180 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
The first five chapters trace the relationship described in the Song of Debo-
rah, “YHVH God of Israel,” back to Joshua’s assembly of the people at Shechem,
back further to Sinai, and back further to Abraham, then forward to Sinai again.
The basic contention is that “the true original nomad faith” of Abraham is a
personal revelation that prefigures the collective revelation at Sinai.^18 Abraham
is compelled by his experience of God to modify the nomadic religion of the
Semites, who worshipped moon gods as “gods of the way,” by proclaiming a god
who is also a god of the way, but with several crucial differences: he leads at all
times, not only under moonlight; he leads where he wills rather than helping
the tribe get where it wants to go; he communicates to the one he has chosen,
by distinguishing the chosen one from others. Abraham’s hījra is defined by a
straying that is perceived as a being-led.^19 The decision to follow such leadership
demands committed and loving devotion. These elements remain present in the
move from Genesis to Exodus; the family led by the road god becomes the people
led through the desert. Finally, the political rulership that is embodied at Sinai
through the constitution of Israel as a people with God as its king is prefigured
in the patriarchal narratives as well: “A coming deity like this could not acknowl-
edge any domain in the universe or life, on which he set foot, remaining outside
his sway; whoever had possession of the place and sphere was forcibly put down
from his throne, or was clearly shown to be the substitute of the coming deity,
or even to be identified with this very deity.”^20 This explains why there is no war
between YHVH and the Elim of the patriarchal age, the way there will be in later
years against the Baalim—the El Elyon of Abimelech is simply recognized by
Abraham to be his very own god, who subjects all of life to his rule.
What Buber says about Sinai here strongly emphasizes the fact that “Israel
only exists as ‘YHVH’s people’... ‘coming to YHVH’s help’ and ‘blessing’ Him,
and he who does not belong in this sense to YHVH’s people does not belong
to Israel.”^21 Indeed, Buber proclaims, “No one can declare himself [entscheiden/
להתיחש] for Israel without declaring himself for YHVH,” a statement that reso-
nates beyond the circumscribed world of textual criticism into the contempo-
rary political context of that criticism.^22 The entity “Israel” is created here, its
very name testifying to the sovereignty of its ruler (Buber supposes, with Martin
Noth, that the original meaning of the word Israel is not “God fights” but “God
rules”). The “holy event” (Heiliges Ereignis, קדוש מאורע) that creates this people
(Buber’s definition of holy event parallels his description of “miracle” in Moses),
however, creates it only as potentiality, as “holy people” that shall be, and due to
the eventual failure of the people to respect the divine sovereignty and to attain
this status, “after the people had broken the covenant again and again, this cat-
egory changed and was replaced by the Messianic promise and hope.”^23
The institutions Moses ordained are intended to aid the people in attaining
their holy status, that is, to help Israel become Israel. The chapter “Holy Event”