That last sentence in an earlier entry about Maimonides said something about Spinoza not being counted as a Jew? It was something that now requires a clarification.
Was the great Spinoza a general Western-civilization philosopher or a particular Jewish philosopher? None deny him the first, but very few acknowledge the second. As for me, both must be the answer!
Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch, A God-drunk man… ---How proper thus to call a sincere and authentic Jew, someone like the magnificent Kabbalist Luria, or the charismatic Hasid Baal Shem Tov… Anyone who has read the preceding portion of this Judaic section with at least some measure of undivided attention, and an equal dose of commensurate comprehension, will see the connection right away.
This entry’s title alludes to Spinoza’s clever and perceptive characterization by Novalis (pseudonym of the German poet and novelist Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801). Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch! This label alone affirms Spinoza’s authenticity as a Jew and demands his inclusion in this Jewish section, regardless of how often he might be summoned from his eternal rest to other, non-Jewish sections.
On the other hand, what establishes Spinoza as one of the greatest philosophers of our Western civilization is perhaps exactly that Jewishness of his, which gives his nationality-transcending thinking a tinge of unique originality, if I may say so, whenever he applies his distinctive ethnic analytical and spiritual heritage to the extravagant universality of the Gentile world.
To support my conclusion, here is my favorite iconoclast and lover of originality, Nietzsche, who goes out of his way in his praise for Spinoza, calling him a “learned genius” in Menschliches (157) or “the purest philosopher” in Menschliches (475), where he extols the Jews as "a people... to whom we owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest Book, and the most effective moral code in the world."This entry, as I said before, is not the only place where I indulge myself in discussing the great Jew, which is apparently eminently appropriate, considering (for those who seek a greater authority, rather than mine) the overwhelming attention he gets from my favorite genius Nietzsche. But the focus of this one will be on him as a person (and a Jew), and also on his preoccupation with God, which, as I have said, is a distinctive mark of Spinoza’s authentic Jewishness.
In a curious historical tit-for-tat, (I am alluding to the famous rediscovery of the German Bach by the Jew Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) Spinoza’s genius was first rediscovered for posterity by the Germans Lessing and Goethe (as well as by the Englishman Coleridge, whose admiration for Spinoza saved his reputation in the English-speaking world from David Hume’s smoldering stigma, the latter branding Spinoza’s philosophy “a hideous hypothesis.”)
Spinoza’s grandparents and parents had belonged to the Portuguese Jewish community, who had famously accepted the conversion to Christianity to avoid persecution, but remained clandestine Jews. Some of these so-called ‘crypto-Jews’ are still living in Portugal under their overtly Christian façade, up to this day; only in recent years some of them have decided to come out of the closet. Spinoza’s family, however, chose moving to Holland, when such a move became possible, where they could revert to their Jewish identity (a similar case, perhaps, to the story of Maimonides,--- again, a connection).
Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Spinoza was educated in Jewish subjects, but, being an original thinker and a natural maverick, he could not escape a clash with the Jewish religious authorities, arguing about the lack of proof that God had no body, that angels existed, and that the soul was immortal. Eventually, at the age of twenty-three, he was excommunicated, and although he sought a reconciliation, it was not at any price. At one point, as a test of his humility, he was told to sit at the doorstep of the synagogue all day, which he did, but predictably nothing came out of this.
(...Did Spinoza indeed seek such a reconciliation? Did he, a consummate hermit, really wish to be reintegrated into the Jewish community, which, as he well knew, would never tolerate his philosophical views and would demand his renunciation of independence and acceptance of a complete submission? I don’t think so. To me, this whole incident suggests Spinoza’s deliberate “experiment in self-humiliation” at the doorstep of the Synagogue. Even at that early age, and, perhaps, because of that early age when one is still compelled to prove something to others and to himself, he was mature enough to realize that such an experience would be detrimental to him, leading to nothing but humiliation, unless it was, indeed, an intellectual experiment, and its predictable outcome was the necessary quod erat demonstrandum, which he sought and obtained.)
Being an equal opportunity offender, he was also in trouble with Amsterdam’s Christian authorities, and at some point he was even expelled from the city and traveled around the country until finally settling in The Hague, where he spent the last seven years of his life, and where he died and was buried as a Christian in 1677, although, in fact, he was more of an outcast, “a sick hermit,” as Nietzsche would later call him...
