116 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
advance in German and Hebrew publications. I plan to publish it as a separate book.” However,
in the 1964 edition of Buber’s We rk e, Buber updates this note to say that he never finished the
book; ZWB 489. Confusingly for English readers, Scheimann’s 1967 translation of KG, despite
having been largely finished in the mid-1960s while Buber was still alive, reproduces the 1956
version of the note rather than the updated 1964 version from the We rk e. As for the projected
third volume, which was never titled, Buber’s 1956 footnote states: “I have abandoned the writ-
ing of the third volume; nevertheless its fundamental ideas have been set forth in my book Der
Glaube der Propheten (1950), 180–334 (cf. also my book Zwei Glaubensweisen, 1950, pp. 103–16).”
Thus our discussions of PF in chapter 6 and of Two Types of Faith in chapter 8 both keep Das
Kommende in mind as the original framework for the ideas in these books.
- KG 18–19.
- I prefer the use of “YHVH” to “the Lord.” See Note on Translation and Transliteration.
- KG 136; Buber, SM 174.
- KG 118.
- Classically represented by Deuteronomy 6:5, and later the opening line of the first para-
graph of the Shema prayer in rabbinic liturgy. Most scholars, however, believe Deuteronomy
was written later than other books of the Torah, certainly long after the monarchy had arisen.
To represent Solomon as retreating from this motto, Buber first must suggest that the written
motto is only a latter-day transcription of ancient oral wisdom, a suggestion characteristic of
his biblical scholarship. - KG 119. Emphasis Buber’s. The term aufheben, often translated as “overcome” or “sub-
late,” is freighted with Hegelian philosophical ballast. - The continual use of the Greek term charis, rather than a Hebrew term, probably reflects
the influence of Weber’s widely known theory of charisma. Charis has connotations of gratu-
itousness, of free gift, comparable to the Hebrew chesed. - Buber acknowledges that Weber’s account of hierocracy in Economy and Society does
not “touch upon our problem,” but he appropriates the term anyway, because it aids him in
drawing the contrast to theocracy; KG 215n15. - KG 140.
- Ibid., 141.
- Ibid., 149. The continuation of the text in English, together with the fact that Buber sup-
posedly reviewed Scheimann’s translation, poses a problem for us here. The English continues:
“And the most faithful of all profess to do it in order to have to follow no one.” The German
text, however, reads: “Freilich, die Gläubigen harren der Gnade, als der allein sie folgen wol-
len, und die Allerungläubigsten geben vor es zu tun, um niemand folgen zu müssen”; SM 186.
Scheimann has “most faithful” where Buber has Allerungläubigsten, the most unfaithful ones!
This drastically changes his meaning; what seemed like an intensification is really a contrast.
The context helps clarify: the unfaithful say that they are waiting, like the faithful, for a new
charismatic leader, but in fact they want only to gain from the perceived absence of author-
ity to assert their own power. (It may also matter whether we read geben vor as “profess” or
“pretend”: Should we understand that the unfaithful are also dishonest, feigning allegiance to
the idea of freedom? Or are they forthrightly declaring their intention to do what they will?)
I thank Eric Santner for noting this, and Ari Linden for his thoughts. My earlier discussion
of this passage neglected this item; Samuel Hayim Brody, “Is Theopolitics an Antipolitics?
Martin Buber, Anarchism, and the Idea of the Political,” in Dialogue as a Trans-Disciplinary
Concept, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 79. - In a remarkable literary-critical footnote on this passage, Buber suggests an emenda-
tion of Numbers 27:18–21, the calling of Joshua, to eliminate references to Eleazar the priest,
characterizing them as “hierocratizing revision.” KG 215n21.