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April 30, 2010
Dangers of questioning religion
Baruch Spinoza, the “prince of philosophers,” and others were placed under a cherem.
EUGENE KAELLIS
Soon after Ferdinand and Isabella, their “most Catholic majesties,” had finally pushed the Muslim armies out of Spain, they began the expulsion of an estimated 200,000 Jews, with Portugal following suit. It was a tragic event, made still more poignant when some parents were forcibly separated from their young children, who would get a Catholic upbringing by ecclesiastical institutions or foster parents.
The putative reason for the expulsion was that some, perhaps many, Jews who had converted to Catholicism after being subjected to near-irresistible pressure by the Inquisition, were nonetheless still practising Judaic rites secretly. In the first instance of racial antisemitism, the Inquisition concluded that Jews were irredeemable. Their “impure blood” makes them liars who will agree to anything to save themselves. The “solution” was simple – expel them!
In the 16th and 17th centuries, some of the expelled Jews were fortunate to eventually find their way to Amsterdam, which, together with much of the Netherlands, had been waging a long war of independence against (now Hapsburg) Catholic Spain and was, therefore, sympathetic to other victims of the Spanish monarchy and church. Perhaps more important was that the enterprising Dutch, inhabiting a small country with few resources, were busy building an international trading empire in Latin America and the East and West Indies that would usher in their Golden Age. Jews, often fluent in two or three languages, ethical in contracting, possessing trading skills and having international fraternal contacts, would prove useful to Amsterdam.
Although Jews had some restrictions placed on them and they never achieved the wealth of the richest Dutch Calvinist businessmen, they lived comfortable lives and were left in peace to establish synagogues, provide Jewish schooling for their children and administer the rites of circumcision, bar mitzvah, marriage, burial and so on.
The Netherlands, with relatively educated citizens, had been exposed to the stirrings of the Renaissance and the Reformation, which had changed fundamental thinking as a new spirit spread across Europe. The Jewish community was not isolated from these changes. There were consequently some within it who had made what were considered inappropriate commentaries on holy writ by the rabbis and pillars of the community.
At first, they were treated gently. The Jewish community leaders simply asked them to recant and mend their ways. In some instances, they were even offered bribes to stop their declamations. Uriel Acosta, for example, expressed disbelief in immortality and was critical of various Jewish ritual practices on the grounds that they were not Bible-based. He was condemned, placed under a cherem, recanted and was re-admitted to the community. He again transgressed and again recanted. The entire affair came to a tragic finale when, once more banned from the community, Acosta killed himself.
Cherem is often translated as “excommunication,” although the latter word means essentially “deprived of the sacraments.” In Catholic (and other) Churches, this means the Eucharist, marriage, baptism, confirmation, holy orders and last rites, the lattermost particularly important, because it banned burial in consecrated ground and, therefore, denied admission to Heaven. Judaism does not have sacraments, so Jews cannot be “excommunicated.” Rather, a cherem means total isolation from other Jews.
There can be little doubt that much of the reaction of the organized Jewish community to the critiques by Acosta, Baruch Spinoza and others was a consequence, not of outrage – Judaism has always placed more emphasis on behavior than belief – but rather of fear.
Amsterdam was largely a Calvinist community. Jean Calvin (1509-1564) was marginally less hostile toward the Jews than another Reformation leader, Martin Luther, whose last book, The Jews and Their Lies, written in one of those rages to which he was prone, advocated everything that ultimately came to pass under Nazism, with the salient exception of outright extermination. Calvin’s approach to Jews was no more benign, but vaguely more patient. “Their [Jews’] corrupt and untamable obstinacy,” he stated, “deserves that they be oppressed beyond all measure through an enormous succession of miseries and ills so that because of these terrible experiences they will give up the ghost. And let none show them pity.”
The Amsterdam Jewish community had little anxiety that a major threat to Jewish belief and practice was developing among its adherents, but what the rabbis greatly feared was the possible reaction of surrounding Calvinists, especially their clergy, when word got out, as it did, about individuals promoting unpunished “heresy” against the Jewish testament, sacred to Christians as well.
After the imposition of a cherem on him, Spinoza left Amsterdam to live elsewhere in the Netherlands. He learned to make lenses, much in demand following the first observation of “animalcules” by another Dutchman, Anton Leeuwenhoek.
Spinoza’s major work, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, published anonymously, is still studied by philosophy students. It went through five editions in as many years and created quite a stir. Spinoza’s outlook became a major source of new thinking about religion, God and nature. He exerted a delayed but evident influence on the 19th century’s “new criticism,” an exegetical method that applied science and historiography to critique the biblical narratives. While the new criticism can be considered an intellectual advancement, it was disproportionately applied against the Jewish testament, admittedly a much longer work than the Christian scripture and covering a much lengthier time period, including the basic stories on creation and the fall, while the Christian testament is largely repetitive and covers only a tiny fraction of historical time. The Christian testament itself has an abundance of supernaturalism. There are 35 alleged miracles attributed to Jesus, 21 in Mark alone. Jesus himself was the product of immaculate conception and virgin birth. The ultimate miracle was, of course, his bodily resurrection.
Spinoza ridiculed many instances in the biblical narrative that were evidently supernatural or, if taken literally, totally unbelievable. His major deviation, however, was in his attitude about God. Spinoza believed that while people can love God, their love is unrequited; God is totally indifferent. For him, God’s existence was highly abstract: He exists in activating substance, the “stuff” of the perceptible world. He is the God of creation, not of redemption.
Spinoza believed that everything is ultimately knowable, a claim that is evidently a necessary working hypothesis for science, but just as untrue. The more science discovers, the more most scientists realize the complex infinitude of nature.
As for God’s intent, consider recent natural disasters around the world. One can infer that either God is cruel, or He is unresponsive to our piety or wishes, and will not circumvent natural law. Therefore, petitionary prayer, Spinoza stated, is useless. Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981), has reiterated this belief in more personal terms. For most Jews, especially with the experience of the Holocaust, it is perhaps easier to accept, but nonetheless, still a hard pill to swallow. It means living without any expectations from God and it can easily lead to a sense of isolation, despair and depression, but also of acceptance and responsibility.
Spinoza’s conception, that God invests everything, is the basis for the pantheism that has become part of new age canon. Like much in media-dominated, trendy and superficial contemporary culture, it has taken on a modish pop form, but is nonetheless effecting a shift in the way people see themselves, nature and God.
In the very last scene of Albert Camus’ highly influential novel The Stranger (1942), the major character is awaiting execution for a murder he committed. From his prison cell, he looks up at the stars and, at last, realizes what Camus calls “the benign indifference” of the universe. To readers, that may sound like an oxymoron. To this man, hours away from his certain death, it somehow becomes a comforting thought, the kind of thing Spinoza might have said.
Dr. Eugene Kaellis is the author of Face Off or Interface? (2009), a book that deals with the relationship between science and religion. It is available at lulu.com.
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