Martin Buber (February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish philosopher and theologian best known for his philosophy of dialogue, explored in his work I and Thou, which focuses on man's relation with other beings, particularly exemplified in the relation with other men but resting on and pointing to the relation with God. He was also a Zionist who promoted Jewish cultural renewal through his studies of Hasidic Judaism.
Buber was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to a family of Orthodox Jews: Carl Buber, an agronomist, and Elise née Wurgastan. Buber was the direct descendant of 16th-century rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, or Maharam of Padua. He got a twisted lower lip from faulty obstetrical forceps, and he would eventually grow his famous beard to cover it up.
When he was three years old, Elise left Buber and her husband to elope with a Russian officer, and Buber was sent to Lemberg (Now Lviv, Ukraine) to be raised by his paternal grandparents, Salomon and Adele Buber, until he was 14 years old. Salomon was a scholar of midrash and rabbinic literature, and his scholarship opened the doors for Martin when he became interested in Zionism and Hasidic literature. His grandparents were also wealthy, with Adele managing the Galician estate and Solomon enhancing the wealth through mining, banking, and commerce, leaving Martin financially secure until the Germans occupied Poland and expropriated the estate in 1939. Before then, Martin was homeschooled, learning Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, and German while eventually acquiring Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and English.
Tropes in the works of Buber:
- Pascal's Wager: A variation of this comes up in an anecdote involving him and an atheist. The atheist demanded that Buber prove the existence of God, but Buber, who believed that the existence of God could neither be proved nor disproved, declined, so the atheist stormed out in anger. However, as the atheist was leaving, Buber asked "But can you be sure there is no God?" Forty years later, that same atheist wrote "I am still an atheist. But Buber's question has haunted me every day of my life."
