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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... Marra- nos , those who , even though they had been forced by the Church to convert to Christianity , still continued to prac- tice Judaism in secret , hiding their observance of the Torah from the cruel edicts of the Spanish ...
... Marra- nos , those who , even though they had been forced by the Church to convert to Christianity , still continued to prac- tice Judaism in secret , hiding their observance of the Torah from the cruel edicts of the Spanish ...
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... Marranos who had seen the very worst of what Christian intolerance can mean for the Jews . Amsterdam was a relatively tolerant city , Protestant rather than Catholic . Still , who knew how far their tolerance could be extended ? It was ...
... Marranos who had seen the very worst of what Christian intolerance can mean for the Jews . Amsterdam was a relatively tolerant city , Protestant rather than Catholic . Still , who knew how far their tolerance could be extended ? It was ...
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The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity Rebecca Goldstein. nections to other Marranos scattered around the world , including those still back in Spain and Portugal , to import and export . Still , there were Protestant theologians even in ...
The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity Rebecca Goldstein. nections to other Marranos scattered around the world , including those still back in Spain and Portugal , to import and export . Still , there were Protestant theologians even in ...
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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