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 29
... scholar who had come from Vienna to lead this Sephardic congregation ( Ashkenaz means “ Ger- many " in Hebrew ) , had permitted themselves to indulge the highest expectations for him , a true talmid khokhem ( a gifted scholar ...
... scholar who had come from Vienna to lead this Sephardic congregation ( Ashkenaz means “ Ger- many " in Hebrew ) , had permitted themselves to indulge the highest expectations for him , a true talmid khokhem ( a gifted scholar ...
Page 74
... scholar named Shabbethai Bass visited Amsterdam and came away even more impressed with it than Mrs. Schoenfeld had been : [ In the schools ] of the Sephardim . . . I saw “ giants [ in scholarship ] : tender children as small as grasshop ...
... scholar named Shabbethai Bass visited Amsterdam and came away even more impressed with it than Mrs. Schoenfeld had been : [ In the schools ] of the Sephardim . . . I saw “ giants [ in scholarship ] : tender children as small as grasshop ...
Page 87
... scholar named Simeon bar Yohai , a second - century sage , who was himself a student of the leg- endary Rabbi Akiva . I had heard tales of Rabbi Akiva from youngest child- hood . One of the greatest of Jewish scholars , he had not even ...
... scholar named Simeon bar Yohai , a second - century sage , who was himself a student of the leg- endary Rabbi Akiva . I had heard tales of Rabbi Akiva from youngest child- hood . One of the greatest of Jewish scholars , he had not even ...
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