Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity

This book is an integral part of a series dedicated to renowned Jewish thinkers. Spinoza, at the tender age of 23, was excommunicated from the Portuguese Jewish community where he had received his education. This group, known as "marranos," a term believed to be a Castilian word for swine, had fled to the relatively liberal city of Amsterdam.

Spinoza took up the occupation of a lens grinder, and he was apparently very good at it. However, the dust from this work contributed to his early demise. Interestingly, being a lens grinder was a philosophical job for Spinoza. As a philosopher, he viewed the world through his own unique lenses.

To me, he seems like a gentle man, someone I would be honored to meet and call a friend. There is an inherent greatness about him. He wore a signet ring throughout his life, inscribed with the word "caute," which means "cautiously" in Latin. An image of a thorny rose was engraved on it, and he signed his name "sub rosa." The name Spinoza is derived from the Portuguese word for thorn.

His aim was to present us with a rigorously proved perspective on reality. If we adhere to it, we can discover a life worth living. All of his faith was placed in the power of reason. He was known by different names in Hebrew, Portuguese, and Latin - Baruch, Bento, and Benedictus, all of which translate to "blessed."

The book also delves into the history of the Inquisition. Tomas de Torquemada, who became its head in 1483, was insatiable. He demanded retrials of those found innocent and sometimes burned the victims regardless. He designed the Inquisition to continue operating even after his death. Torture was carried out in the greatest secrecy, and "without an infusion of blood" meant burning someone to death, which was supposedly a less cruel punishment, justified by a passage from the Bible.

Jews were forced to convert and became the New Christians. Even today, some Catholics recite an incantation before entering a church that dates back to when Jews used phrases to disavow what they were about to do. The two religions blended in various ways. St. Teresa of Avila was part of a New Christian family and taught St. John of the Cross.

Spinoza offers us a religion of reason. It requires us to be reasonable, which is far more challenging than the most extreme asceticism. We must rid ourselves of all self-deceptions about being the chosen ones simply because we were born into a particular religion. There is no privileged access to the truth. He distinguishes between religion and superstition, condemning the latter. Although Spinoza was a determinist, he was not a fatalist, just like me.

A famous Jewish joke illustrates the absurdity of religious conversion. A priest puts his hand on a Jew's head and repeats, "You were once a Jew and now you're Christian." Later, when the convert is caught eating chicken instead of fish on Friday, he explains that he put his hand on the chicken's head and repeated, "You were once a chicken and now you're a fish."

Spinoza coped well with his excommunication. He chose to reconstruct himself. He defines "finitude" as being subject to forces beyond one's control. We are inevitably finite, despite our delusions to the contrary. We cannot bring ourselves into existence nor prevent ourselves from ceasing to exist. Feeling oneself expand outward into the world is a source of pleasure, while feeling oneself diminish and contract out of the world is painful. Desire is the third of the "primary emotions," and they are judgments about what will help us further our lifelong project of persisting and flourishing in this world.

Love is the feeling of flourishing. Merely thinking that one is flourishing gives rise to the feeling of pleasure that reinforces the judgment of flourishing. Once we purify our minds of the illusion of contingency, peace becomes possible within each of us. This peace will be one of acquiescence, unity, and purpose. There is only one true god and only one logically possible world, and we must understand and accept it.

**The Age of Hope**

The Significance of Spinoza's Thought



The aphorism “Inherited religion is no religion” had a profound impact on my young mind. It is evident that without a critical examination of our spiritual heritage, genuine religious conviction cannot be achieved. We are all products of our cultures, including their religions. Merely accepting the tenets of our culture out of convenience is tribalism, not spiritual enlightenment or thought. Spinoza is the embodiment of such meaningful thought about religion.



The Concept of Nahala and Spinoza's Philosophy



The ancient Hebrew idea of the nahala or covenantal inheritance is, I believe, Spinoza's philosophical touchstone, especially in his philosophy of religion. Goldstein's analysis shows how Spinoza regarded this idea as the core of both his Jewishness and his humanity. What he created was a personal statement that invited, rather than demanded, others to participate in the process of intellectual discovery that he considered religion to be. This statement is a modern formulation of the covenant of the nahala, a way to both appreciate and transcend one's culture simultaneously.



