyinthe realre- lationship of this individual to aworld which does not want to be God’s, and to aGod who does not want to compel the world to become His.The Sinai covenant is the first step visible to us on the path through the dark ravine between actualization and contradiction. In Israel it led from the divinelyproudconfidenceofthe earlyking-passages first of all to that first form of resignation with which our Book of Judges ends. ⁶¹

However heightened and theologically-inflected this rhetoric maybe, Buber in- tends to remain within the realm of historicaldescription. The “first shudder of eschatology” occurs for the partisans of the kingship of God when they imag- ine asociety in which all are reconciled to divine rule and no longer seek to usurp or undermine it; in other words, asustainable anarcho-theocracy.More- over,Buber believes that he is describingageneral phenomenon of which the

 Ibid., 138.  Ibid., 149. Notethat while Scheimann’stranslation has “anarchy” here, Buber actuallyuses Herrschaftslosigkeit to describe this negativecondition, whereas elsewhereheuses anarchische to positively describe the characteristicpsychological inclination to freedomofdesert tribes.I have therefore substituted “license” for “anarchy.”  Kingship of God, 148  Ibid., 139. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 81 story of Israel as presented in the Bible is onlyone instance.Recognition of the paradoxoftheocracy leadstothe breakout of conflict and opposition within every people, and within every people the two sides are the same: they “contend in the same name,and always without aclear issue [Ausgang]ofthe quarrel.”⁶² What Buber here counterposes to divine rulership and calls “history,” he refers to elsewhereasRealpolitik,and what he calls Realpolitik is identifiable once again, still elsewhere, as political theology.⁶³ Schmitt sawthe decision on the state of emergency as the act that irrevoca- blylocates sovereignty.Whoever decides that this is the moment that the laws are suspended reveals the ultimatedependence of lawonhis personal authority. Schmitt analogizes the state of exception to the miracle in theology, conceived as aradical interruption of the ordinary course of things. In Buber’spicture, however,interruption occurs in the ordinary course of thingsitself. The injunc- tion to wait reflects avery real dependence on God as the actual sovereign. The Philistines are attacking, and God’sresponse—to empower aleader to organize resistanceortoallow the attack to proceed—will decidewhether astate of emergency reallyexists or not.The human desire to institute amonarchyfor the purposes of defence already reflects the decision,having been made by the people, that astate of emergency in fact exists. They have mistaken the anarchyofinter- regnum, which is theocracy,for the anarchyofemergency, which is chaos. The people have usurped the sovereignty.Alreadyin1918, in “The HolyWay,” which he dedicatedtoGustavLandauer upon its publication ayearlater, Buber called this moment “the true turning point of Jewishhistory.”⁶⁴

 Ibid., 148. The form and natureofthis conflict,however,can vary.For example,Buber con- trasts the “spiritual” polemic of the anti-monarchical judgesand prophets against their fellow Israelites with the “attitude of opposition, determined by religious commandment and urging on to the most gruesome massacres,” assumed by the Kharijitesect of earlyIslam to the whole bodyoftheir co-religionists.Ibid., 159.Buber otherwise finds that the Kharijites mirror the anarcho-theocratic attitude found in Judges in almost every respect (except that “the Khar- ijites want to prevent anyone fromrulingupon whom the Spirit does not rest; by Gideon’s mouth, however,the person on whom the Spirit rests says that he does not want to rule.” Ibid.,160.”  “History” is aterm with manyvalencesinBuber;here, in quotation marks to show that it is beingspoken by the opponents of anarcho-theocracy,itrefers to the notion that the temporal realm of human activity is governed by the lawofforce and necessity.See “What Is to Be Done?” in Pointing the Way,and “The Question to the Single One” in Between Manand Man.  Buber, “The Holy Way: AWord to the Jews and the Nations,” in On Judaism,ed. Nahum Glat- zer (New York: Schocken Books,1995), 117. This is anotable change from his earlier,moretyp- icallyZionist positionthat the turningpoint of Jewish historywas the loss of the state. 82 Samuel Hayim Brody

