Review of O caminho do homem, by Martin Buber

Abstract

A review of O caminho do homem, by Martin Buber, published in São Paulo by Realizações in 2011, an edition that gathers the text prepared for a colloquium held in Bentveld, the Netherlands, in April 1947, together with an afterword by Albrecht Goes and biographies of both authors. The reviewer goes through the six chapters of the work, in which Buber comments on the teachings of rabbis connected to Hasidism: the question addressed to Adam and the system of hiding places, the particular path of each person, determination and the unification of the soul, beginning with oneself without ending in oneself, turning towards the world, and the story of Eisik's treasure. The reading brings Buber close to the phenomenologists of his time and, repeatedly, to Ortega y Gasset's thought on fidelity to one's own perspective. The text concludes that the book is not a vehicle for spreading Hasidism, but the author's own construction on the meaning of existence, and that it should be read as such.