Spinoza's Excommunication and His Response



In 1656, at the age of 23, Spinoza was excommunicated from the Portuguese Jewish Congregation in Amsterdam. The reason for this drastic action is unclear. Since Judaism was not a state-sponsored religion, there were no civil consequences. Spinoza may have regretted the expulsion, but he neither protested nor mourned the formal separation from his spiritual community. Later, the German poet Novalis would call him “God-intoxicated.” However, he is better known in history as the first secularist who opened the attack on organized religion in Europe. Goldstein's book explores this apparent paradox.



The Evolution of the Covenant of Nahala



The synagogue rejected Spinoza, but he did not reject the synagogue. According to biblical law, the nahala of Judaism is an irrevocable legacy shared by every Jew. It cannot be taken away or alienated. Historically, the nahala was eretz Israel, the physical land. But over generations of dispersal, Jewish religious thought recognized that the abiding legacy of Judaism was cultural, not geographical - the law, which is the rules of correct behavior among people and between people and God. The law, in turn, was a part of the ‘covenant’, a permanent arrangement with the eternal, unnameable divine being within which the realities of existence could be progressively discovered.



The Dynamic Nature of the Covenant



This covenant of the nahala had no fixed content. It evolved continuously, as reflected in biblical documents. Each interpretation of the law provoked further interpretations, not only of the law but also of the character of human identity and the meaning of being human. Spinoza's recognition that this covenant is a process, not its temporary result, is of fundamental philosophical and religious importance. It is, in a sense, the essence of Judaism, that the covenant demands an eternal search for its eternal object. Any attempt to limit this search by either law or social convention is a breach of the covenant. Spiritual learning inherits the past but never stops transforming itself into a new inheritance.



The Age of Hope



Spinoza understood the difficulties that his co-religionists and the rest of the world had with this concept of the covenant. Most of us prefer stability, both intellectual and emotional. But such stability can only be achieved at the cost of hope. Religious faith seeks to restrict thinking to an established set of doctrines about the world. Religious hope, on the other hand, projects thought into an unknown future with a confidence that is more profound than faith. It is this hope that is the real substance of both the covenant of the nahala and Spinoza's philosophy. He was the first to announce an epochal change - from the Age of Faith to the Age of Hope. To recognize that hope may not be enough to hope for is not a betrayal; it is learning in the Spinozan (and Jewish) tradition.

A Highly Personal Meditation On Spinoza

Rebecca Goldstein commences her study "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew who Gave us Modernity" (2006) by posing a thought-provoking question. Why is a book on Spinoza appropriate for a series called "Jewish Encounters" which aims to promote Jewish literature, culture, and ideas? Spinoza, excommunicated from the synagogue in Amsterdam in 1656, had unbridgeable differences with traditional Judaism. Yet, Goldstein, a philosopher, novelist, and MacArthur fellow, offers a unique perspective.

Her answers are a blend of the personal, historical, and philosophical. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Goldstein was initially taught a negative view of Spinoza. However, she became fascinated with him and later chose to become a philosopher. Teaching a course in continental rationalism, she revisited Spinoza with new eyes. The philosopher reminded her of her childhood religion and became someone she admired and taught.
The historical aspect of Goldstein's answer is significant. She explores Spinoza's life and the Amsterdam Jewish community. The community, mostly refugees from Portugal, was recovering its Judaism in an open city. Goldstein traces the influence of Jewish thought on Spinoza and shows how his radical thinking was related to the persecution of the Jews.
Goldstein's novelistic talents enrich her history. She tries to understand Spinoza's inner life and sees his writings as memoirs. She provides an overview of his religious critique and full philosophy while tying them to various aspects of his life and the times.
Finally, Goldstein explains how she "betrays" Spinoza. She is committed to modernity and secularism but also values imagination and particularity. She disagrees with Spinoza's view of imagination and dedicates her book to "Steve" despite Spinoza. Her love for her daughters, which may be irrational in Spinozistic terms, is something she will not give up.
In conclusion, Goldstein's book is a thoughtful and highly personal account of a great philosopher. It is valuable for both those who know Spinoza's thought and those who are new to it. I have learned a great deal from it and appreciate her candor.

