  Buber’s best-known work is the short philosophical essay I and Thou (1923), the basic tenets of which he was to modify, but never to abandon. In this work, Buber gives expression to the intuition that we need to withstand the temptation to reduce human relations to the simple either/or of Apollonian or Dionysian, rational or romantic ways of relating to others. We are beings that can enter into dialogic relations not just with human others but with other animate beings, such as animals, or a tree, as well as with the Divine Thou. The duality of relations and, at its extreme, their coincidence, may serve as the key to Buber’s mature thought on everything from his approach to biblical faith to his practical politics in matters of Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine. I and Thou was first translated into English in 1937 by Ronald Gregor Smith and later again by Walter Kaufmann. The German original was an instant classic and remains in print today. In the 1950s and 60s, when Buber first traveled and lectured in the USA, the essay became popular in the English-speaking world as well.