ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author talks about the religious implications of literary and philosophical texts of Martin Buber. He was born in Vienna in 1878. Before 1933, he was a professor at the University of Frankfurt, Germany; from 1938 until his retirement, he was a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In Germany he also participated in various adult education projects, and since the War he has lectured in many countries, including the United States. His influence as a teacher has not been confined to his students at Frankfurt and Jerusalem; many others consider him one of the great teachers of his generation. Hasidim, literally translated, means pious ones; and Hasidism, pietism. The Hasidim whose lore Buber has collected and written about were members of a religious movement founded in the eighteenth century by Israel ben Eliezer. For a view of Hasidism somewhat different from Buber's, see Scholem's Major Trends of Jewish Mysticism.