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Discussion
Manfred Vogel

Question:
Is there not something more than just the 'It' with regard to nature? is there not also an 'It-plus'?
a. According to Jewish tradition the human body is not identical with man (`Thou') nor with nature CIO. The human body is a — not contaminated — sacred vessel with a divine spark. Therefore, man is responsible for his body and must care for it.
b. In the mystique, which expresses a human, emotional, personal reality, the nature of nature is changed.
c. The berachot for things put nature in the realm of God.

Answer:
I do not see what an 'It-plus' possibly could be. Where is the third ontological alternative that is neither an 'It' nor a 'Thou' and that would include elements of the 'It' and elements of the 'Thou'? If you could articulate what in more concrete terms an 'It-plus' is in contradistinction to the dimension of the 'It' or the dimension of the 'Thou', which I can describe, then obviously I would want to review my position, because it is something I can operate with. But my problem is that, as far as I can see, we can only have two kinds of being that present an either or, a qualitative difference between them. I don't see how we can have a third kind of being occupying a middle position.

As to the human body not being evil or contaminated:
I certainly have responsibility to my own body as is stated in the tradition. But from my point of view this in no way undermines the claim that the human body is an 'It', that it is part and parcel of nature. The responsibility is not due to the fact that the body is not contaminated, though it is true that in Judaism the body is not contaminated (indeed being constituted as an 'It' does not mean that it is necessarily evil, for the 'It' as such is not evil). Responsibility is introduced because of the fact that the body is created by God and therefore belongs to God and points to Him. This is reflected in the following midrash: The Romans take care of their icons which are of a no-god, and should you not take care of the body which is the reflection, the statue of the living God? So, the responsibility here is introduced precisely because of the divine point of reference rather than because of the body itself. The human body is not different from the body of the animal and we have to relate to it in a `I-It' relationship rather than in a poetic-mystical relationship. So I can still preserve the aspect of the tradition with regard to the body within the 'It-Thou' bifurcation without having recourse to a notion of an 'It-plus'.

As to the mystique:
The mystique — including personal reality and emotions — is legitimate. I may feel very upset and pained by the mutilation of an 'It', a table or a flower, which is destroyed. But my point is that it is I, by virtue of the fact that I am also constituted as a 'Thou', who am responding in that way; it is I who am having those feelings and infusing those values into the objects, which are — I claim — part and parcel of the 'It' dimension. It is not the object itself that has this claim upon me. What we have operating here — and this is a universal human phenomenon — is what I would call the phenomenon of personification. And this is taking something, which is essentially constituted as an 'It', in a way as if it were 'Thou'.

When we speak of the divine sparks being present in the constitution of things we are in a totally different situation which my paper, as I clearly stated, did not undertake to represent. When you talk in terms of the divine sparks, then you are talking about a continuum throughout creation from inanimate nature through man to the divine. This idea of emanation is opposed to a theistic formulation that results from the creatio ex nihilo. The mystical tradition certainly came to a modus vivendi with the halahic tradition. It accepted the creatio ex nihilo because of its centrality, but it interpreted this creatio in a way which is totally different: the nothingness (ayin) is taken to constitute God and the something (yesh) is taken to constitute the world; as such, creatio ex nihilo is made to signify here the emanation of the world from God. In this context there is an element of the divine, (i.e. a spark) in every entity of the world and the only difference that we have is a quantitative difference. In the mystical tradition we do not encounter the qualitative difference which I have tried to introduce. So we have here two different views of the world which could be bridged in a certain modus vivendi within history but which phenomenologically in terms of the structure of faith involved, cannot, I would want to claim, be bridged.

As to the Benedictions:
They all refer to God. The benediction is not of nature but of its author. I do not bless the lightning; this would be blasphemous. Nature is blessed as far as it — being God's creation — witnesses to and glorifies the divine. My analysis would in no way undermine this; on the contrary, it supports it.

