- 78- Walter Jacob
halakhah but also the path taken for the halakhah requires a fixed daily approach to God independent of any encounter between man and God . Critics have naturally pointed out that the latter may occur only rarely and so is an uncertain path toward a religious life.(5)
On the positive side, one may defend Buber ’s approach by stating that he wished to rescue halakhah from becoming merely ortho-practice. Buber wanted to infuse the law with the ancient spirit so that individuals would once more become responsible for their lives.(6) For him as he explained perhaps most thoroughly in his book, Two Types of Faith, the halakhah always had to be part of a demanding voice with a sense of
highly personally responsibility. This voice addressed the individual and only in this way could the objective statement become a personal mitzvah.
The entire system, therefore, depended upon what Maurice Friedman has called,"Holy insecurity of the religious man who does not divorce his action from his intention."(7) The traditional approach demanded observance and provided security through that observance. The price that was paid was an automatic approach to halakhah. For Martin Buber the a genuine approach to God was frequently filled with tension and insecurity common to our century but the
reward was through religiosity and the feeling of personal commitment.