Not sure how many have read this? Oddly enough I am far removed in my personal outlook since I read it almost 20 years ago. However as a “non-believer” I was profoundly moved by this little book. It is religious in nature. At the time I was reading a lot of religious books. Really trying to come terms with what people saw in them. I thought like many young people do that I might find a strand of truth running through the middle of them. This lead me to mysticism and eventually I bumped into this book. If anyone has read it perhaps you can tell me what you thought. It was not the specific details which spoke to me but rather it was the simple suggestion that our relation to the world does not just define the world but ourselves as well. Although I am not religious I still think it was beautiful. Anyone agree or perhaps vehemently disagree. (If possible avoid profane responses)
I remember appreciating the tone and the basic meaning he presented, but I also remember something about two people sitting on a park bench communicating magically or something? Maybe I misunderstood him at the time, but I couldn’t figure out what why he felt the need to introduce superstitious ideas into an otherwise intelligent and well-meaning discourse. Again, this was a long time ago, and perhaps I misunderstood him.
I would recommend the movie by Ermano Olmi, Ciento Chiodi. It is in Italian, but perhaps you can find it with subtitles. The basic tread that unites the work of Olmi and of Buber is the existentialist command to make the secular sacred, the mundane divine. In a scene, the protagonist says that all the books of the world are not worth one cup of coffee with a friend (paraphrased). The mundane, the secular here is the sipping on a cup of joe with a friend, and yet this simple event is worth the holiest of books because it carries the essence of all their writs. Kaufmann put it simply in his prologue to the book:
“The sacred is here and now. The only God worth keeping is a God that cannot be kept. The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about. God is no object of discourse, knowledge or even experience. He cannot be spoken of, but he can be spoken to; he cannot be seen, but he can be listened to. The only possible relationship with God is to address Him and to be addressed by Him, here and now- or as Buber puts it, in the present.”
In the movie a hundred nails are used to nail to the floor a hunder books inside a catholic university’s library. The man who does this is a man who has lost faith in books. It is a love hate relationship that man has kept over the centuries with written records. There is something that they miss, and that which they miss is what is worth keeping. God is in our awe, in our adoration, but most importantly, in our acts rather than in our ideas. We are what we do and not what we think.
Some thought that Buber was making a critique of Christianity, but while that might be true, it is also a critique of modernity, of reductionism. Then and today, I am moved by this book.
[quote=“omar”]
I would recommend the movie by Ermano Olmi, Ciento Chiodi. It is in Italian, but perhaps you can find it with subtitles. The basic tread that unites the work of Olmi and of Buber is the existentialist command to make the secular sacred, the mundane divine. In a scene, the protagonist says that all the books of the world are not worth one cup of coffee with a friend (paraphrased). The mundane, the secular here is the sipping on a cup of joe with a friend, and yet this simple event is worth the holiest of books because it carries the essence of all their writs. Kaufmann put it simply in his prologue to the book:
“The sacred is here and now. The only God worth keeping is a God that cannot be kept. The only God worth talking about is a God that cannot be talked about. God is no object of discourse, knowledge or even experience. He cannot be spoken of, but he can be spoken to; he cannot be seen, but he can be listened to. The only possible relationship with God is to address Him and to be addressed by Him, here and now- or as Buber puts it, in the present.”
Thanks Omar. That’s just what I found in the book. I don’t live in the “here and now” much anymore but I still recognize it. It’s a trade off I suppose. The problem is philosophy and science deal mostly with the past and future. While I recognize the importance of the “here and now” for me personally I also recognize the importance of intellectual endeavors that takes us away from it. Some sort of balance might be healthier though.