I had been aware of this book for quite some time. I had already read and relished "Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away" by Rebecca Goldstein. Then, in late 2021, Spinoza made headlines. A Spinoza scholar who wished to visit the philosopher's old haunts received a letter stating that Spinoza's excommunication was still in effect, and as a result, the would-be visitor was declared persona non grata. Some of my liberal friends were embarrassed by this display of narrow-mindedness. But before they could get too scandalized, an invitation was eventually extended. It seems that the first inhospitable respondent did not have the final say.

The publicity surrounding this incident was my tipping point. I ordered the book and have since read it.

The Prologue details the excommunication, the first chapter delves into Spinoza's philosophy, the second examines history, the third deals with identity issues, and the fourth chapter loops back and takes his philosophy, history, and identity to a new level. That's a concise summary, but the book is far from dry. Rebecca Goldstein's forte is making philosophy revelatory. In fact, revealing everything she has written would be like a spoiler, as part of the enjoyment lies in discovering it for oneself. Despite its scholarly nature, she is adept at showing rather than just telling. Suffice it to say that Spinoza is not an atheist. He convinces himself, at least, that God is one with logic, which is one with the world and the things that exist and occur in the world. God is not transcendent; rather, God is immanent.

According to Spinoza's logic, existence is the essence of "nature," meaning all that is. This is the opposite of the idea of multiverses.

The flaw in his chain of reasoning pertains to what the author calls the Presumption of Reason. Spinoza takes this as proven or simply a law of logic, but the author disagrees. The presumption is that for every fact, there is a reason, meaning there are no loose ends. However, the author contends that this may or may not be true of the world, while Spinoza's entire structure assumes it is.

Neither the author's religious education nor her philosophical education led to any sympathy for Spinoza. As a child, she was taught that Spinoza was an "apikorus" (essentially a heretic in Hebrew) and that his philosophy amounted to atheism. Moreover, our current philosophy is analytic, inductive, and empirical, which teaches that Spinoza's deductive philosophy (like logic and mathematical proofs) is circular and nonsensical.

Nevertheless, she was eventually moved by what Spinoza teaches. She herself teaches a course in seventeenth-century rationalism (featuring Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) and has witnessed generations of students have their "aha" moments.

Ironically, she had become a philosopher.

Spinoza's philosophy is similar to the "detachment" achieved in Buddhist enlightenment, albeit through different means. For him, salvation consists of the pleasure when things make sense and the peace achieved by letting go of what cannot be controlled. That is the only salvation. For him, God = logic = all of existence, with logic fully embodied in reality.

She illustrates the problem of how this is understood through the Woody Allen quip, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying."

In the author's view, Spinoza was intellectually in a difficult position due to his Marrano background. She points to the forced conversions, traumatized identities, and the tortures that shaped his family and communal history during the Reconquista and the Spanish-Portuguese Inquisition.

In the seventeenth century, "Portuguese" was often understood to mean "Jewish." The Jews who fled to Portugal only to find themselves under the same brutal system eventually escaped the reach of the Inquisition by moving to relatively liberal Amsterdam. There, they struggled to reclaim their Jewish identities and reconstruct their Jewish lives while placating the authorities. They had to walk a fine line and pass certain religious tests, requiring, among other things, that their leaders keep the community in line. Failing to do so would risk their precarious position.

This is the context in which his excommunication took place.

It is to this historical background that Rebecca Goldstein attributes what she calls Spinoza's "ecstatic rationalism." Here is a quote from Spinoza that she includes in her book: "If the way which I have pointed out, as leading to this result, seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men be neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

She continues: "From 'causa sui' to salvation. Salvation is achieved by bringing the vision of the 'causa sui'--the vast and infinite system of logical entailments of which each of us is but one entailment--into one's very own conception of oneself, and, with that vision, reconstituting oneself, henceforward living, as it were, outside of oneself. The point, for Spinoza, is not to become insiders, but rather outsiders. The point is to become ultimate outsiders."

