Gog and Magog

Book excerpt: Gog and Magog is a religious chronicle in fictional form. Its heroes are Hasidic rapbis. Its background is the Napoleonic wars at the end of the eighteenth century. Its scene is laid in Poland and Hungary. Although magic and superstition play their parts in the story, it is really Buber's effort to articulate two approaches to the question: May men use evil to accomplish good? May men take power in 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 expectation that characterized Judaism then and continues to characterize it to the present day.