Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who Gave Us ModernityPart of the Jewish Encounter series In 1656, Amsterdam's Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty-three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as radical as it was original. He went on to produce one of the most ambitious systems in the history of Western philosophy, so ahead of its time that scientists today, from string theorists to neurobiologists, count themselves among Spinoza's progeny. In Betraying Spinoza, Rebecca Goldstein sets out to rediscover the flesh-and-blood man often hidden beneath the veneer of rigorous rationality, and to crack the mystery of the breach between the philosopher and his Jewish past. Goldstein argues that the trauma of the Inquisition' s persecution of its forced Jewish converts plays itself out in Spinoza's philosophy. The excommunicated Spinoza, no less than his excommunicators, was responding to Europe' s first experiment with racial anti-Semitism. Here is a Spinoza both hauntingly emblematic and deeply human, both heretic and hero--a surprisingly contemporary figure ripe for our own uncertain age. |
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Page 32
... Dutch were a very practical society , concerned at least as much with their economy as with their theology , and this practicality was good for the Jews . At the time of Spinoza's birth , 1632 , the Jews had been living in Amsterdam ...
... Dutch were a very practical society , concerned at least as much with their economy as with their theology , and this practicality was good for the Jews . At the time of Spinoza's birth , 1632 , the Jews had been living in Amsterdam ...
Page 76
... Dutch Gentiles , they knew Dutch as well , but Portuguese remained the native language . For Spinoza , too , Portuguese was his native tongue . He might write , as Mrs. Schoenfeld had put it , in the goyisha lan- guage of Latin , but he ...
... Dutch Gentiles , they knew Dutch as well , but Portuguese remained the native language . For Spinoza , too , Portuguese was his native tongue . He might write , as Mrs. Schoenfeld had put it , in the goyisha lan- guage of Latin , but he ...
Page 157
... Dutch , making him the first American rabbi . His departure might very well have been a result of the fracas ... Dutch New Amsterdam after their ship was attacked by a Spanish privateer who deprived them of their possessions . Peter ...
... Dutch , making him the first American rabbi . His departure might very well have been a result of the fracas ... Dutch New Amsterdam after their ship was attacked by a Spanish privateer who deprived them of their possessions . Peter ...
Contents
Baruch Bento Benedictus | 3 |
In Search of Baruch | 17 |
The Project of Escape | 67 |
Copyright | |
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Aboab argue Baruch Spinoza believe with perfect Benedictus Benedictus Spinoza born Catholic century chief rabbi Christian Church claim conceived continued conversos course death Descartes Deus sive natura divine Dutch Ein Sof emotions essence eternal Ethics excommunication existence experience explanations fact father final causes finite friends girls Ha-Shem halakha Hebrew heretic holy Ibid ideas infinite system Inquisition Israel Jan de Witt Jewish Jewish community Jewish identity Jews of Amsterdam Judaism kabbalah kabbalistic kherem knowledge laws Leibniz lived Lurianic Maimonides Marranos means Messiah metaphysics mind Moses Moslem mystical Nachmanides nature noza one's oneself perfect faith philosopher pleasure Portugal Portuguese proofs publish question Rabbi Morteira rational reality reason religion religious Rijnsburg Sabbatai Sabbatai Zevi salvation Schoenfeld scholar sense Sephardic soul Spain Spanish suffering synagogue Talmud teacher thing thinker thought tion Torah Tractatus Theologico-Politicus true truth understand Uriel da Costa Voorburg words write yeshiva young