The purpose of this article, inspired by the works of Martin Buber, is to propose an alternative to the inherent dichotomy of Western culture. It may allow Western culture to transcend its fixed nature towards new directions and to suggest challenging solutions for reshaping the questions – what is the role of man in the world, and what is the nature of education? Although Western culture sacralizes and attributes pivotal importance to the independence of human beings, in actuality the human spirit contains a constant dialectic between the need for independence in shaping and crystallizing man’s individualism, and his need for differentiation and dependence on otherness. While that otherness expresses defamiliarization, it also allows connections and the need to structure otherness; and dependence on it is one of the basic needs of human existence.
One of the central traits of Western culture is rational analytic thinking that enables the cerebral use of science and technology. Western culture excels in positioning individuals at the center. Unlike the Oriental culture that prevailed in ancient times until the spread across the world of the Roman culture, in which individuals are perceived as ruled by and dependent on powerful and lofty nature, in the Western perception the individual is an autonomous creature that controls nature. As a result of the sense that man’s power was unlimited and man rules over everything, for centuries that proud Western culture was pervaded by philosophical blindness, because it perceives as dichotomous the concepts of independence and dependence—terms that contradict each other and cannot coexist. This perception has had far-reaching ramifications on the way in which Western culture perceives the nature of education. The purpose of this article, inspired by the works of Martin Buber, is to propose an alternative to the inherent dichotomy of Western culture. It may allow Western culture to transcend its fixed nature toward new directions and to suggest challenging solutions for reshaping the questions—what is the role of man in the world, and what is the nature of education?
Although Western culture sacralizes and attributes pivotal importance to the independence of human beings, in actuality the human spirit contains a constant dialectic between the need for independence in shaping and crystallizing man’s individualism, and his need for differentiation and dependence on otherness. While that otherness expresses defamiliarization, it also allows connections and the need to structure otherness; and dependence on it is one of the basic needs of human existence. That dialectic produces four possible types of affinity that match the four types of relationship patterns between human beings (Gross, 2012), as shown in the table below:
| Independence | ||
| Dependence | Substantial | Slight |
| Substantial | Autonomy | Suffocation |
| Slight | Liberation | Alienation |
The table presents the four types of affinity that are generated in the encounter between dependence and independence:
The first two situations are relatively simple and easily understood, but autonomy and alienation are complex circumstances that deserve deeper thought. These two types of affinity can be found in the philosophy of Martin Buber: Autonomy is a reality that recalls the ‘I-Thou’ relationship which he describes in his philosophy, while the reality of alienation recalls the ‘I-It’ relationship. In educational research, Buber’s philosophy has chiefly been discussed from the perspective of dialog. My intention here is to analyze it from a slightly different perspective, aimed at clarifying what exactly is that affinity that Buber sought, and how it links up to the bias and blindness inherent in the Western outlook.
According to Buber, the world of the ‘It’ is an alienated one: ‘When left to itself, the world of the ‘It’ becomes alienated and is taken over by demons and spirits’ (Buber, 1973, p. 47). Buber explains the self’s basic need for dependence as follows: ‘The “I” is imbued with affinity, and when it exists beyond it, is held by a strong golden thread on which changing situations are strung.’ Lack of dependence engenders alienation and transforms nearby others into ‘them’ (ibid.). In the reality of the ‘It,’ the question of independence does not exist at all, because it is a priori alienated, and independence is a demarcating act that is performed through affinity with others: ‘A creature’s “I” becomes visible when he demarcates his own area in terms of other independent creatures’ (p. 48).
In ‘I-Thou’ relations, the question of dependence is a substantive and fundamental one: ‘the purpose of the affinity is its selfhood, and it is: the contact with the Thou. Because during contacts with others, we are touched by the breath of the “Thou,” and of eternal life … one who is imbued with and stands in affinities participates in one of all the realities. That is: he participates in an experience that does not depend on him alone, and does not exist for him alone’ (p. 49). The ‘I’ exists because it participates in reality, and it is that absolute dependence on affinity with the ‘Thou’ that makes it possible to participate in reality.
Buber explains that dependence of the ‘I’ on the ‘Thou’ does not result in man losing his independence: On the contrary, his ‘subjectivity’ is empowered and nurtured due to the dependence: ‘But when the “I” abandons affinity enters into detachment abandonment and grows aware of this, his reality is not diminished. Participation remains inherent within him … And, this is the sovereignty of subjectivity, where the “I” grows aware of his simultaneous connection and abandonment. One does not see true subjectivity, but a dynamic perception, in the sense of the jolted “I” within its isolating truth’ (ibid).
