Why Did Martin Buber Abandon Mysticism? ft. Paul Mendes-Flohr

Рет қаралды 5,998

Күн бұрын

Martin Buber is a name that will forever be associated with mysticism and philosophy. His book, I and Thou, continues to touch the lives of thousands. There is perhaps no person who has done more to preserve and present his work than world-renown Buber scholar, Paul Mendes-Flohr. In this conversation we explore Buber's transition from Mysticism to Dialogue.
Professor Paul Mendes-Flohr is a leading scholar of modern Jewish thought.
He has written some thirty books, edited another forty-five, and authored some 300 articles on modern Jewish intellectual history, philosophy and religious thought, with a focus on the lives and ideas of the leading German-Jewish intellectuals of the 19th and 20th-centuries: Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem and Leo Strauss.
Paul is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History and Thought at the University of Chicago, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Senior Research Fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, was the director of the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center and is the editor in chief of the twenty-two volume German edition of the collected works of Martin Buber, as well as a series on German-Jewish literature and Cultural History.
Some of his recent works include:
Gustav Landauer. Anarchist and Jew (2014).
Dialogue as a Trans-Disciplinary Concept (2015).
Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (2019).
Cultural Disjunctions: Post-Traditional Jewish Identities (2021).
00:00 Excerpt
00:54 Introducing Paul Mendes-Flohr
02:41 Why Mysticism?
3:39 Buber and Mysticism
6:25 Ecstatic Confessions
07:28 Story time
08:27 Escapist Mysticism & Hasidism
10:25 Buber, Do you believe in God?
11:19 Buber philosophy of Dialogue
15:14 The Eternal Thou
17:13 Shalom
19:29 Judaism isn’t a political identity
22:11 How did you come to Buber?
26:43 Translating I and Thou
29:22 Buber vs Gnosticism
34:18 Hearing vs Listening
36:33 I & Thou
38:01 Where is Buber today?
39:29 The Academy
41:12 Buber and Palestine
44:28 From Mysticism to Dialogue
50:24 The Reluctant Prophet
56:47 A Positive formulation of Judaism
1:03:47 To be a Child
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Пікірлер: 25

@madsenketty Жыл бұрын

I too lost my mother when I was 3 years old. Overnight she went from Du to Ze. I now realize why my whole life I have been securing my relationships in the ‘du’, so I never had to ask, ‘where did my mommy go?’ Well, I asked today from the deepest recesses of my heart ❤️. Thank you.

@rkmh9342 Жыл бұрын

8th to like! Thank you for the fantastic and illuminating conversation! Buber is not wrong. if a spiritual or religious practice fails in the one point of contact with reality that actually matters, it is best to write it off as self-delusion. I cannot see any other 'good' to be sought in spiritual or religious discipline or practice but to develop discernment. If your mysticism does not support discernment of one's own motivations and the discernment of the real needs of those who come to you suffering, it is not what you think it is [by definition lol]. this touchstone with reality -- of being there for others -- is the antidote to the self-aggrandizing tendencies of spiritual attainment. it just does not matter what spiritual states you attain; if you are not there for those who are suffering, your time would have been better spent learning wisdom from self-indulgence. Granted, mystical states are a crucial part of getting ahead in a life where the "soil is cursed to us" but the only test of whether those mystical states are gifts of grace is the fruit they bear for the alien, the widow, the orphan and the oppressed. One may vigorously study the Torah and have all sorts of visions of the scriptures but if your life does not bear fruit of grace, any spiritual attainment is not of grace but self-delusion. Not a disciple of his, but he was not wrong when he said that we know a tree by its fruit. Much love! All order is an emergent structure supervening on random fluctuations in a field of chaos. And when emergent structures are dynamic systems far from equilibrium, life. When life manifests from principles of self-worth, reality. When reality expresses self-worth in the love for a neighbour that is the love for oneself, medicine. We are the Medicine. i choose a life of healing. I hope you find the healing you seek.

