Mutuality: The Vision of Martin Buber

This is an elegant book. By skillfully blending meticulous scholarship with points of genuine human interest, Donald Berry gives fresh insight into Martin Buber’s vision of mutuality. Berry focuses on Buber’s I and Thou to illuminate three facets of Buber’s thought that have been largely neglected. In chapters titled The Tree,
The Helper, and The Brother, Berry shows how Buber’s underlying vision of mutuality can expand our care for the things and beings of the natural world; investigates Buber’s claim that those human relationships which are defined by a task to be performed are prevented from achieving full mutuality; and examines Buber’s attempt to recover the figure of the Jewish Jesus. In the chapter on Jesus as brother, Berry discusses all of Buber’s treatments of Jesus and identifies a new dimension to the contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue. The concluding chapter, The Vision, relates the three themes discussed.