http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-buber.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Buber.html
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/buber.html
http://www.zionism-israel.com/bio/Martin_Buber.htm
http://nlu.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resources/martinbuber.cfm
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/buber.shtml
http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Scholz.htm
Book : "The Philosphy Of Martin Buber" by PAUL ARTHUR SCHILPP
Martin Buber
Friday, 4 May 2012
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Challenges Faces By Following Convictions
Martin Buber was a very well respected man in his time. This was mostly due to the fact that he dedicated much of his time into helping others in finding purpose in life and gain knowledge about religion, both in teaching children and adults. Buber never did try to completely alter other peoples ideas but rather build upon them and reconstruct them to get to be able to share points of view mutually which proved to be an effective style. Overall Buber rarely faced people who challenged him for what he believed in, mainly because Buber was hardly confident in himself and wouldnt try to override someone else on their opinion. However, Martin Buber did indeed often face personal struggles. He often had a feeling of homesickness from something he could never grasp. He wasn't sure what it might have been, but it may be a sense of attraction toward, and fear of mysticism and parapsychology. Buber often faced feelings of fear, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, and sensitivity. Martin Buber has a very serious and mature attitude toward most all aspects of life. Buber, through all his hard work, often limited his ability by being too careful, shy, or fearful, he often did not believe in himself due to his unique views at this time. When under stress Buber often became overly focused on himself in his own little world. Through Buber's work he often had but shifts on being concerned about him self and being concerned with others needs, rights, and opinions about him. Aside from his own personal conflicts, there's one other minor problem faced by Buber with others. Until the actual establishment of the state of Israel, the nature of the future Jewish community in Palestine divided Zionism opinion. The idea of a sovereign political state was not shared among everyone. This was not a good thing because Zionism works around the idea of a movement of all Jewish people to their homeland and resumption of Jewish sovereignty in Israel. Buber was overall associated with the trend in Zionism that was wary of having political sovereignty, Buber was worried that this goal would develop an arrogant type personality in his people that come up during World war 1, this was a big struggle for him as he did not want to destroy the morals and ideas of his own religion but did not want to get into trouble and go through the suffering in which they would if they'd followed their beliefs completely. This caused a lot of compromising as followers of religions tend to be very objective of what it stands for and often forget to look at the big picture, Buber worked to teach and educate to keep people in a peaceful state and not work towards trouble and was successful enough for what he could control.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Mission Statement and Philosophies.
Martin Buber was very dedicated to Judaism, however he reached out to people of all faiths. Buber strongly liked a "philosophy of dialogue" encouraging the sharing of insights to humanity and it's relationship with God. Buber believed that Orthodox Jews, who make simple tasks rituals making these task routines significant, are not uniquely Jewish, but rather human. Buber believed that any type of faith was about personal commitment to the Creator, and to have faith was to completely commit to certain acts of faith. To completely commit and give yourself fully to God is important within existentialism, and this includes Christian's also. Overall, with this theory Buber helped to let others find meaning and purpose in humans, it can relate to the Jewish community as well as the Christian community, as we try to give our whole life to God and be fully true to God also. Next, A further theory which helped him to teach others about what he believed in as an educator was his philosophy of education which he wrote and published many essays about. Buber argued that the opposite of compulsion and discipline is communion, not freedom. He believed that a student is neither entirely active or completely passive when learning, and that the ability to learn lies in the trust between the educator and the student. To put this into more practical terms Buber believed strongly that sitting there and feeding students information will not allow them to learn, but rather just be informed. He believed that in order for someone to be truly educated, they must be interested and want to absorb the information so that it will stick with them. This in part is what he believed allowed him to get his beliefs across to others and educate as well as help others through his part of his life as an educator utilizing strategies that would allow students to gain trust in him and truly learn.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Buber's Contribution To Society
Buber had many ways of contributing to society in his lifetime. Early in life, Buber translated many literary texts including the Bible (to German) with help from his knowledge of many languages, the translation of the Bible actually turned out to influence his theories in many ways anyway so he got something out of this contribution also. Next, during the first world war, Buber helped in the founding of the Jewish National Commission which promoted bettering the lives of Eastern Jews from Europe, Buber was often quick to do any type of work that involved helping others. Another Contribution that Buber had to society was from 1923-1933 where Buber was a professor of Jewish theology along with the history of religion at Frankfurt University. Buber was the only Jew in the university as it was a German school, this later would quickly become an off limits situation as Jewish students were not allowed in university near the Holocaust. This is when Buber became Central Office Director of Jewish Adult Education. Buber later taught Hebrew in 1938 in Israel at the University of Jerusalem. He was an advocate for bettering relations between Israelites and Arabs. Buber also wrote and published a book in 1923, "I and Thou", this was mainly about teaching the Judeo-Christian tradition and relationships between people and others or other things. This book shows Buber's thought process of how humans are interconnected. Also above all this he contributed philosophical knowledge to the world as mentioned before. Overall Martin Buber was a great asset to society on providing others with knowledge on human purpose and education and helping bettering the relationships between others.