@IpsissimusPrime Жыл бұрын

I was finally able to listen to the conversation. The audio was a bit problematic at times but I was able to follow it overall. I am reminded of the disagreement Buber had with Jung (along with Victor White from the Christian Theological side) about his “Answer to Job”. And it’s Job’s story specifically which reminds me of what it means to be a mystic. Hopefully everyone reading this knows that story which is about theodicy, or why God permits evil in the world. I see a parallel relationship between the person of Job as a pious man who undergoes severe trials and the true mystic (and here I specifically am referring to someone that has had a real sapiential experience akin to what we are told of Moses and what I as a Christian have found through the writings of Dionysus the Areopagite’s THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY among others. My emphasis on “true” has to do with the totally alien character of such an experience which has no connection to our waking reality. IMO this path seems to have been more accessible in the ancient past (perhaps via an oral tradition now lost) and has been effectively lost in our post-modern world despite it’s continued possibility). And as if the actual mystical experience of ineffability were not enough, how is it possible to “return” from such an ecstatic experience and then deal with “this” wholly other reality? It is a complete feeling of EXILE, pure and simple. And ironically, it is the feeling of exile and the desire for restoration which is reflected in the history of the Abrahamic faiths when we study the development of the scriptural texts. SO one must be reminded of the ultimate unknowability of “God” (whether you’re coming from a background of Eastern religion or from any of the Abrahamic religions), and not just for non-mystics, but for the mystics themselves! So what’s the answer to our perpetual conundrum of earthly strife? The Golden Rule: Treat others as you would treat yourselves. Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai understood this after the destruction of the Second Temple, as did Isaac Luria centuries later after the Sephardic diaspora. It’s woefully apparent however that this is easier said than done.

@dreforeman1707 Жыл бұрын

Looking forward to this

@Darisiabgal7573 Жыл бұрын

You know life sometimes confronts a person with challenges. A person commits suicide. A person gets shot. And we think aha, somehow this is my fault. A kind of survivals guilt. You cannot fix the past only the future. If life is without pain or suffering we do not evolve, and we are not perfect, we are born in the image and likeness of the animistic and we must always be seeking to uphold the divine inner self, and it is certain that due diligence or not will result in failures. We are forgiven, there are many fingers that can reach out, they are not all at the ends of ones hands. I want to say this, i have been confronted with situations in the past, people ended up dead, i probably could have intervened, but the words could not come to me, how could they, I was not born with the wisdom of a sage. Having experienced that in the past, when it flew into my face again, the wisdom came, the chain of ill was broken, the train set back on its track. It often takes alot to derail trains, mystics cannot expect to put them all back. The task of the mystic, foremost is to help natural mystics find their way, to respect their abilities and avoid the profane. The other task of the mystic is to remain reverent to the past ones, to the wisdom of the ages, to keep the mind open so that they can hear the voice of wisdom on the rare occassions that they need to. The third task is to watch those who arent mystics, because it is through the mystics that the past ones can carry the future forward. I dont wrap my mysticism up in a godhead, i have an understanding of what the divine is without the flashy wrapper of religion. What religions calls divine I call profane. Nor do I seek great understanding, Jesus Christ or visions of heaven. In meditation i push the door open, if the sprites of the past are willing, they will come through, rarely. Otherwise, I fall gently asleep. There is no divine place except the self-within, no chosen person except the reserved wisdom of the inner mystic, no sacred land except the chasm between life and death and no divine image except what the minds eye, free from the distractions of desires of flesh or spirit, sees. When I needed answers they were given, when I need instructions, i was instructed, when i was asked for help, i helped. When i was worried that things were ok, I was consoled. The world is not evil, its beautiful, moreso when we cherish the abundance and diversity of life than when we cherish our own desires. The problem of evil is a problem unless you understand the notion that improvement begins in solitude and recruits the plentitude. The world does not heal except through the fabric of the spirit from within, joining and toiling to repair that which is neglected. When you argue this man, the people, this place are evil, you argue that you are good and they are bad. Likewise they argue they are good and you are bad. But every place has people whose land came to them through the spilling of blood. Its not because of the divine, its because the beautiful Earth is trapped into the spilling of blood to be vital. It is up to the spiritul to unsnare the earth from its trap when appropriate. The way to do is to reserve judgement, understand that each man has both evil and good within himself and seek to bring out that good. Divinity is like a great fruit, it contains the wisdoms of all of all the ages, but some wisdoms trap themselves in false logic, they see something on the horizon, but they are looking at their backs. They dont know they are doing this because they fear facing others, different from themselves. When you realize that you are closing yourself into your inevitable future, you reach out to discover what you are missing, and the spiritual world opens up in front and you can hear all the voices.

@kariannecrysler640 Жыл бұрын

Wonderful descriptions. I enjoyed seeing your thoughts and the path you follow. Thank you so much for sharing 😊

@kariannecrysler640 Жыл бұрын

🍀🐢💚

@moonpluto Жыл бұрын

The EQ has a huge bump in the low mids around 200-300Hz. Makes it hard to hear clearly and a lot gets missed as the speakers voice is hoarse. Feel free to do a cut at that frequency and repost.

