DOCSLIB.ORG

The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image The First Modern Jew Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 1 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM This page intentionally left blank The First Modern Jew Spinoza and the History of an Image Daniel B. Schwartz PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 3 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved ISBN 978- 0- 691-14291-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2011942572 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been published with the generous assistance of the Foundation for Jewish Culture and its Sidney and Hadassah Musher Subvention Grant for First Book in Jewish Studies Excerpt from “The Spinoza of Market Street” from THE COLLECTED STORIES by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Copyright © 1982 by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpts from THE FAMILY MOSKAT by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Copyright © 1971 by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpt from “The New Winds” from IN MY FATHER’S COURT by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Copyright © 1966 by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Copyright renewed 1994 by Alma Singer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpts from LOVE AND EXILE by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Copyright © 1984 by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. This book has been composed in Janson Text Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 4 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM To Alisa Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 5 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Illustrations ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi Note on Translations and Romanization xvii Introduction 1 Spinoza’s Jewish Modernities Chapter 1: Ex- Jew, Eternal Jew: 15 Early Representations of the Jewish Spinoza Chapter 2: Refining Spinoza: 35 Moses Mendelssohn’s Response to the Amsterdam Heretic Chapter 3: The First Modern Jew: 55 Berthold Auerbach’s Spinoza and the Beginnings of an Image Chapter 4: A Rebel against the Past, A Revealer of Secrets: 81 Salomon Rubin and the East European Maskilic Spinoza Chapter 5: From the Heights of Mount Scopus: 113 Yosef Klausner and the Zionist Rehabilitation of Spinoza Chapter 6: Farewell, Spinoza: 155 I. B. Singer and the Tragicomedy of the Jewish Spinozist Epilogue: 189 Spinoza Redivivus in the Twenty- First Century Notes 203 Bibliography 247 Index 265 Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 7 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM This page intentionally left blank Illustrations Figure 1.1. Anonymous, Portrait of Spinoza, ca. 1665. 14 Figure. 2.1. Johann Christoph Frisch, Portrait of Moses Mendelssohn, 1786. 34 Figure. 3.1. Julius Hubner, Portrait of Berthold Auerbach, 1846. 54 Figure. 4.1. Title page, S. Rubin’s Hebrew translation of Spinoza’s Ethics (Vienna, 1885). 80 Figure. 4.2. Samuel Hirszenberg, Uriel Acosta and Spinoza, 1888. Photo from postcard. 109 Figure. 4.3. Samuel Hirszenberg, Spinoza, 1907. 110 Figure. 5.1. Photograph of Yosef Klausner, 1911. 112 Figure. 5.2. David Ben- Gurion’s diary for August 7, 1951, containing, in the prime minister’s handwriting, his transcription, in the original Latin, of the passage from chapter 3 of Spinoza’s Theological- Political Treatise that begins “were it not that the principles of their religion discourage manliness . .” 149 Figure. 5.3. Letter from the chief rabbi of Israel, Isaac Halevi Herzog to G. Herz- Shikmoni, 6 Tishre 5714 (September 15, 1953), suggesting that the rabbinic ban on Spinoza’s writings no longer applies. 152 Figure. 6.1. Photo of I. B. Singer as a young man. 154 Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 9 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM This page intentionally left blank Preface and Acknowledgments On a blustery October morning five years ago, I went to the YIVO Insti- tute for Jewish Research in lower Manhattan to speak at a most unusual semiseptcentennial. Headlining the YIVO schedule for that day was an event entitled: “From Heretic to Hero: A Symposium on the Impact of Baruch Spinoza on the 350th Anniversary of His Excommunication, 1656– 2006.” The list of speakers read like a “who’s who” of recent Spinoza scholarship, with names like Steven Nadler, author of Spinoza: A Life, the definitive bi- ography of Spinoza in English; Steven B. Smith, a leading authority on Spinoza’s political thought; and above all Jonathan I. Israel, author of two magisterial works on Spinoza and the European Enlightenment. House- hold names for me, but not, I figured, for those outside the academy, even for the stereotypical New York Jewish culture- bearers. I did not know what size audience to expect, but an auditorium that seated 250 filled to three- quarter capacity seemed optimistic. I guessed wrong. By the time I arrived the event had already sold out. This came as a surprise not only to me. One journalist, blogging about the conference in the New York Observer, wrote: “I almost didn’t get in. The conference was sold out, there were scores of people waiting for an extra ticket on 16th St. I of course played the press card, but happily for all of us, Yivo lowered the screen in its main hall, allowing the overflow to watch the event on simulcast.”1 Whether they sat in the auditorium or the hall just outside, well over three hundred New Yorkers chose to spend their Sunday afternoon listening to six hours of lectures on a seventeenth- century phi- losopher whom few in the audience, frankly, were likely to have read. The spillover crowd for this YIVO symposium