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. |
From inside the book
Page 4
... Amsterdam provided the conditions for their reconnecting to a Judaism that ... Jews who derived from Spain (SepbaraJ in Hebrew) continue to be called to ... Amsterdam) typically lasted anywhere from a day to several years. The imposed ...
... Amsterdam provided the conditions for their reconnecting to a Judaism that ... Jews who derived from Spain (SepbaraJ in Hebrew) continue to be called to ... Amsterdam) typically lasted anywhere from a day to several years. The imposed ...
Page 4
... Amsterdam provided the conditions for their reconnecting to a Judaism that ... Jews who derived from Spain ( Sepharad in Hebrew ) continue to be called to ... Amsterdam ) typically lasted anywhere from a day to several years . The imposed ...
... Amsterdam provided the conditions for their reconnecting to a Judaism that ... Jews who derived from Spain ( Sepharad in Hebrew ) continue to be called to ... Amsterdam ) typically lasted anywhere from a day to several years . The imposed ...
Page 13
... Amsterdam Jews , propounding theories to explain the unusual vehemence and finality of the denunciation pronounced against the young philosopher . Others had questioned principles of the faith and been meted out their penance and then ...
... Amsterdam Jews , propounding theories to explain the unusual vehemence and finality of the denunciation pronounced against the young philosopher . Others had questioned principles of the faith and been meted out their penance and then ...
Page 15
... Jews have felt a mysterious kinship with this philosopher whose system would seem , on the surface , to offer no ... Amsterdam Jew- ish community in which he had been reared and out of which he had been cast . It was the language in ...
... Jews have felt a mysterious kinship with this philosopher whose system would seem , on the surface , to offer no ... Amsterdam Jew- ish community in which he had been reared and out of which he had been cast . It was the language in ...
Page 20
... Jews , and then the mass burning to death of all those who were condemned . And still , as you well know , girls ... Amsterdam , where a community of Portuguese - Jewish exiles was thriving as it could in few other European cities of that day ...
... Jews , and then the mass burning to death of all those who were condemned . And still , as you well know , girls ... Amsterdam , where a community of Portuguese - Jewish exiles was thriving as it could in few other European cities of that day ...
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