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 121
... Judaism . And then of course there was to be the case of Baruch Spinoza , who turned neither to the Christianity his Por- tuguese ancestors had outwardly practiced , nor to the rab- binical Judaism of halakha . Nor was he interested in ...
... Judaism . And then of course there was to be the case of Baruch Spinoza , who turned neither to the Christianity his Por- tuguese ancestors had outwardly practiced , nor to the rab- binical Judaism of halakha . Nor was he interested in ...
Page 134
... Judaism , from which Chris- tianity had sprung , presented the authentic experience , with Christianity a corruption of it . He also confessed that Christianity's emphasis on hell's damnation terrified him . Soon both he and his five ...
... Judaism , from which Chris- tianity had sprung , presented the authentic experience , with Christianity a corruption of it . He also confessed that Christianity's emphasis on hell's damnation terrified him . Soon both he and his five ...
Page 135
... Judaism was different from the original model . But he hoped and believed that the fluid New Jewish situation offered a historical opportunity to remedy this .... Da Costa expected that ( unlike the Catholicism of which he had despaired ) ...
... Judaism was different from the original model . But he hoped and believed that the fluid New Jewish situation offered a historical opportunity to remedy this .... Da Costa expected that ( unlike the Catholicism of which he had despaired ) ...
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