Religious Affiliation
Knowing that Buber did indeed create many of his theories and teaching around spiritualism (mostly Hasidism and Jewish mysticism), we can get a look on his religious viewpoint. Solomon Buber, Martins grandfather, believed that spiritual enlightenment of one another was achieved through the study through the laws of the Jewish people. We know now that Buber believed strongly the idea that direct dialogue with God creates a relationship that supports what Jewish ideology is about. This is because dialogue does not necessarily have to mean an exchange of words, it can also be silent, as long as each participant in the dialogue has the other or others in mind and turns to them to establish a relationship, just as we turn to God and God is always with us. Buber believed that there are indeed direct relationships between God and man. Furthermore, Buber also was usually able to look at the similarities in other religions to help influence his own beliefs and bring ideas together, Christianity was one of these. The Judeo-Christian influence is what proved to be the largest impact on Martin Buber's own religious philosophy. The idea of open conversation with God was linked to Buber's Hasidic background that highlighted the importance of ritual, community, and law. Buber believed that God is our help and nobody else. He did not believe IN Jesus but rather WITH him, he believed that the Jews will recognize Jesus as not just a great figure in the history of religion, but also in the context of a Messianic development over a long period of time, and that his final goal is to redeem Israel and the world. However he did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah to come as we Christians do, as this would contradict the deepest meaning of his idea that redemption occurs forever and has not yet occurred. He believed that the bloody body demonstrates for people the unredeemed world, and that everything is not the cause of Jesus, but the cause of God. Buber's beliefs about the Messiah in Christianity differed greatly for the regular Jewish beliefs. As a Jew, it is clear that Buber did not believe Jesus to be the messiah, but did believe Jesus' faith in God as a Jew. Overall, Buber shares many of the Jewish beliefs, but also takes from parts of Christianity and a bit from other religions in order to further his education on religion, and not be so objective when it comes to the big picture.
Monday, 30 April 2012
The History Of Martin Buber
Martin Buber was a Jewish philosopher and educator primarily contributing to the Field of 'dialogue'. Buber believed strongly that we as individual human beings are on an important quest for open dialogue with God, Buber was a leader by example and displayed this through not only his teachings but his actions. Martin Buber was born February 8, 1878 in Vienna, Austria. Buber was left by his mother at about the age of 3 and ended up being sent to live with his grandparent on his fathers side, Soloman and Adele,in a home in Lambert, the capital of Austria at that time. Buber was privately tutored until the age of 10, Buber's grandparents took education very seriously and this stuck with Buber. Solomon then gifted Martin with the understanding to study the Jewish law deeper, along with Mysticism and Talmud. However Adele, Martins grandmother, contributed to him in a young age through passing on a love for books, helping him to learn and speak many different languages allowing him to excel as a translator and German author. As for Education, Buber attended a few universities of Vienna to study art to earn a Ph. D. then going on to teach religion and philosophy. Buber then went in to study Zionism, he believed Zionism, the founder of Jewish homeland would enlighten his theories and perspectives for his life. He then met who he would later be his wife, Paula Winkler, a writer who wrote under the name of Georg Munk. Buber's theories worked mainly around spiritualism, especially Hasidism and Jewish mysticism. Buber was quick to back the idea that direct dialogue between man and God create what Jewish ideology truly is about. As an educator however, Buber believed that each individual brought a unique perspective to the learning environment and explored the ideas of religion, ethics, social philosophy, marriage, education, psychology and art, but most importantly, Buber was able to extract the big ideas and common factors of other religions to try to bring others together. Buber passed away june 13, 1965 but left an everlasting impact on the world of religion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)