in 2006 was simply one example of a surge of interest in Spinoza since the turn of the millennium that transcends the academy and cuts across nations, disciplines, and genres. We find evidence of this fascination in the audience for Israel’s Radical En- lightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity (2001), which has been called “one of the most important books on Spinoza in the past hundred years” and— notwithstanding its forbidding length— “certainly among the Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 11 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS most popular.”2 We find it in the fact that a weekly news magazine likeLe Point— a kind of French equivalent to Time and Newsweek— would choose to run a cover story on Spinoza in the summer of 2007, labeling the Am- sterdam heretic “the man who revolutionized philosophy.”3 And we find it in the enthusiastic response to David Ives’s 2008 play New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch Spinoza, whose “box- office success” was referred to by one of the most recent repertory theaters to perform it as “one of the more staggering surprises of the summer.”4 I, too, am fascinated by Spinoza. But I am also fascinated by the fascina- tion with him, by the extremity of feeling this early modern philosopher, dead more than three hundred years, continues to evoke. Moreover, the Jewish fascination— because it reverberates through practically every major Jewish ideological response to modernity and is so closely bound up with the struggle to define what it means to be a modern, “secular” Jew— has a fascination all its own, and it is the subject of this book. In the pages that follow, we will come across several testimonies by mod- ern Jewish writers that recount their initial discovery of Spinoza as a tran- scendent, even revelatory experience. My road to Spinoza, I confess, began with much less fanfare, while I was a graduate student in Jewish history at Columbia University. Asked by one of my advisors, Yosef H. Yerushalmi, about my plans for a dissertation topic, I spoke vaguely about my interest in historical consciousness and modern Jewish identity; he recommended a study of the Jewish reception of Spinoza. From his crowded bookshelves he pulled down what would prove my first and most essential reference work: Adolph Oko’s Spinoza Bibliography, with its over six hundred pages of entries of “Spinozana.” Steering me to this subject, while at the same time withdrawing to enable me to write this work as I saw fit, would be reason enough for thanks. I am also grateful to Professor Yerushalmi for his me- ticulous comments on early drafts of individual chapters, for his rich and stimulating pedagogy in Jewish history, and for the confidence he expressed in my work and me at key moments over the years. I am deeply saddened that he died before this book was complete, though also appreciative that I was fortunate enough to be one of the last of a long line of trained scholars in Jewish history to benefit from his vast erudition and thoughtful tutelage. May his memory be for a blessing. I am equally indebted to Michael Stanislawski, a master teacher of mod- ern Jewish intellectual and cultural history and my other mentor throughout graduate school. There are only so many “highlights” in graduate school, yet certainly our independent study of one of his many areas of expertise, the East European Haskalah, where I first encountered various thinkers Schwartz_The-First-Modern-Jew.indb 12 12/9/2011 3:24:41 PM PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii who figure prominently in this book, ranks among them. Moreover, the deftness with which he weaves together literary and historical analysis in his writing has served as a model and inspiration for my own work.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities
    THE LESTER AND SALLY ENTIN FACULTY OF HUMANITIES The Tel Aviv University undergraduate program is a three year program, offering three study tracks: double-major (dm), single-major (sm) and expanded track studies. Each department offers different options. Please check with each department to find out which study tracks are available. To earn a double-major (dm) BA, students must successfully complete the course of study in two departments. Departments need not be from the same Faculty, but they must both offer a double-major track. Some departments offer a single-major track from the second year of study. Students with outstanding scholastic achievements during their first year of double-major studies may enroll in this track. Please check with the individual departments regarding specific requirements for single-major studies. The departments of Archeology and Ancient Eastern Cultures, History of the Middle East and Africa, Classics—Greece and Rome, Hebrew Culture, and Arabic and Islam Studies offer expanded track studies, combining two fields of study in the same department, from the first year of studies. Admissions • A minimum score of 4501 on the psychometric exam. • Matriculation certificate in compliance with University standards. Some departments may have additional requirements, as specified below. 0631 Arabic and Islamic Studies (dm/sm) The Department of Arabic and Islamic studies offers students the opportunity to acquire theoretical and practical knowledge of classical and modern literary Arabic as well as Islamic religion, history and culture. Equipped with proficiency in the Arabic language, students explore the rich literary, cultural, and religious traditions of the Arab world. Fields of study The department offers two fields of study: • Arabic Language and Literature—acquaints students with the various historical periods in Arabic literature and linguistics.