The word "ecstasy" comes from the Greek for "to stand outside of." To stand outside of what? Of oneself. It is in this original sense that Spinoza offers us something new under the sun: ecstatic rationalism. He turns the faculty of reason, as identified through Cartesianism, into a means of our salvation. The concerns of his inquisitorially oppressed community combine with the mathematical inspiration of Cartesianism to give us the system of Spinoza.

She goes on to say that this ecstatic impulse, in which she also sees something Platonic, sets Spinoza apart from the other two rationalists, Descartes and Leibniz, who were Christians and thus members of the majority. They did not have to grapple with the Jewish problem of identity, suffering, and history on their own.

"Only Spinoza had to fight his way clear of the dilemmas of Jewish being, fighting all the way to ecstasy.... Spinoza names the ecstasy his system delivers 'amor dei intellectualis,' the intellectual love of God."

I used to say I was a panentheist, but perhaps that was because I thought it resolved something or that there was something wrong with being a pantheist. After reading Spinoza, I'm thinking maybe I am a pantheist after all. I'm not as detached and enlightened as we've been saying about Spinoza, certainly not, nor did I arrive at this conclusion through logic and mathematical proofs. That's not me. But immanence--yes. And I really don't worry about that troublesome question of a creator God.

My views have evolved over time. I initially adopted my theology from my mother. In the '70s, I experienced and thought about the world in terms of the Americanized version of Zen that was popular at the time. And in the early 2000s, my language shifted again, towards more conventional God terms. That's how I make sense of everything, or how it makes sense of me. Mostly, I ask for strength and courage and the ability to do God's will, which means writing and expressing myself publicly, not privately. Not withdrawing too much. Not expecting others to solve or resolve everything.

Now, I can imagine what my friends "without a religious bone in their bodies" think about this. They probably think it's a crutch. Perhaps I don't believe in the God they don't believe in either. Perhaps they, like Spinoza's rationalist contemporaries, are members of the hegemonic majority, and maybe that has something to do with it.

I am not Oz, the great and powerful. I am Jan, the small and weak.

...And it works. Not like a trick, but like the truth.

Let's hear it for Spinoza.

A few years ago, I read Rebecca Goldstein's novel "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction" and didn't love it. I also tried and abandoned "The Mind-Body Problem" because I couldn't get into it. But I loved "Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away," and now this one. Based on this sample, I highly recommend her nonfiction.

It’s an interesting experience to read Rebecca Goldstein’s “Betraying Spinoza” immediately after reading Steven Nadler’s “Spinoza: A Life.”

They are two very different books about Spinoza with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Arguably, Nadler’s work has more strengths while Goldstein’s has more weaknesses.

Nadler’s “Spinoza: A Life” is a detailed, factual, and historical biography. It presents a comprehensive account of Spinoza’s life, leaving no stone unturned.

In contrast, Goldstein’s “Betraying Spinoza” attempts to do many things. In some aspects, it offers a useful summary of parts of Nadler’s book, which is beneficial for readers.

Goldstein also provides explanations of Spinoza’s philosophy, making it more accessible to laypeople. Her descriptions are like sitting in an undergraduate lecture, where the material becomes easier to understand.

However, much of Goldstein’s book is speculative and subjective. It reads more like an intellectual blog post than a scholarly work. This is particularly evident in the last section, where she imagines an inner life for Spinoza without concrete evidence.

While Goldstein incorporates factual information, her book often rambles and speculates, diluting the factuality with personal musings. Some reviewers have criticized her for stretching things and making illusory connections.

Despite my criticisms, Goldstein’s book may be a good resource for those who want to learn about Spinoza but lack the motivation to read a challenging book like Nadler’s. It is informative and undemanding, as long as you can tolerate her tangents and speculations.

Reading Nadler’s book first and then following up with Goldstein’s can provide a well-rounded understanding of Spinoza. It allows you to consolidate the knowledge gained from the more academic work with a lighter and more accessible one.