Thus the contemporary proponents of Realpolitik and political theologycan be considered analogous to those Israelites who misunderstand and abuse the anarcho-theocracy. And they have asimilar program: the establishment of an au- thoritarianstate. In times of peace, they mayhavelittle success, but in times of military crisis, they can capitalize on the people’sfear and defeat the theopolitical faction, the one that urgesthe continual, faithfulwaiting on YHVH. They demand and are granted an enduringmonarchy, with astanding army, like all the other nations have.Buber sees the influenceofthese ancient Israelite political theologians in everythingfrom the redaction of the Book of Judges, wherein what wereoriginallytwo competing polemics, an anti-monarchical and apro- monarchical, become glued together in such away thatthe book assumes a pro-monarchical bias, to the inception of messianism in Israel, when the eventu- al failureand loss of the monarchygiverise to the dream of its restoration:

Then for the first time does the people rebel against the situation which the primitive-prophetic leaders tried, ever anew and ever alikeinvain, to inflame with the theocratic will towardconstitution. The idea of monarchic unification is born and rises against the repre- sentativesofthe divine kingship. And the crisis between the two grows to one of the theocratic impulse itself, to the crisis out of which thereemergesthe human kingofIsrael, the follower of JHWH (12:14), as His ‘anointed’, meshiach JHWH, χριστòςκυριου.”⁶⁵

The shift to Greek at the end of this passageissignificant: the first “messiah” is none other than the human king of Israel, the institutional achievement of the political theologians. He stands behind all the subsequent messiahs, including “Christ the Lord.” LikeSchmitt,Buber here sees “messiah” as acategory thatbe- longstothe authoritarian state; like Dostoevsky,hepits it against God. Ultimately, for Buber,political theologyisaform of idolatry.InKingship of God idolatry comesintwo main forms. The first Buber calls Baalization: the tendency to associate YHVH, the mobile leader-god of the tribe, with the baalim,the stationary fertility gods of the land. In TheProphetic Faith (1950) Buber describes the wayinwhich Elijah combats this tendencybydemonstrating once and for all that YHVH is not onlythe God of the heavens but also of the earth, and that the people do not need to placate anyother powers to achieveagricultural success. Farmoreinsidious than Baalization, however,isthe second idolatry,which Buber calls Molechization. The people understand that the king is responsible for the increase of the tribe’snumbers and for its political success, and that the proper gratitudefor this is the dedicationofthe first-born. YHVH, through the dramatic story of the Akedah and through the institution of the semikha,

 Kingship of God, 162. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 83 both of which substitute an animal for ahuman sacrifice,indicatesthat he is willing to substitute the intention to sacrifice oneself and one’schildren for the sacrifice itself. Some, however,preciselyout of their zeal to servetheir King with the service they deem proper to him, make the mistake of going too far: they pass their children through fire. While Buber actuallyshares Schmitt’sworries about technicity and its attendant draining of the vitality from human life, he does not locate this danger in the increase of administration and the decrease of politics. He asserts rather the precise opposite: thatthe share of qualitative “humanity” in life increases as the share of “politics” decreases. “Politics,” as an independent sphere with its own rules, is nothing but arebellion against God and as such adenial of human nature; “thereisnopolitical realm outside the theopolitical.” The crea- tion of politics as aseparate sphere can onlyoccur as aresult of asophisticated version of Molechization. Of course the people still paylip service to God; they saythat the king is God’sanointed and that his will is God’swill. But when they sacrifice their children to form his fifties and his hundreds, when they allow him to set up altars to the gods of neighboring peoples, “the theocratic principle begins to lose its comprehensive power and to be limited to the merely-religious in order finallymerelytoprovide the intangible shielding of autocracy,asinEgypt and Babylon.”⁶⁶ In this sense,theopolitics declarespolitical theologyitself to be idolatry;anarcho-theocracy declares human authority itself to be usurpation. An interesting resultofthese differences is their effect on Schmitt’scriterion of the political,the notorious friend/enemydistinction.Itcannot be said that Buber’spicture of the ancient Israelite theopolity,and the implications he drawsfrom it,are terriblypacific. In fact,they are radicallytension-filled, far more than we might expect from athinker so heavilyassociated with the idea of “dialogue.” Buber sees adivision not merelywithin the ancient Israelite theopolity,between the faithful theo-politicians and the idolatrous political theologians, but adivision that continues throughout the whole history of Judaism, and in fact thatbreaks out within every people. But it would be impossibleto make this conflict the criterion of adedicated, independent “political sphere.” Instead, this division, which Buber calls “the true front,” divides every individual against himself and every people against itself, and the struggle on this front, which contra Schmitt and Weber can never become the defining principle of a violent conflict between distinct parties, is the onlytrue theopolitical fight:

