Book dossier

Gog u-Magog

by Martin Buber

Originally titled For the Sake of Heaven, Gog and Magog is a fictional religious chronicle in which the heroes are Hasidic rabbis. The setting for the novel is Poland and Hungary during the Napoleonic wars at the end of the eighteenth century. Although magic and superstition play their parts in the story, it is really Martin Buber's effort to articulate two approaches to the question: May men use evil to accomplish good? May men take power into their own hands - even to do the work of redemption - without submitting first to the will of God? More particularly, Buber unfolds the inner world of messianic longing and expectations that characterized Judaism then and continues to characterize it to the present day.