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 71
... its own nature , and of which the action * « Affectiones . » Spinoza's " memoir " : the opening pages of The Ethics , stating definitions , axioms , and the first two propositions . is determined by itself alone . On the other hand.
... its own nature , and of which the action * « Affectiones . » Spinoza's " memoir " : the opening pages of The Ethics , stating definitions , axioms , and the first two propositions . is determined by itself alone . On the other hand.
Page 79
... means of unify- ing with God . Isaac Bashevis Singer has a lovely , if gently mocking , description of Talmudic scholarship in the opening para- graphs of his novel Shosha : I was brought up on three dead languages - Hebrew 79.
... means of unify- ing with God . Isaac Bashevis Singer has a lovely , if gently mocking , description of Talmudic scholarship in the opening para- graphs of his novel Shosha : I was brought up on three dead languages - Hebrew 79.
Page 274
... opening gambit was daring . 4. The division between the Sadducees- -more urbane and upper- class , representative of the more conservative views of the priestly class and the Pharisees ( who were the scribes and the teachers of ...
... opening gambit was daring . 4. The division between the Sadducees- -more urbane and upper- class , representative of the more conservative views of the priestly class and the Pharisees ( who were the scribes and the teachers of ...
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