The Pale God: Israeli Secularism and Spinoza's Philosophy of Culture

221 Pages·2011·3.238 MB·English

by  Gideon Katz

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The Pale God
IsraelI secularIsm and sPInoza’s PhIlosoPhy of culTure
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GIdeon KaTz
Israel: Society, Culture and History
Yaacov Yadgar
(Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University), Series Editor
Editorial board
Alan Dowty, Allan Silver,
Political Science and Middle Eastern Sociology,
Studies, University of Notre dame Columbia University
Tamar Katriel, Anthony D. Smith,
Communication Ethnography, Nationalism and Ethnicity,
University of Haifa london School of Economics
Avi Sagi, Yael Zerubavel,
Hermeneutics, Cultural studies, Jewish Studies and History,
and Philosophy, bar-ilan University rutgers University
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The Pale God
IsraelI secularIsm and sPInoza’s
PhIlosoPhy of culTure
-------------------------- GIdeon KaTz --------------------------------
Translated by Miriam Ron and Jacky Feldman
Boston
2011
a catalog record for this title is available from the library of congress.

copyright © 2011 academic studies Press
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IsBn 978‐1‐936235‐38‐4
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on the cover: Sunrise with Sea Monsters, William Turner
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conTenTs
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
chapter 1: Three oPTIons for secularIsm In Israel . . . . . . . . .9
I. foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
II. Judaism as culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
III. reservations about Judaism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
IV. spiritual Judaism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
V. The distress of secularism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
chapter 2: Why sPInoza? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
I. The historical-cultural context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
II. special philosophical relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
chapter 3: ImaGInaTIon and The masses:
an ouTlIne of The oBJecT of PolITIcs . . . . . . . . . 69
I. non-reflective consciousness and the image
of the dream: the epistemological aspect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
II. Instability, associations and egocentrism: the psychological aspect.. . 76
III. Inconsistency, conformism and hostility in the life of
the masses: the political aspect.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
chapter 4: PolITIcal secularIsm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
I. undermining religion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
II. rationalization of the masses and political power. . . . . . . . . . 99
III. does rationalization mean overcoming religion?. . . . . . . . . 103
IV. The importance of religion in the establishment of political power.. 106
V. moderating religious tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
VI. Invigorating the life of the masses and the spirit of obedience. . . 125
chapter 5: The role of The PhIlosoPher
In hIs socIeTy In TImes of secularIzaTIon . . . . . . 143
I. The “healthy Judgment,” the radiance of theology
and the problem of the philosopher’s sincerity.. . . . . . . . . . 143
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II. The resonance of truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
III. metaphysical secularism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
IV. The schematic nature of spinoza’s thought. . . . . . . . . . . . 160
chapter 6: TradITIonalIsm as an oPTIonal
form of secularIsm In Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
I. Traditionalism in Israel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
II. spinozian articulation and the secular nature of traditionalism. . . 179
conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
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InTroducTIon
among many Israeli intellectuals, secularism arouses discomfort. for
them, the secular public — and Israeli society as a whole — has become
devoid of the legacy of Jewish culture, and remains without roots or a
substantive identity. other Israeli intellectuals claim that the incessant
search of secular Israelis for new relationships to Judaism is a result of
a misunderstanding on the part of the secular. They demand a writ of
divorce from religion, and from Judaism in particular. common to all
is their distress with Judaism; for some, Israeli society has abandoned
Judaism and, consequently, is impoverished and bereft of a past. for
others, Judaism is a burden which prevents the creation of a new
national society.
These thinkers have proposed solutions to resolve these problems.
The aim of this book is to present their approaches, explain why their
proposals lead to a dead end, and suggest a solution derived from
spinoza’s philosophy. In these few sentences, we have hinted at the
subject of the book and the assumptions upon which it rests. as we
all know, secularism is a complex concept. It refers to behavior and
identity, to historical processes and changes. The object of this book is
thought, and it deals with the views of men of letters and philosophers
