Belief in fate is mistaken from the beginning. … the presence of the Thou, the becoming out of solid connexion, is inaccessible to it. It does not know the reality of spirit; its scheme is not valid for spirit. Prediction from objectivity is valid only for [the one] who does not know presentness. … in very truth this dogma enslaves … only the more deeply to the world of It. But the world of Thou is not closed. [The one] who goes out to it with concentrated being and risen power to enter into relation becomes aware of freedom. And to be freed from belief that there is no freedom is indeed to be free.
Martin Buber, I and Thou, Translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, Scribner Classics, 2000 (1956), 63.
Image: Detail of an image of the stained glass work in Hadassah Hospital, Ein Kerem, Israel, “The Tribe of Levi,” Marc Chagall / CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 