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.