120 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
- Ibid., 110. Buber uses Kampf; Scheimann renders it “fight” (110), “battle” (110), and
“struggle” (112). - KG 115. The s’mikha, a laying on of hands that signifies an identity transfer, has several
important parallels, including Moses’ transfer of leadership to Joshua and the high priest’s
transfer of sins to the scapegoat on Yom Kippur. - “And they built the shrines of Baal which are in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, where
they offered up their sons and daughters le-molekh—when I had never commanded, or even
thought that they should do such an abomination and so bring guilt on Judah.” The valley of
Ben-Hinnom eventually gives rise to a Jewish concept of hell. - KG 113.
- Ibid., 112. This passage is full of Buber’s favored theopolitical concepts, such as demarca-
tion and the true front. One striking example is appropriate here: “We have passed from the
difficult period of the World War into a period which outwardly seems more tolerable, but on
closer examination proves still more difficult, a period of inner confusion. It is characteristic of
this period that truth and lies, right and wrong, are mingled in its various spiritual and politi-
cal movements in an almost unprecedented fashion.” Buber, “Nationalism,” in LTP 48. - Scholars commonly understand the verse to reference Exodus 13:2: “Consecrate to me
every first-born; man and beast, the first issue of every womb among the Israelites is Mine.” - KG 114.
- My paraphrase of Buber’s argument on 113 and 195n32.
- Ibid., 116.
- Here Buber plays into a Protestant conception of “mere” ritual embedded in contempo-
rary Religionswissenschaft; he even refers to “the great Protestantism of the prophets,” mean-
ing a kind of general “religio-historical category” that could potentially apply to any tradition.
Ibid., 116, 199n32. - Ibid., 118. My emphasis.
- Ibid., 121.
- Ibid., 124–125, 126, 128.
- Ibid., 126. Religionswissenschaft of the time contrasted “historical” religions with “na-
ture” religions. The latter interpret historical events according to a cosmic conception that
reads them all as part of an eternal, natural movement. - Gerhard von Rad’s challenge stems from textual evidence rather than a general theory
of religion; Buber responds to him in the 1936 preface; ibid., 37. - Ibid., 133. Buber rejects efforts to date the Song of the Sea to make it contemporary with
the Psalms, just as he rejects efforts to regard a verse in the Blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy
33:5, “There was a king in Jeshurun,” as an alternative to the Sinai covenant. These arguments
preserve the singularity of the Sinai covenant as a theopolitical occurrence. - Buber devotes a four-page footnote to refuting scholars who assign the Balaam passage
(Numbers 23:21) to a postmonarchical period. He also notes that the rabbis of the Tannaitic
period combined these three verses (the Song of the Sea, the Blessing of Moses, and the praise
of Balaam) to form the malkhuyot, recited in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. - KG 142–145.
- Ibid., 144–145.
- Ibid., 131. One might expect a different conclusion, considering the use of the book of
Joshua by Zionist thinkers. Chapter 7 returns to this point. On David Ben-Gurion’s use of the
book of Joshua, see Rachel Havrelock, River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2011), 85–105. - KG 146–147.
- Ibid., 149.