Baruch de Spinoza, Philosopher

.....As promised, I am publishing the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza. I had hoped to write a novel or a play about the life of this man, but I'm 86 and frankly, I don't have the energy to do the research which would be required to do justice to him. Perhaps in my next life. Who knows, I may come back as another Shakespeare. We do have one thing in common, at least--we both sired twins.

.....Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632 in Amsterdam. He was the middle son in a prominent family of moderate means in Amsterdam's Portuguese-Jewish community. As a boy—known to his fellow Portuguese as Bento—he had undoubtedly been one of the star pupils in the congregation's Talmud Torah school. He was intellectually gifted, and this could not have gone unremarked by the congregation's rabbis. It is possible that Spinoza, as he made progress through his studies, was being groomed for a career as a rabbi. But he never made it into the upper levels of the curriculum, those which included advanced study of Talmud. At the age of seventeen, he was forced to cut short his formal studies to help run the family's importing business.

.....And then, on July 27, 1656, Spinoza was issued the harshest writ of cherem, or excommunication, ever pronounced by the Sephardic community of Amsterdam; it was never rescinded. We do not know for certain what Spinoza's “monstrous deeds” and “abominable heresies” were alleged to have been, but an educated guess comes quite easy. No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. In those works, Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews. Can there be any mystery as to why one of history's boldest and most radical thinkers was sanctioned by an orthodox Jewish community?

....Excommunication of Spinoza

The Gentlemen of the Ma'amad [ruling council] make known to you, that having for some time known of the evil opinions and works of Baruch de Espinoza, they have endeavored by various ways and promises to draw him back from his evil ways; and not being able to remedy him, but on the contrary, receiving every day more news about the horrible heresies he practiced and taught, and the awful deeds he performed, and having of this many reliable testimonies, all given in the presence of the said Espinoza, which convinced them; and all this having been examined in the presence of the Hahamim Gentleman [rabbis], they resolved with the latter's consent that the said Espinoza be put to the herem [ban] and banished from the nation of Israel, as indeed they proclaim the following heremon him:

"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; cursing 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. We warn that none may contact him orally or in writing, nor do him any favor, nor stay under the same roof with him nor within four cubits in his vicinity; nor shall he read any treatise composed or written by him."

.....Now see that you obey that dictum--or else.