    [Show full text]
  • Mu'tazılı Trends in Jewısh Theology
    İslâmî İlimler Dergisi, Yıl 12, Cilt 12, Sayı 2, Güz 2017 (145/178) MU‘tazılı TRENDS ıN JEwıSH THEOLOGY - A BRıEF SURVEY David SKLARE* Abstract This article presents a brief survey of Jewish Mu‘tazilism, from its begin- nings in the late eighth or early ninth century through the seventeenth century. Short descriptions of known Jewish Mu‘tazilî authors and their works are provided. We can divide the development of Jewish Mu‘tazilism into three periods: 1) the early period characterized by eclecticism and doctrinal variety; 2) the “classic” period in which the Basran Bahshamiyya school was adopted by both Rabbanites and Karaites; 3) the late period in which epitomes of Mu‘tazilî thought were produced. The article concludes with a brief consideration of Mu‘tazilism in al-Andalus. Keywords: Mu’tazila, Jewish Theology, Jewish Mu’tazilism, Basra, Kara- ites. YAHUDI TEOLOJISINDE MU’TEZILI EĞILIMLER-KISA BIR TARAMA Öz Bu çalışma, 8.-9. yüzyıllardaki başlangıcından 17. yüzyıla kadar Yahu- di Mu’tezililiği üzerine kısa bir inceleme sunmaktadır. Tanınmış Yahudi Mu’tezilî yazarlar ve onlara ait eserler de çalışmada kısaca tanıtılmıştır. Yahudi Mu’tezililiğinin gelişimini 3 devreye ayırabiliriz: 1) Eklektizm ve doktrin çeşitliliğiyle karakterize edilebilecek olan erken dönem; 2) Basra Bahşamiyye ekolünün Rabbinikler ve Karaylar tarafından benimsendiği “klasik” dönem; 3) Mu’tezile düşüncesinin somut örneklerinin üretildiği geç dönem. Çalışmanın sonunda Yahudi Mu’tezililiğinin Endülüs’teki se- rüveni ile ilgili de kısaca bilgi verilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Yahudilik, Mu’tezile, Basra, Karaylar. Makalenin Dergiye Ulaştığı Tarih: 10.10.2017. Yayın Kurulu ve Hakem Değerlendirmesinden Geçen Makalenin Yayına Kabul Edildiği Tarih: 20.11.2017.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Review Jews and Judaism by Hiroshi Ichikawa (Iwanami Shoten, 2019)
    JISMOR 15 Book Review Jews and Judaism by Hiroshi Ichikawa (Iwanami Shoten, 2019) Toshihiro Horikawa This book summarizes 40 years of work by its author, Professor Hiroshi Ichikawa. It also presents findings from the discovery of 1st-century synagogue ruins in the region of Galilee, made in the summer of 2016 in the course of archeological excavations in Israel that Ichikawa has joined for 30 years. In the 1980s, the assertion of his Israeli teacher that “Japan’s prosperity will not last long,” struck a chord with him and made him realize how the Jews, who were forced to live in pagan lands, keenly observed the societies they lived in and prepared themselves for the adversities that awaited them. From this, he surmised that “Maybe we can learn something from the Jews in figuring out our own future, because they had become stronger by recognizing their weaknesses, and had victoriously lived through many harsh realities” (p. ii). He wrote this book in the hope that the modern generation could gain inspiration about living from the lives of the Jews. This book begins with an introductory chapter on “who is a Jew?” followed by four chapters taking up Jewish history, faith, studies, and society. The author provides a comprehensive discussion on the life of the Jews and on Judaism itself from these four perspectives. The introductory chapter defines who the Jews are. The word “Jews” is “Yehudi” in Hebrew, which is referred to the people of the tribe of Judah from the latter half of the period of Solomon’s Temple until that of the Second Temple, or to the people living in the land of Judah as recounted in the Bible.