So long as God contends against the idols thereprevails for the people aclear demarcation: one’sown and that which is alien stand in opposition to one another.Itisamatter of with-

 Kingship of God, 91. 84 Samuel Hayim Brody

standingthe allurements of the alien and to keep one’svows to one’sown. But where God rises against the idolization of Himself the demarcation is clouded and complicated. No longer do two camps stretch out oppositetoone another:here JHWH, there Astarte!, but on every little spot of ground the truth is mixed with the lie. The struggle of exclusiveness is directed toward unmixing, and this is ahard,anawesome work.⁶⁷

Buber expressed this same sentimentthree yearsearlier,inaeulogyfor Landau- er,when he wrotethat “the true front runs through the heart of the soldier; the true front runs through the heart of the revolutionary.” HereBuber,like Landauer himself, is more anarchistic even than most anarchists, denying them the battle against the State as an external forceunless it begins with the battle against the State in ourselves. He seeks to disarm thatState of one of its greatest weapons: the idolatrous languageofreligious legitimation, or political theology.

Conclusion: Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics?

Buber’stheopolitics was refined and elaborated duringthe course of the 1920s, culminatinginthe publication of Kingship of God in 1932. This work was itself originallyintended to be merelythe first installmentinatrilogyonDas Kom- mende,the ComingOne of Israelitemessianism, but the rise of the Nazis and the flight to Palestine interrupted Buber’swork on this project,and parts of it appeared instead in Buber’sseparately-issuedbiblical works,including Moses, TheProphetic Faith,and TwoTypes of Faith. The 1920swerebookended for Buber by the murder of his friend Landauer on May2,1919 by reactionary Frei- korps troops under contract from the SPD,and the publication of his aforemen- tioned eulogyfor his friend in 1929;inbetween, Buber taught at the Lehrhaus, published Iand Thou,and embarked upon the new translation of the Bible with Rosenzweig. There is another figure on whom Buber reflects at the begin-

 Ibid., 112. Morecould be said about the roleofviolenceinBuber’spicture, sincehepresents military defense as aprimary function of the ancient Israelitecharismaticleader.Here, however, Ican onlyrefertoBuber’sown mobilization of theopolitics in the serviceofaradical critique of mainstream Zionism, and also note this Buber-inspired remark of Martin Luther KingJr. in opposition to aconception of non-violencethat,like Weber’s, would exclude those committed to it even from strikes, boycotts,orother direct action: “Imust confess that Iamnot afraid of the word ‘tension.’ Ihaveearnestlyopposed violent tension, but thereisatype of constructive non- violent tension that is necessary for growth… Toolong has our beloved Southland been bogged down in atragic effort to live in monologuerather than dialogue.” King, “Letter fromBirming- ham Jail,” in Why We Can’tWait (New York: Signet Classic, 2000), 67– 68. Buber is referredto explicitlyafew pageslater. Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 85 ning and the end of the next decade: MahatmaGandhi. If Landauer’sanarchism raised the question of the borders of the political for Buber,Gandhi’swork posed it in its trulytheopolitical form, as apuzzle:

