Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind

Why Was Spinoza Excommunicated?

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632 - 1677) was one of the most seminal philosophers in history. His work constitutes a crucial component of Enlightenment thought and of modern secularism. In 1656, at the age of 23, Spinoza was excommunicated from the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam in which he had grown up. Excommunication was not an uncommon occurrence at that time and place, but the excommunicating document banning Spinoza is extremely and unusually harsh. There have been many theories over the years about why Spinoza was excommunicated and excommunicated with such uncompromising sternness.

Steven Nadler, is Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin and the author of the biography, "Spinoza" (1999). In "Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind" Professor Nadler offers his understanding of the reasons underlying Spinoza's excommunication. But this book is not simply a historical account of the events leading up to Spinoza's excommunication in 1656. Professor Nadler gives the reader as well a study of Spinoza's philosophy and of some of the key concepts on which it rests.

Professor Nadler begins with a discussion of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam and of the role excommunication (cherem) played in that community. He examines in detail the particular ban issued against Spinoza. (Much of this material can also be found in Professor Nadler's biography of Spinoza.)

Professor Nadler finds that Spinoza's excommunication is an over-determined event -- which he analogizes to the American Civil War -- in that many reasons can be found for it and the difficulty lies in trying to isolate a specific factor. Professor Nadler finds ample grounds for the cherem in Spinoza's denial of an anthropomorphic God, in his denial that the Torah was divinely revealed, and in his denial of the chosen status of the Jewish people. But, he argues, the decisive factor in the harshness of the cherem proclaimed against Spinoza was likely due to Spinoza's denial of personal immortality.

Professor Nadler offers a learned discussion of the various theories about personal immortality in the Jewish tradition and in the works of two medieval rationalistic Jewish philosophers who, he argues, deeply influenced Spinoza: Maimonides and Gershonides. Professor Nadler argues no particular type of belief in personal immortality is required under Jewish law and that Spinoza's own treatment of personal immortality in the Ethics follows closely and expands upon the attenuated, to say the least, commitment to personal immortality in the writings of Gershonides.

Professor Nadler follows his discussion of Jewish texts and philosophy with a discussion of Spinoza's views on personal immortality. These views are obscure and not free from differences in interpretation among philosophers. Spinoza's treatment of immortality in Part V of the Ethics is notoriously difficult. Professor Nadler draws a distinction between eternity and immortality. He concludes that while Spinoza describes truths as eternal, his philosophy has no place for an immortal soul that survives the death of the body. He concludes further that the denial of the immortality of the soul is crucial to the direction and goal of Spinoza's philosophy, and that Spinoza had been denying the soul's immortality well before completing the Ethics -- specifically at the time prior to his cherem in 1656.

The questions persists about why this issue, above all others, was critical to the Portuguese Jewish community that excommunicated Spinoza. Professor Nadler gives a detailed response that shows that the question of personal immortality had arisen many times within the Jewish community in the years prior to Spinoza's excommunication. He gives a fascinating and deeply learned account of the writings of the rabbis and of heretics such as Uriel da Costa on the question. The leaders of the Jewish community, whatever other doctrinal differences they may have had, would accept no disagreement from the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Some of their firmness on this issue may have been due to the precarious nature of the religious freedom accorded to them in Calvinist Holland and to the perceived need to have the community adhere to conservative and established religious beliefs.

This is a fascinating and difficult book, both as a history and as a work of philosophical interpretation. Professor Nadler draws deeply on historical sources and on Spinoza's own writings. He also draws heavily upon Harry Wolfson's two volume study of Spinoza's philosophy (1934), while criticizing it in many places, and upon Professor Yirimahu Yovel's more recent work, "Spinoza and Other Heretics" (1989). Both Spinoza and the Jewish community are treated with respect and understanding, but Nadler's heart and mind, I think, belong more to Spinoza.

Professor Nadler has given the reader a provocative treatment of ideas that remain deeply important and that still have the power to move the mind. I wish I had this book, and the wisdom to use it, many years ago, when I was doing my own graduate study of Spinoza.

Robin Friedman