To be continued as Part II of the same… next.
Was the great Spinoza a general Western-civilization philosopher or a particular Jewish philosopher? None deny him the first, but very few acknowledge the second. As for me, both must be the answer!
Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch, A God-drunk man… ---How proper thus to call a sincere and authentic Jew, someone like the magnificent Kabbalist Luria, or the charismatic Hasid Baal Shem Tov… Anyone who has read the preceding portion of this Judaic section with at least some measure of undivided attention, and an equal dose of commensurate comprehension, will see the connection right away.
This entry’s title alludes to Spinoza’s clever and perceptive characterization by Novalis (pseudonym of the German poet and novelist Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801). Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch! This label alone affirms Spinoza’s authenticity as a Jew and demands his inclusion in this Jewish section, regardless of how often he might be summoned from his eternal rest to other, non-Jewish sections.
On the other hand, what establishes Spinoza as one of the greatest philosophers of our Western civilization is perhaps exactly that Jewishness of his, which gives his nationality-transcending thinking a tinge of unique originality, if I may say so, whenever he applies his distinctive ethnic analytical and spiritual heritage to the extravagant universality of the Gentile world.
To support my conclusion, here is my favorite iconoclast and lover of originality, Nietzsche, who goes out of his way in his praise for Spinoza, calling him a “learned genius” in Menschliches (157) or “the purest philosopher” in Menschliches (475), where he extols the Jews as "a people... to whom we owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest Book, and the most effective moral code in the world."This entry, as I said before, is not the only place where I indulge myself in discussing the great Jew, which is apparently eminently appropriate, considering (for those who seek a greater authority, rather than mine) the overwhelming attention he gets from my favorite genius Nietzsche. But the focus of this one will be on him as a person (and a Jew), and also on his preoccupation with God, which, as I have said, is a distinctive mark of Spinoza’s authentic Jewishness.
In a curious historical tit-for-tat, (I am alluding to the famous rediscovery of the German Bach by the Jew Mendelssohn-Bartholdy) Spinoza’s genius was first rediscovered for posterity by the Germans Lessing and Goethe (as well as by the Englishman Coleridge, whose admiration for Spinoza saved his reputation in the English-speaking world from David Hume’s smoldering stigma, the latter branding Spinoza’s philosophy “a hideous hypothesis.”)
Spinoza’s grandparents and parents had belonged to the Portuguese Jewish community, who had famously accepted the conversion to Christianity to avoid persecution, but remained clandestine Jews. Some of these so-called ‘crypto-Jews’ are still living in Portugal under their overtly Christian façade, up to this day; only in recent years some of them have decided to come out of the closet. Spinoza’s family, however, chose moving to Holland, when such a move became possible, where they could revert to their Jewish identity (a similar case, perhaps, to the story of Maimonides,--- again, a connection).
Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Spinoza was educated in Jewish subjects, but, being an original thinker and a natural maverick, he could not escape a clash with the Jewish religious authorities, arguing about the lack of proof that God had no body, that angels existed, and that the soul was immortal. Eventually, at the age of twenty-three, he was excommunicated, and although he sought a reconciliation, it was not at any price. At one point, as a test of his humility, he was told to sit at the doorstep of the synagogue all day, which he did, but predictably nothing came out of this.
(...Did Spinoza indeed seek such a reconciliation? Did he, a consummate hermit, really wish to be reintegrated into the Jewish community, which, as he well knew, would never tolerate his philosophical views and would demand his renunciation of independence and acceptance of a complete submission? I don’t think so. To me, this whole incident suggests Spinoza’s deliberate “experiment in self-humiliation” at the doorstep of the Synagogue. Even at that early age, and, perhaps, because of that early age when one is still compelled to prove something to others and to himself, he was mature enough to realize that such an experience would be detrimental to him, leading to nothing but humiliation, unless it was, indeed, an intellectual experiment, and its predictable outcome was the necessary quod erat demonstrandum, which he sought and obtained.)
Being an equal opportunity offender, he was also in trouble with Amsterdam’s Christian authorities, and at some point he was even expelled from the city and traveled around the country until finally settling in The Hague, where he spent the last seven years of his life, and where he died and was buried as a Christian in 1677, although, in fact, he was more of an outcast, “a sick hermit,” as Nietzsche would later call him...
To be continued as Part II of the same… next.
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