Randi Rashkover is the Nathan and Sofia Gumenick Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at William and Mary. She is the author of many books including Revelation and Theopolitics: Barth, Rosenzweig and the Politics of Praise (2005, T&T Clark), Freedom and Law: A Jewish-Christian Apologetics (2012, Fordham University Press) and most recently, Nature and Norm: Judaism, Christianity and the Theopolitical Problem (2020, Academic Studies Press). 

 

 

Abstract:

Buber’s Theopolitics, the Beautiful Soul and the Needs of the Hour

Among the greatest virtues of Martin Buber’s work is its tireless call for a theopolitics that honors God’s authority and yet recognizes the urgency of human political action. As such, Buber’s theopolitics constitutes a critical response to the burgeoning neo-gnosticism of the early 20^th century launched by the publication of Adolph von Harnack’s Marcion: Das Evangelium von dem fremden Gott, his recovery of the work of the early Marcion of Sinope that challenged efforts to harmonize faith and the world. Of course, the centerpiece of Buber’s theopolitics is his account of the prophet or nabi who performs the critical role of materializing God’s intervention into the world of human history and human need. His is the endless labor of bringing God’s word into the world as a response to the unique historical situation, relying on no prior knowledge or bodies of law, no set of preordained moral principles. 

No doubt, Buber’s concern for the ‘needs of the hour’ and his deep appreciation of the prophet as the one called to address these needs provides a rich Jewish response to Harnackian neo-gnosticism while avoiding the idolatrous tendencies of Carl Schmitt’s parallel response. However, in her “Reply from the Single One: Soren Kierkegaard to Martin Buber,” the late 20^th century philosopher Gillian Rose casts doubt on Buber’s account of theopolitics and its apparent call for political action. At the heart of Rose’s critique is her concern for Buber’s insistence upon the prophet’s rejection of all prior knowledge or bodies of law in his political response to the human needs of the hour. Stated otherwise, Rose sees in Buber’s prophet a Jewish version of what in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel refers to as the ‘beautiful soul’ or the romantic believer inspired by his devotion to God, but unwilling to wrestle with the realities of power, law and collective reasoning that constitute the backdrop and mechanisms of historical and political action. In a day and age when women’s lives are routinely victimized by abusive expressions of political power and in need of concrete, legal responses that draw from the power of collective reasoning, can Buber’s theopolitics offer an adequate approach to feminist Jewish political action?