So far as Gandhi acts politically, so far as he takes part in passingparliamentary resolu- tions,hedoes not introduce religion intopolitics,but allies his religion with the politics of others.Hecannot wrestle uninterruptedlywith the serpent; he must at time getalong with it because he is directedtowork in the kingdom of the serpent that he set out to de- stroy… The serpent is, indeed, not onlypowerful outside, but also within, in the souls of those wholong for political success… There is no legitimatelymessianic,nolegitimately messianically-intended, politics.But that does not implythat the political spheremay be excluded from the hallowingofall things.The political ‘serpent’ is not essentiallyevil, it is itself onlymisled; it,too,ultimatelywants to be redeemed.⁶⁸

This reflection, with its imageofpolitics as aserpent(redolent of Schmitt’sdis- cussion of Leviathan), is echoed nine yearslater in Buber’sfamous letter to Gan- dhi: “Youonce said, Mahatma, that politics enmesh us nowadays as with serpent’scoils from which there is no escape however hard one maytry.You said youdesired, therefore, to wrestle with the serpent.Hereisthe serpentinthe fullness of its power! Jews and Arabs…”⁶⁹ The Zionist project served as Buber’s arena for the contemporary conflict between theopolitics and political theology; Buber sawGandhi react against the political-theological formofZionism, and he attempted to enlist him in the service of the theopolitical form. The eulogyfor Landauer relates an anecdotethat can serveasamicrocosm for manyofthese points. “Iwas with [Landauer] and several other revolutionary leaders in ahall of the Diet buildinginMunich”:

The discussionwas conducted for the most part between me and aSpartacus leader,who later became well known in the secondcommunist revolutionary government in Munich that replacedthe first,socialist government of Landauer and his comrades.The man walked with clankingspurs throughthe room;hehad been aGerman officer in the war. Ideclined to do what manyapparentlyhad expected of me—to talk of the moral problem; but Iset forth what Ithoughtabout the relation between end and means.Idocumented my view fromhistorical and contemporary experience. The Spartacus leader did not go into that matter.He, too, sought to document his apology for the terror by examples. ‘Dzertshin- sky,’ he said, ‘the head of the Cheka, could signahundred death sentencesaday, but with an entirelyclean soul.’‘That is, in fact,just the worst of all,’ Ianswered. ‘This “clean” soul youdonot allow anysplashes of blood to fall on! It is not aquestion of “souls” but of re-

 Buber, “Gandhi, Politics, and Us,” in Pointing the Way,129,137.  Buber, “Letter to Gandhi,” in Pointing the Way,145. 86 Samuel HayimBrody

sponsibility.’ My opponent regarded me with unperturbedsuperiority.Landauer,who sat next to me, laid his hand on mine. His whole arm trembled.⁷⁰

The anecdote shows that Buber and his interlocutors distinguished between an abstract “moralproblem” and the consummatepolitical question of “the relationship between end and means.” Weber,citing Trotsky approvingly,had defined violence as the meansthat defines the state and thereby the political itself; here, the Spartacist leader echoesthis line.⁷¹ Buber,bycontrast, seems to be ar- guing something other than “what manyapparentlyhad expected” of him, namelythat purity of means are required to guarantee purity of soul. Rather, he claims that aconsonance of ends and meansbelongs, precisely, to the politics of responsibility. He is unable to convince his opponent of this claim; the last line indicatesthat the martyred Landauer at least shared his outlook, but it alsolinks it to Landauer’sfate. The career of the Bavarian Revolution is defined by several stages: the pres- idency of Eisner ends in electoral defeat and assassination, following which a period of turbulence sees the establishment of not one but two “Bavarian Coun- cil Republics,” the first of which is associatedwith Landauer and the anarchists, and the second with the Communists. The latter had ahabit of treatingthe former as though they werepolitical children, insufficientlygrounded in the recognition of the necessity for violence and party leadership; they referred derisively to the “Bavarian Coffeehouse Republic.”⁷² Typical of this type of criticism is the claim that anarchists are toobohemian, which is to saythat they mix up their aesthetics with their politics; they are unable to see and practice the pure politics. This judgment is echoed by anumber of historians;Landauer himself is called “impractical” and “excessivelyromantic” even by proponents of revolutionary change, and “saintly, unpolitical, and inept” by its opponents.⁷³ Like

