He who knows the world as something by which he is to profit knows God also in that same way. His prayer is a procedure of exoneration heard by the ear of the void. He – not the “atheist,” who addresses the Nameless out of the night and yearning of his garret-window – is the godless man.
Martin Buber, I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, Scribner Classics, 2000 (1958), 102.
Image: “View of the Synagogue at Nuremberg,” James Garden Laing (1852-1915), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 