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 6
... Ethics, a work that makes all the claims for reason that have ever been made. Some favors came his way. The University of Heidelberg, which had fallen from its perch of previous glory through the prolonged tribulations of the Thirty ...
... Ethics, a work that makes all the claims for reason that have ever been made. Some favors came his way. The University of Heidelberg, which had fallen from its perch of previous glory through the prolonged tribulations of the Thirty ...
Page 6
... Ethics , a work that makes all the claims for reason that have ever been made . Some favors came his way . The University of Heidelberg , which had fallen from its perch of previous glory through the prolonged tribulations of the Thirty ...
... Ethics , a work that makes all the claims for reason that have ever been made . Some favors came his way . The University of Heidelberg , which had fallen from its perch of previous glory through the prolonged tribulations of the Thirty ...
Page 9
... Ethics , titled Short Treatise on God , Man , and His Well - Being . The signet ring he wore throughout his life was inscribed with the word caute , Latin for " cautiously , " and it was engraved with the image of a thorny rose , so ...
... Ethics , titled Short Treatise on God , Man , and His Well - Being . The signet ring he wore throughout his life was inscribed with the word caute , Latin for " cautiously , " and it was engraved with the image of a thorny rose , so ...
Page 11
... can achieve not only intellectually but also , in a sense the only sense compatible with his rationalism- spiritually . The aim of his ethics is to give us the means to arrive at a " contentment of spirit , which arises II.
... can achieve not only intellectually but also , in a sense the only sense compatible with his rationalism- spiritually . The aim of his ethics is to give us the means to arrive at a " contentment of spirit , which arises II.
Page 14
... ethical , cultural ? Are there traits of outlook that define or explain what it is to be Jewish ? Is Jewishness an essential attribute for a Jew , part of what makes the person the very person that he is , so that once a Jew , always a ...
... ethical , cultural ? Are there traits of outlook that define or explain what it is to be Jewish ? Is Jewishness an essential attribute for a Jew , part of what makes the person the very person that he is , so that once a Jew , always a ...
Contents
3 | |
17 | |
The Project of Escape | 67 |
Identity Crisis | 124 |
Epilogue | 258 |
Chronology | 265 |
Notes | 273 |
Acknowledgments | 285 |
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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 explain 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 lives Lurianic Maimonides Marranos means Messiah metaphysics mind Moses Moslem mystical Nachmanides nature noza one's oneself perfect faith personal identity philosopher pleasure Portugal Portuguese proofs publish question Rabbi Morteira rational reality reason religion religious Rijnsburg Sabbatai Zevi salvation Schoenfeld scholar sense Sephardic soul Spain Spanish suffering synagogue Talmud teacher thing thinker thought tion Torah true truth understand Uriel da Costa Voorburg words write yeshiva young