Once in
about 1910 Martin Buber gave a lecture on Judaism in Czernowitz [in present-day
Ukraine]; afterward, as he was continuing the discussion over a meal in a
restaurant with a few members of his audience, a middle-aged Jew came and
joined in. He introduced himself, and then sat down and followed the abstract
discussion, which must have been unusual to his ears, with great interest. He
declined every invitation to advance a comment, but at the close of the
discussion he addressed Buber and said, "I want to ask you something. I
have a daughter and she knows a young man who has been studying law. He passed
all his examinations with honors. What I would like to know is this: would he
be a reliable man?"
Buber was
taken by surprise by this question, and answered, "I assume from your
words that he is industrious and able."
Apparently
this was not what the man really meant to ask, for he proceeded, "But
could you tell me? I would like to know this particularly--would he be
clever?"
"That
is rather more difficult to answer," Buber said, "but I presume that
merely with diligence he could not have achieved what he did."
The man was
still not satisfied, and finally the question he really meant to ask came out.
"Herr Doctor, should he become a judge or should he become a lawyer?"
"That I
cannot tell you," answered Buber, "for I do not know your future
son-in-law, and even if I did know him, I would not be able to give you advice
in this matter." The other man thanked him and left, obviously
disappointed.
›
In this
conversation an ancient certainty—the certainty that wise men are men who know—was
shattered by a modem inability. Buber ought to have said, "He should
become a solicitor," or, "He should become a barrister,"
"How could he know?" cries out Buber as a modern contemporary, as if
action were founded on knowledge. Of course Buber could not know. But nobody
asked him to know. What he had been asked for was advice—judgment, not
knowledge. Advice and judgment, of course, fitting the occasion, and applicable
to this man: someone who entered in this particular way, who asked his question
in this particular manner, and who looked like him; a man who presumably had
such-and-such kind of a daughter; advice which fit this vague, very vague,
totality, but primarily advice, a certainty, a wise word, a word that would
have brought structure to this vague totality; an answer which would have
erected a beacon, so that the sailing would no longer be dangerous.
"He
should become a barrister." These words, if spoken by Buber, by a sage, by
a man who looked and spoke like one, a man who apparently knew, these words
would have been the strongest foundation for the future son-in-law's choice of
profession. How could he have gone wrong if his career had been initiated by
such advice? The answer would have created its own rightness; it would have
created truth. Is not truth, truth in the relation between man and man,
basically the effect of a fearlessness toward the other person? Is not truth,
above all, a result, a made up thing, a creation of the sage? The person who
knows creates the future by speaking.
But Buber is
a modern man. To the sudden question--a question which, as he himself confessed
later on, could have opened his eyes because of its suddenness—to the sudden
question, "Is my daughter's friend a reliable man?" he replies (as if
he had studied psychology), "According to your own words he must be
industrious and able." He could have added, "Don't you think so
yourself?" Imagine, however, the consternation that would have been caused
by this answer. It would have seemed inconceivable that Buber would throw back
the question—the sage must be joking. Another attempt is made: "Is he
clever?" which is met by the inevitable, though not less shocking, answer:
"Merely with diligence—the diligence, dear questioner, which you yourself
mentioned in your description of your future son-in-law and to which I can
refer—merely with diligence he could not have achieved what you, yourself, dear
questioner, indicated when you said that he had passed all his examinations
with honors—merely with diligence he could not have achieved all that, don't
you think so yourself?"
"Leave
me alone," says Buber, "don't tempt me. For—being a modem man—I don't
know; or rather I firmly believe that all inter-human actions should be based
on knowledge, and as I don't possess this particular knowledge, I am not
permitted to make a guess." And so his final answer is quite
understandable: "I don't know," he says, "I don't know him. But
even if I knew him, I still would not know."
— J. H. Van Den Berg, The Changing Nature of Man, after Buber, “My Way to Hasidism,”
63-66.
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