 Martin Buber, “Recollection of aDeath,” in Pointing the Way,ed. and trans.MauriceFried- man (New York: Schocken Books,1974), 119.  Buber does not identify this figure, but it is most likelyEugen Leviné (1883–1919), who served in the German armyinWorld War1,joined the KPD (the Communist Party of Germany), and is said to have orderedthe shootingofhostagesbythe Red Guards towards the end of April 1919,when hostage-takingfailed to prevent Friedrich Ebert from ordering the destruction of the Second Council Republic and the reinstatement of JohannesHoffmann as Minister-President of Bavaria in May.  Gabriel Kuhn, “Introduction” to Erich Mühsam, Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings:APolitical Reader (Oakland: PM Press, 2011), 20 n60.  “Impractical romantic anarchism,” James Joll, TheSecond International, 1889–1914 (New York: Harper &Row,1966), 64; “excessively romantic,” George Woodcock, Anarchism: AHistory of Libertarian Ideasand Movements (Toronto:University of TorontoPress,2009), 363; “saintly, Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics? 87

Weber,these historians, even when they are unsympathetic to communism, are able to characterize the Communist revolutionaries as politically “realistic,” because the Communists recognize the necessity of the state and of state violence. The anarchists,who denythis necessity,seem to come from an extra-political world, defined as aesthetic or religious.Somehavetaken this critique to heart,and taken up the epithet “antipolitical” as abadge of honor; acontempo- rary edition of Landauer includes two volumes called Antipolitik.⁷⁴ What Buber’stheopolitics claims is that these historians are unwittingly a party to the conflicts they attempt to objectivelydescribe. In taking the side of “realism,” in allowing politics its autonomy, they fall in with one of the oldest forms of idol-worship, and takethe part of Messiah against God. This is by no means surprising,since the party of realism has almostalways outnumbered the theopolitical faithful. It is even possible to be committed to realism in aro- manticway,exaltingone’sown probity and willingness to make hard choices; Goethe himself exalted Schwerer Dienste tägliche Bewahrung, “dailyachievement of difficult tasks,” and ayoung romantic could make aslogan from these words as wellasfrom anyothers of that poet.⁷⁵ One can do the same with Weber’s “Pol- itics means slow,strongdrilling through hard boards.”⁷⁶ What is necessary is to define the exactnatureofwhat is being praised and what condemned,and this is what Buber and Schmitt are each attemptingtodointheir opposing ways. Is theopolitics an antipolitics?Yes, if “politics” is an autonomous realm that prescribes itself its ownlaws. No, if one recalls with Walzer that “antipolitics is a kind of politics,” in this case one oriented towards the realization on earth of the kingship of God in the form of ahuman community whose self-conception is that of God’ssubjects. In Buber’sview this community—which is always emerging and never quite fullypresent in the world, though it could be—is called “Israel.” It is, much like Augustine’scity of God, not to be confused with anygroup of people thatmay call themselvesbythis name,and its work is always atheopolitical work. There is much more to be said about the role of this concept in Bub- er’sunderstanding of biblical history,and his application of it to contemporary

unpolitical, and inept,” Amos Elon, The Pity of It All: APortrait of the German-JewishEpoch, 1743–1933 (New York: Picador,2002),351.  GustavLandauer, Antipolitik. Ausgewählte Schriften, Band 3.1,ed. Siegbert Wolf. Hessen: AV Verlag, 2010.  As indeed Buber himself did, proclaimingthat “no revelation is needed other than this”; MauriceFriedman, Martin Buber’sLife and Work:The Early Years, 1878–1923 (Detroit: Wayne StateUniversity Press, 1988), 20.The line occurs in the seventh stanza of Goethe’s “The Testa- ment of the Ancient Persian Faith”,fromthe West-östlicher Diwan,where it is italicized.  “The Profession and Vocation of Politics,” 369. 88 Samuel Hayim Brody

Zionistpolitics. But for now,this is wherethe discussion of Buber’srelationship to the borders of the political maycome to aclose.