42 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
and the masses. The “resistant” masses are no longer merely artistically uncre-
ative; they are capitalistically driven. Zionism is therefore not a matter of mass
immigration and colonization, but a project for a small core interested in real-
izing Judaism.^150
At first, the Judaism of The Holy Way seems to closely resemble the Juda-
ism of the first six “Speeches on Judaism,” with their interest in unconditionality
and realization. As Mendes-Flohr has pointed out, however, there is now a new
emphasis on the category of the Between (das Zwischenmenschliche), an impor-
tant indicator of the way that Buber’s conception of human existence is under-
going a shift at this time, concurrently with the developments described here.^151
Also noteworthy is the way Buber retains the idea of “European dualism,” which
“sanctions the splitting of man’s being into two realms, each existing in its own
right and independent of the other—the truth of the spirit and the reality of life,”
but drops the contrast to an “Oriental” or “Asiatic” opposite.^152 Instead, “Judaism”
operates alone here, not as the expression of a general Eastern spirit but as the
specific revelatory task of the Jewish people. Buber no longer considers Judaism
a manifestation of the innate qualities of the Jews, but rather an ideal given to
them, one they have ever failed to realize—the ideal of true community. The “ho-
liness” mentioned in the title is “true community with God and true community
with human beings, both in one”; the “way” is the understanding of Judaism as
unified, not split into the spiritless humanitarian ethics of reform, the dead ri-
gidity of religious conservatism, and the realpolitik of purely political Zionism.^153
In the name of this Judaism, Buber nearly seems to found a new sectarianism,
proclaiming, “Individuals who consider themselves members of either the Jewish
confession or the Jewish nation, who worship the idols of this world and observe
its commandments, usurp the name of Jew, whether they wear the ceremonial
fringes under their coats or the Zionist button on them.”^154
This vision of Judaism comes together with a narrative of Jewish history,
which also differs from Buber’s earlier forays into this field. The first six “Speech-
es on Judaism” had featured an eclectic mix of biblical interpretation and grand
narrative, as Buber wove his tale of a “subterranean” Judaism at odds with the
illegitimate “official” Judaism that usurped it.^155 True to his Zionist outlook, he
had portrayed the period of dwelling in the Land of Israel as the period of integral
wholeness; in the Exile, true Judaism could manifest itself only in the occasional
heretical movements or in the secrecy of the Kabbalah.^156 The loss of the Jewish
state thus was the seminal moment in Jewish history. In The Holy Way, by con-
trast, he declares “the true turning point of Jewish history” to be the moment
of the establishment of the Israelite monarchy.^157 Echoing Landauer’s account of
secularization in Revolution, but transposing it from the Reformation to ancient
Israel, Buber alleges that when the Jews asked Samuel to help them “be like all the
nations” (1 Samuel 8:20), the integral wholeness of life, the union of the mundane