An apocryphal story describes how children in Jerusalem would yell “Elohim! Elohim!” (God! God!) when they saw Martin Buber (1878-1965) with his full “silken white beard.” According to the account, Buber smiled at the adoring youngsters and said,” Yes!”
In his highly readable and concise biography – Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (Yale University Press) – of the famous philosopher, Paul Mendes-Flohr, chief editor of the 22-volume German language collection of Buber’s works, described him as a man who championed “a life of dialogue” and taught that “all real living is meeting.”
At his birth in Vienna, “faulty obstetric forceps” left Martin with an “embarrassingly twisted lower lip” (as an adult he made certain to cover much of his “deformed” mouth with a beard). His mother “eloped” with a Russian officer and abandoned her son at age three. Buber later recalled how he looked out a window and “tried desperately to catch his mother’s attention, but she disappeared over the horizon without looking back.”
In his highly readable and concise biography – Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (Yale University Press) – of the famous philosopher, Paul Mendes-Flohr, chief editor of the 22-volume German language collection of Buber’s works, described him as a man who championed “a life of dialogue” and taught that “all real living is meeting.”
At his birth in Vienna, “faulty obstetric forceps” left Martin with an “embarrassingly twisted lower lip” (as an adult he made certain to cover much of his “deformed” mouth with a beard). His mother “eloped” with a Russian officer and abandoned her son at age three. Buber later recalled how he looked out a window and “tried desperately to catch his mother’s attention, but she disappeared over the horizon without looking back.”
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