By decree of the angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza. With the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of the entire holy congregation, and in front of these holy scrolls with the 613 precepts which are written therein, we curse him. We curse him with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho and with the curse which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the castigations which are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night. Cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. But you that cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day. -- excerpt from the excommunication of Baruch de Espinoza, July 27, 1656.

Bertrand Russell describes Spinoza as "the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers." I cannot disagree. His philosophy is truly remarkable, but his conduct is even more so. He lived a life of integrity and principle, despite facing great adversity.

Goldstein titled her book Betraying Spinoza because she hopes to reconstruct his identity and demonstrate how it influenced his thinking. She recognizes that his formal philosophy endeavors to abrogate the concept of identity. Through an analysis of Jewish history at large (and the 17th century Amsterdam Jewish community in particular) and making the occasional educated guess, she makes the compelling case that Spinoza, in rejecting Judaism, was a sort of Jewish savior. By destroying the Jewish conceit of being God's "chosen people," he undercuts all forms of essentialism, religious or otherwise.

His impact on John Locke is noted, and the leap to his influence on the deism that informed the thinking of those who would found the United States is short. When I am at my most pessimistic, I think of the philosopher, and those like him, and I allow myself to hope. His ideas offer a glimmer of light in a sometimes dark world, and his example shows that it is possible to live a life of meaning and purpose, even in the face of great challenges.

This is a truly silly book. Rebecca Goldstein has written a work that is ostensibly about Spinoza, yet it predominantly focuses on his Jewish ancestry, combined with aspects of her own biography.

It seems rather odd to attempt to center on who Spinoza was, rather than emphasizing his profound thought. His philosophy is all about how we should strive to be impersonal and that the highest form of living lies in breaking through the illusion of the self, or rather seeing life from an impersonal third perspective.

The author is in no way coherent. On one page, she idolizes Spinoza's thought, and yet on the next, she emphasizes the value of having a personal identity. The format of the book also reveals how little she has understood his philosophy. Spinoza would have recoiled at the idea of including his own subjectivity in his magnum opus, Ethics. Moreover, I fail to see why it would be impossible to break away from a tight-knit community in order to forge a life for oneself, as numerous other thinkers have successfully done.

I was so provoked by the author that I could only manage to read two-thirds of the book. This should only be read if you have an intense interest in Jewish history.

It certainly lives up to its title!

But why would anyone want to betray Spinoza? Especially an admitted analytic philosopher such as the writer of this book? That's just not logically coherent and analytic philosophers are never incoherent.

Nonetheless, the book had a few good moments. Mostly when the writer just stuck to the overall scope of Spinoza's project (flattening the universe to a single all-connecting rational plane, thereby vanquishing all metaphysics and religious superstition).

The problems occurred when the writer went into detail regarding the personal biography and history of Spinoza and how these informed his philosophy. Yes, I suppose in a biography, one should expect such things. And yes, doing that with Spinoza is a clear betrayal of his project. But if you're going to get messy with rich details, then go all out with it. I found the book boring and tedious in those parts and just wanted to hear the writer's take on Spinoza's rationalism.

In the end, I just wanted this book to be written by a continental philosopher. Had a continental philosopher written this book, it would have been a cutthroat betrayal instead of the dry and boring betrayal that the writer effected. I'd like to think that the "Betraying Spinoza" book written by a continental philosopher (perhaps by Deleuze, who loved Spinoza) would start with the following axioms:

I. Spinoza is a spider.

II. Spiders make webs.

III. Webs catch critters.

And then revolve around this question:

How can one betray a spider? (Perhaps by weaving a web to catch another spider. Or by weaving a web that isn't as orderly as the one idealized by humans, perhaps the web of a black widow.)

This kind of approach would have added more depth and creativity to the exploration of Spinoza's work, rather than the rather lackluster treatment it received in the current book.

It makes one wonder what could have been if the right philosopher had taken on the task of "betraying" Spinoza.

Maybe then, we would have a more engaging and thought-provoking analysis of this important philosopher.

As it stands, the book leaves much to be desired and fails to fully capture the essence of Spinoza's ideas and the potential for a truly interesting betrayal of his work.