    [Show full text]
  • Anglo-Jewry's Experience of Secondary Education
    Anglo-Jewry’s Experience of Secondary Education from the 1830s until 1920 Emma Tanya Harris A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements For award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies University College London London 2007 1 UMI Number: U592088 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U592088 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract of Thesis This thesis examines the birth of secondary education for Jews in England, focusing on the middle classes as defined in the text. This study explores various types of secondary education that are categorised under one of two generic terms - Jewish secondary education or secondary education for Jews. The former describes institutions, offered by individual Jews, which provided a blend of religious and/or secular education. The latter focuses on non-Jewish schools which accepted Jews (and some which did not but were, nevertheless, attended by Jews). Whilst this work emphasises London and its environs, other areas of Jewish residence, both major and minor, are also investigated.
    [Show full text]
  • Benefits of the Internet: Besamim Rosh and Its History
    Benefits of the Internet: Besamim Rosh and its History Benefits of the Internet: Besamim Rosh and its History By: Dan Rabinowitz & Eliezer Brodt In a new series we wanted to highlight how much important material is now available online. This, first post, illustrates the proliferation of online materials with regard to the controversy surrounding the work Besamim Rosh (“BR”). [We must note at the outset that recently a program has been designed by Moshe Koppel which enables one, via various mathematical algorithims, to identify documents authored by the same author. We hope, using this program, to provide a future update that will show what this program can demonstrate regarding the authorship of the BR and if indeed the Rosh authored these responsa.] Background Before turning to the BR and discussing its history we need to first discuss another work. R. Raphael Cohen the chief rabbi of triple community, Altona-Hamburg-Wansbeck (“AH”W”), [1] published a book, Torat Yekuseil, Amsterdam, 1772 regarding the laws of Yoreh Deah. Torat Yekuseil is a standard commentary and is unremarkable when compared to other works of this genre. While the book is unremarkable in and of itself, what followed is rather remarkable. Some years later, in 1789, a work with the putative author listed listed as Ovadiah bar Barukh and titled Mitzpeh Yokteil [2] was published to counter R. Raphael Cohen’s Torat Yekuseil (“TY”). Mitzpeh Yokteil (“MY”), was a vicious attack both against the work TY as well as its author, R. Raphael Cohen. R. Raphael Cohen was a well-known and well-respected Rabbi.
    [Show full text]
  • Limda Undergraduate Jewish Studies Journal ______
    3/7/2019 Limda Vol.1 2019/5779 Winter-Spring - Google Docs 2019/5779 Winter­Spring Vol.1 Issue I Limda Undergraduate Jewish Studies Journal __________________________ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F_RR_AQ1hsI72cIVV9wNK2dCS7fXEXxHLB8mXe0B5Pw/edit 1/101 3/7/2019 Limda Vol.1 2019/5779 Winter-Spring - Google Docs Limda Vol.1 Issue I 2 Letter from the Editor Welcome to the first issue of Limda Undergraduate Jewish Studies Journal! We started this journal out of curiosity - curiosity over what our fellow undergraduate students are writing about and researching regarding Judaic topics. What new ideas are people proposing on Halakha and Tanakh, what observations are people making about Jewish history, what arguments are people having regarding Jewish philosophy? What is our generation thinking about Judaism? In publishing undergraduates’ Judaically related essays and providing people with a forum to share their research with a broader community, we want to get people talking. We want to empower students to share their ideas. We want to foster conversations between undergraduates with diverse perspectives with the hope of creating a broader understanding of Judaism as a whole. This 2019 Winter-Spring issue of Limda includes nine essays written on a variety of topics, ranging from Jewish history to language to philosophy to Halakha to Tanakh to Israel. We kick off with Pamela Brenner’s “K erakheym Ov Al Bonim : Tevye’s Quotations Revisited” in which we are taken on a journey of analysis through the character of Tevye the Dairyman and his improper - or proper? - use of Biblical quotations. We then feature Arielle Solomon’s “R ebecca: The Guardian of Bloodline and Covenant ,” which offers a refreshing and innovative commentary on the Biblical Rebecca’s role in the founding of the Jewish People.
