relationship in which one person objectified another. With the aim of helping
Jews achieve an I–Thou approach to life, Buber distinguished laws from com-
mandments. Laws he defined as those aspects of Judaism that were arbitrary,
that Jews observed because they were ordered to by God or by a rabbinic inter-
preter of divination. A commandment was an act that arose out of an I–Thou
relationship with God, an act that a Jew performed because it had profound
meaning. Buber advocated observing commandments while disregarding
laws. In the end, the only expression of Jewishness that he thought meaning-
ful was Zionism. He eventually emigrated to Palestine and joined the ranks of
secular Jews building the Jewish State.
Similar to those of Buber were the life and outlook of Franz Rosenzweig
(1886–1929). Born into an assimilated Jewish family, he eventually decided
to convert to Christianity. However, he wanted his conversion to be authen-
tic, by which he meant becoming Christian in the same way as the original
Christians – by first being a Jew and abandoning Judaism for Christianity.
Thus, he decided to have an authentic Jewish experience before converting.
To this end, he attended the Kol Nidrei service held on the evening of Yom
Kippur at a local synagogue. He was so moved by the service that he put off
his planned conversion to explore Judaism further, and soon discarded the
idea of conversion entirely. His return to Judaism culminated with the publi-
cation of Star of Redemption, in which he conceptualized Judaism as two
interlocking triangles, like a Jewish star: the points of one triangle were cre-
ation, revelation, and messianic redemption; the points of the other triangle
were God, the Jewish people, and the Torah. In his conception of Judaism,
Rosenzweig agreed with Buber’s distinction between laws and command-
ments. Unlike Buber, he did not advocate jettisoning laws, but rather trying
to discover the meaning – that is, the commandment – even in arbitrary
aspects of Judaism.
Another revival of Jewish culture took place in interwar Poland. The
reuniting of Poland after the war under the aegis of national self-determi-
nation brought the Jews of Prussian Poland, Russian Poland, and Galicia
together in a single state for the first time in more than a century. From the
outset, two competing visions of reunited Poland, those of Marshal Józef
Piłsudski and Roman Dmowski respectively, would determine the situation
of Polish Jewry. Piłsudski, the leader of the Polish legions during the war,
was instrumental in securing Allied support during the war for Polish inde-
pendence. After the war, he expanded the territory of reconstituted Poland
through successful military expeditions in Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.
The greater Poland he established through military victory mirrored his
romantic, eighteenth-century conception of Poland as an expansive multi-
national and multiconfessional kingdom, which included Jews as an
important and loyal minority. Dmowski, by contrast, envisioned Poland as
ethnically Polish; his Poland had little or no room for Jews. Until
Piłsudski’s death in 1935, Piłsudski’s vision dominated Polish politics;
From renewal to devastation, 1914–45 213