Maurice Friedman – författare

Hasidism, a controversial, mystical-religious movement of Eastern European origin, has posed a serious challenge to mainstream Judaism from its earliest beginnings in the middle of the eighteenth century. Decimated by the Holocaust, it has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and has reconstituted itself as a major force in the world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Philosopher Martin Buber found inspiration in its original tenets and devoted much of his career to making its insights known to a wide readership. First published in 1958, Hasidism and Modern Man examines the life and religious experiences of Hasidic Jews, as well as Buber's personal response to them. From the autobiographical "My Way to Hasidism," to "Hasidism and Modern Man," and "Love of God and Love of Neighbor," the essays span nearly half a century and reflect the evolution of Buber's religious philosophy in relation to the Hasidic movement. Hasidism and Modern Man remains prescient in its portrayal of a spiritual movement that brings God down to earth and makes possible a modern philosophy in which the human being becomes sacred.

The first book on Buber to address the full scope of his seminal influence for any number of thinkers and fields from philosophy to psychotherapy to literary theoryThe specific focus of Martin Buber and the Human Sciences is "dialogue" as the foundation of and integrating factor in the human sciences, using dialogue in the special sense which Buber has made famous: mutuality, presentness, openness, meeting the other in his or her uniqueness and not just as a content for one's own thought categories, and knowing as deriving in the first instance from mutual contact rather than knowledge of a subject about an object. By the "human sciences" the authors/editors mean material that can be meaningfully approached in a dialogic way, hence, the humanities, education, psychology, speech communication, anthropology, history, sociology, and economics. The essays in Martin Buber and the Human Sciences demonstrate that thirty years after Buber's death his influence is still resonating in many countries and in many fields.

Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue sought to express the human experience through the ways in which we encounter and interact with others. His "I—Thou" theory of dialogue and "I—It" theory of monologue expressed ways of understanding one’s place in the world in relation to others, objects, and especially God. Buber died in 1965, leaving behind a vast library of writings and ardent students and scholars eager to engage with his ideas. One of the most prominent scholars was Maurice Friedman. Friedman and Buber shared a professional as well as a personal relationship, based on translating, interpreting, and intellectual curiosity. Beginning in the summer of 1950 and ending with Buber’s death, this volume takes the reader through Buber’s three visits to America, his wife’s death, the author’s stay in Jerusalem, and the articulation of Buber’s culminating philosophy of the interhuman. In tracing this chronology, Friedman draws extensively on his personal collection of letters exchanged with Buber. Intimate and meditative, this book provides an exploration of a deeply intellectual friendship shared between two extraordinary thinkers.

Building Genuine Community emphasizes a notion of a community in which people are bound together by a common life situation and a common purpose without using that common purpose as an exclusionary factor that distinguishes between those who belong and those who do not belong to the community. Without being scholarly, technical, or obscure, Building Genuine Community lays the foundation for true community, which is the seeking need of the age. True community is difficult to define. What makes some communities thrive and others fail? True community is not an ideal or a specific goal. Rather, it is a twofold direction of movementa movement within each particular structure of family, community, and society to discover the maximum possibilities of the confirmation of individuals as true others within that structure, as well as a movement from structure to structure toward more genuine community.Building Genuine Community proposes nothing less than to do away with the old and tired polarities of the individual versus society, individualism versus collectivism, competition versus cooperation, and free enterprise versus socialism. In place of all these ideals, this treatise confirms that otherness is the only meaningful direction of movement for friendship, marriage, family, community, and society within a democracy.

Maurice Friedman's masterly anthology still stands apart decades after its original publication. It has become established as a classic - the most comprehensive collection of existentialist writing ever assembled. This edition includes a special preface by Professor Friedman surveying the developments in the field since this monumental work was first published and commenting on its relevance for present intellectual trends.The short selections from important existentialist writers and their forerunners elucidate the critical issues that exist among existentialists. The topics include phenomenology and ontology, the existential subject, intersubjectivity, religion, and psychotherapy.

Most studies of Abraham Joshua Heschel approach him as a theologian, whereas this book peers behind the theologian and honors Heschel as the original philosopher that he was. So it unearths Heschel''s epistemology, his aesthetic, and his social philosophy, all reinforced by the thirty years of friendship and dialogue that Maurice Friedman shared with him.This book raises significantly critical questions concerning Heschel''s philosophy of Judaism while remaining greatly appreciative of the sweep and command of his philosophy that Friedman believes were not sufficiently worked through.

The first book on Buber to address the full scope of his seminal influence for any number of thinkers and fields from philosophy to psychotherapy to literary theoryThe specific focus of Martin Buber and the Human Sciences is "dialogue" as the foundation of and integrating factor in the human sciences, using dialogue in the special sense which Buber has made famous: mutuality, presentness, openness, meeting the other in his or her uniqueness and not just as a content for one's own thought categories, and knowing as deriving in the first instance from mutual contact rather than knowledge of a subject about an object. By the "human sciences" the authors/editors mean material that can be meaningfully approached in a dialogic way, hence, the humanities, education, psychology, speech communication, anthropology, history, sociology, and economics. The essays in Martin Buber and the Human Sciences demonstrate that thirty years after Buber's death his influence is still resonating in many countries and in many fields.

This volume includes references to aspects of dialogue of key psychotherapeutic schools. It aims to connect psychotherapy's past with its future.