He emphasizes that in order to achieve independence and differentiation, man paradoxically needs both dependence and a passion for affinity: ‘this is also the place where the passion for affinity is born, soaring higher and higher, seeking full partnership in the experience. With subjectivity, the spiritual selfhood of the personality matures and develops’ (ibid.).
Independence allows the ‘I’ to recognize itself, recalling ‘thus, here I am’ and out of recognition with his ‘thusness,’ as Buber phrased it, the ‘I’ can connect up to the ‘Thou’. Therefore, the ideal ‘I-Thou’ encounter is created in conditions of both substantial dependence and substantial independence. The ‘Thou’ that Buber speaks of is the eternal ‘Thou:’ ‘the elongated lines of the affinities meet each other in the eternal Thou’ (p. 57). Buber continues and argues that, ‘Human beings give many names to their eternal Thou … however, all the names of God retain their holiness … since everyone who talks of God and in his heart truly intends to the “Thou,” is in fact naming … the true Thou of his life, that contains all the other affinities’ (pp. 57–58).
When the Almighty expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he also punished the serpent whose punishment was ‘… upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life’ (Genesis, 3, 14). We learn from this that the serpent’s punishment was that the Almighty released him from dependence on Him, since its food would always be available (unlike all the other creatures that depend on G-d for their existence). It is dependence that renders human beings human, and the ‘serpent-like quality’ within humans erupts when they believe they no longer need others and are freed from dependence.
Dependence and independence are inverse forms and types of relations, and in the absence of these two situations—when man is not in a state of dependence but also has no option for the independence that is awarded through affinity and context—a reality of alienation and indifference takes shape. The possibility defined in the table above as autonomy, actually reflects the most balanced and desirable situation.
Western culture has failed to understand that empowering man’s natural independence and empowering his natural dependence on a supreme moral compass—and finding the balance between the two—are precisely what makes possible man’s unmediated encounter with the divine and sublime within him. Revealing the divine in the human means laying bare the facets that connect up man’s will and needs for independence with his need for dependence on God as a source of morality and exaltation. Human authenticity is found at that point where a person chooses and defines his independence and his dependence on God. That conscious choice, in fact, structuring G-d in the domain of the spirit.
We read in the Torah ‘And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them’ (Exodus, 25, 8). On the face of it, this should read ‘And I dwelt within them’ but the Torah commands us to undertake a long process of structuring the personal inner sanctuary in which G-d will dwell—a process in which the transcendent G-d becomes the immanent G-d. This process must be the very heart of education. Man is the realm in which G-d dwells, and through man, he is revealed to be the whole of reality.
One of the central questions with which theology engages is: ‘where can we find G-d?’ is there a specific, concrete site of holiness, or is ‘the whole Earth His glory’? The question of God’s location is connected, I believe, to the question ‘where art thou?’ that G-d asked Adam after he sinned in the Garden of Eden. The man who hid himself from G-d did not allow Him to dwell within him—God looked for the ‘sanctuary’ but Adam fled from him and from his G-d. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook HaCohen wrote in his Orot ha’kodesh: that ‘Man’s first sin was ignoring his selfhood by listening to the serpent and did not know how to reply clearly to the question ‘where art thou?’ because he was overcome by losing his selfhood (his ‘I’) (Kook HaCohen, 1964, Part 3, Kam-Kama). The first man sinned in that—instead of behaving naturally—he listened to the voice of the serpent, which represents the external and extrinsic, and ate from the tree of knowledge. As a result, he covered himself with clothes and outer layers. Because of those clothes, which cover what is natural, he was unable to answer the question ‘where art thou?’ covered by those ‘layers,’ he lost his authentic natural self (his ‘selfhood,’ as the author wrote).
It is the inspiration of the divine presence and its embodiment within man that allows man on the one hand to create and produce, and, on the other hand, requires him to diminish himself and submit to his human limitations—which implies dependence. And that inspiration requires him to ‘peel off’ that external layer, removing what conceals him and thus disclosing what is ‘natural’ within man. Man’s purpose in the world is to discover his natural power that authentic power which exists within him, without any external layers and artifice. His principal aim in being distinct from animals is to construct a sanctuary for the divine presence, for high and noble moral powers, within him. And, this must also be the aim of education; the objective that young learners will be able to answer the question ‘where art thou?’—in other words, where are you positioned in your process of seeking the divine within you, in building a sanctuary for the divine presence and morality within you?