Question:
Man has to respect the earth as created by God, and he may not behave towards nature as a dominator, for "Mine is the earth" said the Lord. Man has to deal with nature very carefully therefore. If he does not do so, the earth will rebel and reject man as it is said in Deuteronomy (cf. ch. 28). So the relationship between man and nature seems to me more than a `thou-if relationship and I would call it with Buber a moral relationship in which man respects the original characteristics of nature. Is it not in this context that the various halahot with regard to the earth as e.g. the sabbatical year and the prohibition of mixtures must be understood? Are they not directives for maintaining the original purity of nature, which has to be respected as such? Otherwise nature will rebel.

Answer:
I do not see how morality can function between man and nature. Morality can only function between man and man. Morality does not make sense in terms of man vis-a-vis nature unless it is between man and man with regard to what he does to nature. Without personifying nature I do not see how we can view nature acting as a human being. So I take phrases like `the earth rebels when it is misused' as a kind of a poetic way of talking. What does it mean? `Mis-used' is a value judgment and it is mis-used from my point of view. But how can we say that it is mis-used in its own terms? Who says that nature is used in the right way or not in the right way? It is the human agent who does this and this implies subjectivity. When I talk in terms of the earth's rebelling it is not the earth which is rebelling. Nature is only acting in accordance with certain laws of necessity which, because they affect my interests, I interpret as rebellion in as much as I perceive it to be inhospitable to my life. But who says that nature must support my life, that it must be hospitable to it? In terms of nature itself, we can only note that a change is taking place, but no ethical valuation can be ascribed to it since it is devoid of the 'Thou'. Thus, a possible meaning that can be ascribed to such phrases as 'the land will reject', 'the earth will rebel', is that it is God, (a 'Thou' being), who is punishing you, using the land as an instrument. It is always God who is the actor using nature or other nations as his rod of punishment.

Question:
Your analysis of the relationship between man andnature was based on the halahah, and you have given many examples to illustrate your thesis that the use of nature is for the sake of man. Also the mitzvot with regard to the earth are for the benefit of man. But it seems to me essential that a certain number of these mitzvot are only applicable to one special land, which is the land of Israel. Only this land is presented as a personified land completely different from the rest of nature. It is this land which is allergic to some forms of human behaviour and is put in the context of morality as we see in Lev. 17 and 18. We therefore should attribute a special function with regard to mankind, not only to the people of Israel but also to the land of Israel, which has a special status, or — as the rabbis say — is the throne of the Divine.

Answer:
I would wish to argue that the special status of the land of Israel, in the context of the structure of faith that I was presenting here, derives itself only from the special status of the peoplehood of Israel. It has a special status because this happened to be the place where the people of Israel had been ordained to settle. If Moses had taken the people of Israel to settle in another country, then that country would have had the special status. In the context of my interpretation, it is not valid to speak of an inherent special status of the land in its own terms, for this would imply a sanctification of space which is not consonant with the Judaism presented here. This Judaism sanctifies time but not space. Therefore, special places or geographic localities as such do not have inherent sanctification, though it is true that, in the mystical tradition, they were indeed invested with such inherent sanctification. If we speak of sanctification, we can do it only in the sense of a derived sanctification: derived from the peoplehood of Israel, which is a category of history and not a category of nature.

Of this derived sanctification we must say that it is provisional as the sanctification of the peoplehood of Israel is provisional. Eschatologically, in terms of the end, sanctification is universal. We must not lose sight of this universal dimension in Judaism. True, there is a tension in Judaism between particularity and universality and it is very problematic. It is understandable that under certain circumstances too much emphasis may have been placed on the particularity. In any event, what I am saying is that there is a special status given to the peoplehood of Israel and, derived from it, a special status is given to the land of Israel by virtue of the fact that it happens to be the country of this people. But this special status is provisional only for the time preceding the messianic realization; and it is functional, namely, it is derived, not from any inherent quality, but from the special role assigned to the people. Thus its ultimate signification and justification lie in the fact that it becomes universal both in terms of mankind and in terms of the land.