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Meetings: Autobiographical Fragments

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The central concept of Buber's thought is the I- You encounter- that kind of personal meeting which has profound meaning in one's life. This small book edited by the prominent Buber scholar Maurice Friedman contains autobiographical encounters from various stages of Buber's life. Each of these meetings had great significance for him. The first meeting occurs when he is only four years old. At this age his parents divorced and he was left to live with his paternal grandparents. In this meeting with his mother he is accompanied by an older girl who he has been left in the care of. She tells him that his mother will go away ' forever' and never see him again. This opens to his mind the whole concept of a 'mis- meeting' of a meeting which has somehow has not worked out in the right way. This concept will be a part of his inner world for the rest of his life.

In the second meeting he writes of his encounter with his grandmother. She was a religious Jewish woman who read secular literature ordinarily prohibited to a religious girl. His grandmother's expressiveness and openness too make a major mark on his life. In other meetings in this work Buber will meet with his father, with the great Zionist leader Theodor Herzl, with the ideal religious figure of the Tzaddik , and others.

Each of the meetings will be described with a kind of poetic profundity which was Buber's natural manner and style.

This small work is invaluable in giving the reader a glimpse into the turning point moments in the life and thought of of a great and influential Jewish thinker.