Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought: Writings on His Life, Philosophy, and Legacy

297 Pages·2019·1.549 MB·English

by  Daniel B. Schwartz (editor)

Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought

the tauber institute series for
the study of european jewry
Jehuda Reinharz, General Editor
ChaeRan Y. Freeze, Associate Editor
Sylvia Fuks Fried, Associate Editor
Eugene R. Sheppard, Associate Editor
the brandeis library of modern jewish thought
Eugene R. Sheppard and Samuel Moyn, Editors
This library aims to redefine the canon of modern Jewish thought by publishing
primary source readings from individual Jewish thinkers or groups of thinkers in
reliable English translations. Designed for courses in modern Jewish philosophy,
thought, and intellectual history, each volume features a general introduction
and annotations to each source with the instructor and student in mind.
Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought: Writings on His Life, Philosophy, and Legacy
Daniel B. Schwartz, editor
Modern French Jewish Thought: Writings on Religion and Politics
Sarah Hammerschlag, editor
Jewish Legal Theories: Writings on State, Religion, and Morality
Leora Batnitzky and Yonatan Brafman, editors
Sabbatian Heresy: Writings on Mysticism, Messianism, and the Origins of Jewish Modernity
Paweł Maciejko, editor
Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Politics, and Culture, 1893–1958
Moshe Behar and Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, editors
Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States
Simon Rabinovitch, editor
Moses Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible
Michah Gottlieb, editor
Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880–1940
Mitchell B. Hart, editor
for the complete list of books that are forthcoming in the series,
please see http://www.brandeis.edu/tauber

Spinoza’s
Challenge
to
Edited by
Daniel B. Schwartz
Jewish
Thought
Writings on His
Life, PHiLosoPHy,
and Legacy
Brandeis University Press
Waltham, Massachusetts
brandeis university press
An imprint of University Press of New England
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© 2019 Brandeis University
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Typeset in Albertina and Verlag by Passumpsic Publishing
Chapter 22, from Betraying Spinoza by Rebecca Goldstein,
copyright © 2006 by Rebecca Goldstein (New York: Schocken
Books, 2006), 19–29, 45–48, 63–66. Used by permission of Schocken
Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Any third-party use of this
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
Hardcover isbn: 978–1–58465–711–8
Paperback isbn: 978–1–58465–712–5
Ebook isbn: 978–1–5126–0356–9
5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword ix
Introduction xi
I | Early Sephardic Responses
1 | The Sephardic Community of Amsterdam,
The Writ of Excommunication against Baruch Spinoza 3
2 | Isaac Orobio de Castro, A Philosophical Disputation 5
3 | Hakham Zevi Ashkenazi, Responsum No. 18 12
II | Breaking the Taboo
4 | Moses Mendelssohn, Second Dialogue 21
5 | Moses Mendelssohn, On the Curtailment of
Jewish Juridical Autonomy 25
6 | Moses Mendelssohn, Judaism as Revealed Legislation 29
7 | Moses Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, Chaps. 13–14 35
8 | Moses Mendelssohn, From To Lessing’s Friends 43
9 | Solomon Maimon, Autobiography 46
10 | Saul Ascher, Leviathan, Book 2, Chapter 6 54
11 | Mordechai Gumpel Schnaber-Levison,
The Thirteen Principles of Torah, 19a–b 62
III | From Heretic to Hero
12 | Heinrich Heine, On the History of Religion and Philosophy
in Germany 67
13 | Berthold Auerbach, Spinoza: A Novel 77
14 | Meir HaLevi Letteris, The Life of the Sage and Scholar
Baruch de Spinoza, z"l 84
15 | Salomon Rubin, The New Guide to the Perplexed 95
16 | Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem 103
17 | Micha Josef Berdichevsky, The Day’s Labors and Musings:
Selection of Diaries 109
18 | Melekh Ravitch, A Poetical Essay in Four Cycles:
The Man, the Work, the Spider, Incense 113
19 | David Ben-Gurion, Let Us Rectify the Injustice 119
20 | Haim Slovès, Boruch of Amsterdam, Act 3, Scene 2 126
21 | Isaac Deutscher, The Non-Jewish Jew 133
22 | Rebecca N. Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza:
The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity 145
IV | Through the Lens of Wissenschaft
23 | Manuel Joël, On the Genesis of Spinoza’s Philosophy 155
24 | Jakob Freudenthal, The Life of Spinoza 161
25 | Carl Gebhardt, Spinoza/Judaism and Baroque 169
26 | Jakob Klatzkin, The Misunderstood One 175
27 | Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza:
Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning 184
V | Contra Spinoza
28 | Samuel David Luzzatto, Against Spinoza 197
29 | Rav Avraham Isaac Ha-Kohen Kook, Notebook: “‘First in Jaffa’” 204
30 | Hermann Cohen, Spinoza on State and Religion, Judaism
and Christianity 207
31 | Leo Strauss, Preface to the English Translation,
Spinoza’s Critique of Religion 216
32 | Emmanuel Levinas, The Spinoza Case 233
33 | Yehoshua Manoah, A Bit of Introspection 238
34 | Allan Nadler, Romancing Spinoza 244
Acknowledgments 255
Index 257
Foreword
Daniel Schwartz’s Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought: Writings on His Life, Phi-
losophy, and Legacy marks an integral contribution to the Brandeis Library of
Modern Jewish Thought. Perhaps more so than any other figure, Spinoza
became a synecdoche for Jewish modernity writ large. Indeed, this volume
demonstrates how responses to Spinoza’s perceived challenge to Judaism il-
luminate the dilemmas of modern Jewish thought through the present. How
and why have such a diverse set of philosophers, writers, and intellectuals
seen it necessary to grapple with, excoriate, or lionize Spinoza and his writ-
ings? A Jew who lived beyond rabbinical authority, but who nevertheless re-
tained his integrity as a freethinking humanist by never having converted to
Christianity, Spinoza became a hero in a pantheon of “non-Jewish Jews,” as
Isaac Deutscher called them. Others cast Spinoza as the ultimate Jewish trai-
tor, one who turned against his ancestral faith for the false promise of a uni-
versalist society that would or should never be realized. Even so, some Jews
who did not renounce their identification with Judaism found reasons to can-
onize Spinoza as a pioneer. This volume presents several different iterations
and interpretations of a thinker who may be identified as Baruch (Hebrew),
Benedictus (Latin), or Bento (Portuguese), and who will remain exemplary for
modern Jewish thought for some time to come.
Samuel Moyn and Eugene R. Sheppard, Editors
The Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought