היחס בין זיקת אני-אתה סופי לאני-אתה נצחי בתפיסתו של מ'בובר

This essay offers a new analysis of the relationship between "I-Thou" and "I-Eternal Thou". According to this analysis, one should not approach the ^question of their order of priority from an ontological point of view, as suggested by Buber's commentators. Rather, the relationship is to be understood through the event of the dialogue in itself. Therefore one should make a distinction between a personal context of the biography, and the context of the whole experience of the dialogue, which can be apprehended only through a reflection on both relations and their connection in their entirety. In the former context, the priority should be assigned to the inter-personal relationship, and this may be its adequate expression. But the experience of failure in this dialogue, coupled with the ever-present push for realizing a dialogue, may lead man into a dialogue with the "eternal thou". Considered from this angle, an experience of the inter-personal dialogue serves as an introduction for the development of the dialogue with the eternal thou, and emphasizes the inner push towards its realization. He who experiences this latter dialogue feels it to be real, bestowing a new meaning of the inter-personal dialogue too. The "I-thou" relationship, then, may be discussed independently of the "I-eternal thou" relationship, as an analysis of basic human existence. But living this dialogue to its extent paves the way to religion, and sheds a new light on human existence.