The balance between the dependence–independence relation generates a new essence, where dependence no longer expresses coercion but intention. Frankenstein (1977) discussed this possibility, distinguishing between freedom (which is liable to degenerate into lawlessness and from there to anarchy) and coercion (which he sees a priori as unacceptable). He proposed that the alternative is intention and thus granting autonomy within the structure of authority relationships is not total freedom, but rather individualist growth and development from a person’s affinity with a set of values and the intentional position of an educating figure, on which she or he is dependent.
According to Buber, education is grounded on a quest and intention toward autonomy, and it entails a constant dialectic between relations of dependence and independence. The educator’s role is to direct students to find the appropriate amount and balance between dependence and independence, so as to create meaningful I-Thou relations. The nature of education, he contends, is to generate affinities—between man and himself, between man and his G-d, and man and society.
Buber stresses that creating affinity is a long spiritual process and that affinity must be dialogic, an affinity containing mutuality and friendship, that ‘encompasses a genuine interaction between souls’ (Buber, 1973, p. 258). Buber speaks of the duality that man senses in the process of creating affinity and communication, when he experiences ‘the boundary of otherness and the grace inherent in communicating with the other’ (Buber, p. 258). The boundary of otherness—is the distinct autonomous personality, and the sense of grace generated by the acknowledging of his unusual dependence on the other, whom he transforms in a spiritual process from ‘It’ to ‘Thou.’
The nature of education has to be the creation of an I-Thou affinity: its overarching aim is an unmediated encounter with G-d—the eternal ‘I.’ Maturity and readiness for that special encounter of the ‘I-Thou’ and the capacity to uphold the affinity with ‘I-Thou’ requires purification, and peeling away the outer layers. The educating process is therefore one of clarifying, purifying, distilling, reducing the ‘I’ until one finds the essential place of the divine within man. The encounter with G-d is a meeting with the positive creative and productive powers within the individual’s personality, and they are capable of building a world in its entirety, and ultimately of achieving tikkun olam—repairing the world.
Education means ‘repairing the world through the kingdom of G-d’—spiritual labor that purifies the individual. Repairing the world through the kingdom of G-d, a phrase which appears in the Siddur—the Jewish prayer book is more than just repairing the world in its socialist meaning. It means repairing a broken vessel (the world) a task which can only be performed if it is done by people acting in ‘G-d’s image.’ In the prayer books of Yemenite Jews, inspired by the prayers of the Rambam (Maimonides), one prayer exhorts us, in a play on Hebrew words, to ‘design’ (not ‘repair’) the kingdom of G-d. In other words, to plan and establish the world, to design a world from the place where man connects to his G-d. This is the special dialectic and affinity between dependence and independence, between ‘I’ and ‘Thou.’ This is a new cosmic reorganization of the concepts controller and controlled that contradicts their accepted meaning in classic Western thought. It is spiritual labor, a lifetime project that allows man, in a continuing process of choice, to choose to be a man distinct from animal. This is principally achieved by finding a balance between dependence and independence, and from there to discover ‘selfhood’ in the language of Rabbi Kook, in all its beauty and splendor, when he assumes the form of G-d above. That approach allows modern man to rise beyond the fixed Western concepts, toward a trajectory of cerebral and conscious choice of the noble and lofty, and to become an integral part of it.
Buber, M. M. (1973). Besod Siach. Ktavim Philosophiim [The dialogue on man and being. Philosophical writings]. (Vol. 1). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute [Hebrew].
Frankenstein, K. (1977). Kenut va’shivyon: hirhurim shel psicholog u’mehanech [Education-core and Essence]. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim [Hebrew].
Gross, Z. (2012). The nature of education: Creating an affinity between man and his god. In A. Freiman & I. Tadmor (Eds.), Hinuch, mahut va’ruach [Education-core and Essence]. MOFET Institute: Tel Aviv [Hebrew].
Kook HaCohen, A. I. (1964). Orot ha’kodesh [Ha’Orot: The illuminations of Rav Kook Tz’l]. (Vol. 3). Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook [Hebrew].