Am I listening—or just waiting to speak?

A troubled student came to Buber for guidance. Distracted, Buber gave polished advice about spirituality. Weeks later, he learned the young man had died by suicide. The letter left behind:"You listened to your thoughts, not to me."

Buber called this his greatest failure—the moment he realized:"Truth isn’t in concepts, but in the space between people."

From this grief, I and Thou (1923) was born.