Betraying Spinoza by Rebecca Goldstein Page A
Authors: Rebecca Goldstein
Tags: General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Philosophy, Jewish, Modern, History & Surveys, Jewish philosophers, Heretics, Netherlands, Philosophers
Ads: Link
and without blame?” Clearly, an answer has to be offered, and here is the one that the Zohar offers: “But … the tears shed by these ‘oppressed ones’ act as a petition and protection for the living … and by dint of their innocence, in time a place is prepared for them … for the Holy One, blessed be He, does in reality love these little ones with a unique and outstanding love. He unites them with himself and gets ready for them a place on high close to him.” 6
There is a path to be traced from Athens to Gerona, and then from Gerona to Amsterdam, for kabbalism was a distinct aspect of the inner life of the Portuguese Nation. The Sephardic community of Amsterdam, for a host of reasons, was deeply susceptible to the mystical tradition that was part of their Sephardic heritage, especially as that tradition was transformed by the pain of the Spanish exodus and its aftermath, as we shall see, so that it transformed itself into a historical narrative obsessed with the theme of national— and cosmic—redemption. One of the most influential rabbis in the community, Isaac Aboab, was a kabbalist. Manasseh ben Israel, another Amsterdam rabbi who has been briefly mentioned (as having posed for Rembrandt), was also deeply influenced by its redemptive narrative. Spinoza gives ample evidence of being conversant with the esoteric Jewish texts—both Aboab and Manasseh were most likely his teachers in the yeshiva—though he was plainly irked by the kabbalist habit of seeing each word of Torah surrounded by an aura of mystical secret meanings:
[T]hey say that the various readings are the symbols of profoundest mysteries and that mighty secrets lay hid in the twenty-eight hiatus which occur, nay, even in the very form of the letters. Whether they are actuated by folly and infantile devotion, or whether by arrogance and malice so that they alone may be held to possess the secrets of God, I know not; this much I do know, that I find in their writings nothing which has the air of a Divine secret, but only childish lucubration. I have read and known kabbalistic triflers, whose insanity provokes my unceasing astonishment. 7
Nonetheless, despite Spinoza’s impatience with the kabbalistic methodology, despite his emphatic rejection of the specific answers that kabbalah offers for the profound questions it poses; still many have claimed that the spirit of kabbalah was not altogether foreign to Spinoza. I have long thought that the distinctly Platonic tone of Spinoza’s philosophy, which consists not so much in his actual picture of reality but in the ecstatic impulse that irradiates it, and that sharply distinguishes his rationalism from both Descartes’ and Leibniz’s, came to him by way of the kabbalistic influences which were vividly alive in his Portuguese community. And Spinoza’s system will offer us, as we shall see, its own solutions to the two mysteries that are most central to kabbalistic speculations: the ontological mystery of why the world exists at all, and the ethical mystery of suffering: why does suffering—and of such mind-numbing magnitude— exist in this world, if God is both all-good and all-powerful?
As the fortunes of Spanish Jewry declined, the kabbalists’ meditations on suffering deepened and darkened. The meaning of Jewish suffering, in particular, occupied more and more of their mystical speculations, and the theme of national redemption made its appearance. As the travails of Spanish Jewry increased, so increased the redemptive preoccupations of the Spanish kabbalists. In the time of exile, they speculated, the truth, too, had been exiled. The redemption of the world is intimately intertwined with the destiny of the Jews, and they believed themselves to be living in the messianic era. There were esoteric signs that the Messiah’s arrival was imminent, that he would reveal himself in the Jewish year 5250, or, in the world’s way of reckoning time, the year 1490.
The Amsterdam Jewish community
There is a path to be traced from Athens to Gerona, and then from Gerona to Amsterdam, for kabbalism was a distinct aspect of the inner life of the Portuguese Nation. The Sephardic community of Amsterdam, for a host of reasons, was deeply susceptible to the mystical tradition that was part of their Sephardic heritage, especially as that tradition was transformed by the pain of the Spanish exodus and its aftermath, as we shall see, so that it transformed itself into a historical narrative obsessed with the theme of national— and cosmic—redemption. One of the most influential rabbis in the community, Isaac Aboab, was a kabbalist. Manasseh ben Israel, another Amsterdam rabbi who has been briefly mentioned (as having posed for Rembrandt), was also deeply influenced by its redemptive narrative. Spinoza gives ample evidence of being conversant with the esoteric Jewish texts—both Aboab and Manasseh were most likely his teachers in the yeshiva—though he was plainly irked by the kabbalist habit of seeing each word of Torah surrounded by an aura of mystical secret meanings:
[T]hey say that the various readings are the symbols of profoundest mysteries and that mighty secrets lay hid in the twenty-eight hiatus which occur, nay, even in the very form of the letters. Whether they are actuated by folly and infantile devotion, or whether by arrogance and malice so that they alone may be held to possess the secrets of God, I know not; this much I do know, that I find in their writings nothing which has the air of a Divine secret, but only childish lucubration. I have read and known kabbalistic triflers, whose insanity provokes my unceasing astonishment. 7
Nonetheless, despite Spinoza’s impatience with the kabbalistic methodology, despite his emphatic rejection of the specific answers that kabbalah offers for the profound questions it poses; still many have claimed that the spirit of kabbalah was not altogether foreign to Spinoza. I have long thought that the distinctly Platonic tone of Spinoza’s philosophy, which consists not so much in his actual picture of reality but in the ecstatic impulse that irradiates it, and that sharply distinguishes his rationalism from both Descartes’ and Leibniz’s, came to him by way of the kabbalistic influences which were vividly alive in his Portuguese community. And Spinoza’s system will offer us, as we shall see, its own solutions to the two mysteries that are most central to kabbalistic speculations: the ontological mystery of why the world exists at all, and the ethical mystery of suffering: why does suffering—and of such mind-numbing magnitude— exist in this world, if God is both all-good and all-powerful?
As the fortunes of Spanish Jewry declined, the kabbalists’ meditations on suffering deepened and darkened. The meaning of Jewish suffering, in particular, occupied more and more of their mystical speculations, and the theme of national redemption made its appearance. As the travails of Spanish Jewry increased, so increased the redemptive preoccupations of the Spanish kabbalists. In the time of exile, they speculated, the truth, too, had been exiled. The redemption of the world is intimately intertwined with the destiny of the Jews, and they believed themselves to be living in the messianic era. There were esoteric signs that the Messiah’s arrival was imminent, that he would reveal himself in the Jewish year 5250, or, in the world’s way of reckoning time, the year 1490.
The Amsterdam Jewish community
Similar Books