@SeekersofUnity Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much Moon Pluto. I'm still tryna figure out audio side of things. If you'd like to walk me through what you're saying that would be very much appreciated. hmu seekersofu@gmail.com

@kariannecrysler640 Жыл бұрын

Wonderful gentleman. I found your channel by seeking knowledge of how people all over the world think about it. What influences guide thoughts & actions. My culture is quite odd in comparison to a vast number in the world. I want the knowledge so that I can be a better person to those I meet. To be more respectful of the things that in my life seems trivial but to others it’s vital. I believe knowledge like this is necessary for the communication needed to fix the problems in the world that affects everyone. In many instances it’s the miscommunications that have created strife. So happy to have found this channel and it’s open and meaningful exploration of humanity.😊💚

@SeekersofUnity Жыл бұрын

Glad you found us Kari. Welcome to the community :)

@shadowswallow Жыл бұрын

Please consider captioning this video!! What I could understand of the content is absolutely fascinating, but Dr Mendes-Flohr is so soft spoken that I had a hard time parsing what he was saying. Unfortunately the English auto-captions don't handle Hebrew/German/Yiddish/Arabic words very well. 😅

@mediocrates3416 Жыл бұрын

When the establishment is sound, the victorious (I don't like "enlightened") should help the needy. When the establishment is not sound; then, like it, the victorious are the needy. And gnosis is characterised by a mode of knowing, first and foremost. It doesn't have to be harsh dualism. If the church actually used the keys, i probably wouldn't have had to look back in time to see it. Greek gnosis was a target of the establishment; still is.

@alohm Жыл бұрын

Wonderful work. We do need to fix teh auto transcript as there are some real awful and sometimes humorous - other times horrifying mistakes(might affect the channel metrics with some). Excellent work. Thanks for sharing.

@SeekersofUnity Жыл бұрын

Thanks friend. This episode had particularly bad audio. My apologize. It was the first time using some new equipment. I hope it's been better since then/

@alohm Жыл бұрын

@@SeekersofUnity The audio is not perfect, but that is all the more reason for an improved transcript for these issues and for those needing the assistive aid. You can ask the audience to help, it might be a cool thing for your audience to do. They mistranslated some words making the meaning lost if you were only reading - but it also added some verboten words that need to be fixed asap..

@IpsissimusPrime Жыл бұрын

Given that the Mystical experience is the fount of religion as we know it, specifically the Abrahamic religions, which despite their divergent characters are in fact a triad, this issue gets at exactly why visionary experience is important to begin with. This should be the focus of Theology. To have promoted religious beliefs on the basis of the profound visionary experience of Moses for instance only to say it needs to be discarded now cuz it doesn’t fit reality as one commentator below states is nonsense. More on my thoughts later.

@Darisiabgal7573 Жыл бұрын

There are many views and I have my own. Mysticism, imho, was from the beginning, but in near eastern religion the signs of mysticism appear early. The Jewish notion of heaven as aspoused in Ezekial is borrowing from Assyrian/Babylonian notions, notions that were built up over time. The initial kernal may have not been mystic. The patron god of Uruk, a growing white temple, his abode, and the connections between earth and sky, but through myth, prayer, and practiced meditation these myths evolved into a heavenly landscape. I think that mysticism was a feed into religion that was often twisted by non-mystics for their use. The original 'christians' (pardon the utter misuse of the word) were serious practicing mystics. But the mysticism they practiced has largely been scrubbed or cloistered in the church. Desert mytsics and mountain mystics in christianity are barely a thing. If anything christians are adopting eastern mysticism back into christianity. We have to look at two kinds of religious power. 1. The unfettered but reverent mystic 2. The ecclesia. And christianity is the best example, it tried to postumous adopt heresy as part of its ecclesia. On the one hand its saying the ebionites were neither christian and jews, and on the otherhand they claim they can follow succesion through the apostles, including James, but James was an Evyon. The religious, often with starry eyes focused on the heavens dont often see or even understand the mystical origins of their religion, that knowledge has been replaced by doctrine. Moreover religions often dont see the debt they owe to other religions. If you ask an orthodox Jew or Christian, what debt of spiritual faith they owe to the mesopotamians they will probably give you a raised eyebrow. But long before the first desert mystic following Yah of the volcanoe, the mystics of Ea, Yahwehs predecessor were traveling to the red sea to practice the craft of the desert sage and then returning to mesopotamia to guide kings. the Apkallu. There was a similar sage tradition in the mediterranean, Oannis, Jonah. Religions are about cloistered doctrines, parcels of belief walled off for the sake of creating us versus them identities. The mystic is the mind open to all the possibilities hopefully with wisdom to filter these out to come to helpful understandings. If you want much on this earth, then favor your kind, marshall your thinking. If you want to engage the meaning and the being of life everlasting, a closed mind only locks you in a dark everlasting loop.