on the question of the worthy place for Judaism in the lives of secular
people. The basic principle underlying this research is that, whatever be
the elements of thought included in it, secularism is not just an abstract
topic. It takes place in a concrete context and can only be analyzed
within that context. This concreteness is relevant for the contents of
thought, just as it is relevant for understanding historical processes or
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sociological facts. The reason for this is simple: many of these contents
criticize a particular religious tradition. It is specifically because of the
specific, concrete context of our book that the contents of thought
we will examine are not limited to what has been produced in Israeli
culture. zionism, especially the thought of spiritual zionist thinkers,
is important for the secular public in Israel, if only because this is the
thought of the “founding fathers” of Israeli society.
from what has already been claimed, and even from the title of the
book, it becomes clear that the web of thought discussed here is not
homogeneous. We will deal here with the thought of Israeli intellectuals
and the philosophy of spinoza. In spite of the differences between these
kinds of thought, their relationship is not artificial, and the justification
for this pairing will be presented later on in the book. for the moment,
I will suffice with one brief comment. The problem is evident in the
thought schemes of Israeli intellectuals. The investigation of the
thought of spinoza is part of the development of its solution. This is
not a philosophical recommendation that falls like a note from heaven.
This solution is rooted in Israeli culture, and may shed light on trends
rooted in that society. It gives rise to severe criticism of the approaches
of Israeli intellectuals. The solution I will provide here not only breaks
through the impasse to which the approaches of Israeli intellectuals
lead, but also helps us in understanding this impasse.
In order not to leave things unclear, let me now specify their
principles. There is a wide variety of approaches among Israeli
intellectuals, but they all share a common basic assumption — that
Judaism as a set of contents bearing religious significance can no
longer serve as a basis for the Jewish collective. secularization, the
establishment of the state of Israel, liberation from the oppressive
rule of the halakha — all these have given birth to a new national
identity. The common religious sources are not included in it. To
our great surprise, this assumption — which would seem to be self-
understood — is not part of the secular position which may be
developed from spinoza’s thinking. What he calls “secularism” suits his
efforts to provide a basis for political authority. such authority enables
the striving for the creation of autonomous, secular human life. But
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such an effort does not require the rejection of religious tradition. on
the contrary, such life necessitates a “common spirit.” an essential part
of this spirit is the images that are part of religious tradition. Thus,
spinoza’s thought, according to the explanation I will provide here,
strives towards something complex: the fostering of religious tradition
on the one hand, and the rationalization of the image of God and the
neutralization of religious experts on the other.
for spinoza, secularization is at base a political project. In the
framework of this process, there is no need to kill God — as in the
well known slogan of nietzsche — but to moderate him. It suffices to
transform him from an unknown and capricious God, who cannot
be worshipped without the leadership of religious virtuosos, into
a “pale God”: the image of a transcendental power that has become
rationalized and can be easily placated through accepted morality
and the ways of the fathers. This moderated tradition can serve as a
common culture and as the basis for political authority. This is the gist
of secularism according to spinoza. This option is especially germane to
the changes wrought by zionism among the Jewish people — after all,
zionism sought to redefine the Jewish people and place it in a political
framework. The materialization of this change does not necessarily
involve the abandonment of religious tradition and, consequently, the
forsaking of the spiritual content common to Jews gathered in Israel. a
better option is the rendering of religious tradition more malleable and
better adapted to political life. But for various reasons, some of which
will be explained in the conclusion, this is not the accepted model of
secularism in Israel. We have already hinted that it clashes with the
views of Israeli intellectuals with respect to the place of Judaism in the
world of secular people. In the course of the book, we will show that it
also conflicts with the positions taken in zionist thought with respect
to these questions.
let us now define several of the key terms. as we wrote, the concept
“secularism” implies a view, a position and a content of thought. any
concept which fulfills these two criteria will be designated in this book
as “secularism.” first: it expresses the modernist ethos that man creates
his life autonomously, both as an individual and as a collective. Thus,
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