    [Show full text]
  • Process Theology
    Ba-derekh: On the Way— APresentationofProcessTheology BRADLEY SHAVIT ARTSON ji Introduction Process Theology—a constellation of ideas sharing the common assertion that the world and God are in continuous, dynamic change, of related interaction and becoming—can be unsettling at first glance. We take for granted what it means to be conventionally religious, and those traditional- ist assumptions make it difficult to open ourselves to an engaging and explanatory way to conceive and connect to an embracing faithfulness. Much of what Process Thought will offer as an alternative may sound shocking, perhaps even irreligious, if this is a first encounter with Process Thought. I want to provide an image that makes it possible, at least, to work through the shock and discomfort to some degree. It is still possible to reject this dynamic/relational approach, and that is your privilege; but the opening image may help create the possibility of a new understanding. IliveinwestLosAngelesinahomethatwasbuiltinthe1950s.Ourdin- ing room has wood paneling along its four walls. When we first bought the house a decade ago, the room was painted a sickly green, presumably in the late 70s during the high watermark of the aesthetics of the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family. The actual wood grain and tone were covered, though I think that in that era people thought such a look was cutting edge. With that greenish coat of paint, the walls looked fake and cheap. When we final- ly got around to repainting the upstairs of the house, we asked our painter if he could just paint the phony paneling a simple white because the green was hideous.
    [Show full text]
  • Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 4-3-2018 Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania Jonathon Derek Awtrey Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Cultural History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Awtrey, Jonathon Derek, "Jews and the Sources of Religious Freedom in Early Pennsylvania" (2018). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4544. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4544 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. JEWS AND THE SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN EARLY PENNSYLVANIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Jonathon Derek Awtrey B.S. University of West Georgia, 2007 M.A. University of West Georgia, 2009 May 2018 For Christina, Sandra, Cole, Val, Suzy, April, Les, Carolyn, John, Nita, Kevin, and families ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The years of research, writing, and revision that resulted in this dissertation derived from conversations with family members, friends, colleagues, trusted mentors, and other scholars, archivists, and editors. My entire family, but especially my mother and sisters, have sustained my intellectual curiosity from an early age.
    [Show full text]
  • When Erev Pesach Falls on Shabbat
    Alan Mendelsohn, M.D. Nathan Klein, O.D. 954.894.1500 Welcome to Eye Surgeons and Consultants! WE USE THE MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AND CUSTOMIZE OUR SERVICE TO YOUR EYES! SERVICES For your convenience, we also have a full service optical dispensary Laser Cataract Surgery with the highest quality and huge selection of the latest styles of Laser Vision Correction eyeglasses and sunglasses, including: Glaucoma Laser Surgery Comprehensive Eye Exams Oliver Peoples • Michael Kors • Barton Perreira • Tom Ford • Burberry Macular Degeneration Marc Jacobs • Lily Pulitzer • Mont Blanc • Nike Flexon • Silhouette Diabetic Eye Exams Glaucoma Exams We provide personalized, professional care using Red Eye Evaluations a state-of-the-art computerized in-house laboratory. Dry Eye EXTENDED HOURS: MON: 7:30AM – 8:00PM Contact Lens Exams TUE – FRI: 7:30AM – 4:30PM • SUN: 7:30AM – 11:30AM Scleral Contact Lenses 4651 Sheridan Street, Suite 100, Hollywood, FL 33021 • 954.894.1500 PLEASE SEE OUR WEBSITE: www.myeyesurgeons.com for sight-saving suggestions! YOUNG ISRAEL OF HOLLYWOOD-FT. LAUDERDALE MARCH 2021 PAGE 3 RABBI’S MESSAGE EPIGENETICS AND THE STORY OF NACHSHON AT THE SEA Nature and nurture, our DNA and our environment, are “Yehuda Keedesh Shemo Shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu, L’fikach traditionally identified as the two factors that most influence who Yisroel Mamshelotav” we are. Epigenetics represents a new paradigm to this theory. Since the tribe of Yehuda took the initiative to sanctify God’s Epigenetics is the study of environmental and external name at the Red Sea, they were blessed with the privilege and mechanisms that can cause permanent alterations in one’s DNA.
    [Show full text]
  • Further Comments by Marc Shapiro,Benefits of the Internet
    Further Comments by Marc Shapiro Further Comments By Marc B. Shapiro I had thought that this would be my last post of the current batch, but it turned out to be too long. So I have divided it into two parts. Here is part no. 1. The volumes Shomrei Mishmeret ha-Kodesh, by R. Natan Raphael Auerbach, have just appeared. Here is the cover. This book is devoted to the Auerbach family, which was one of the great rabbinic families in Germany. They were the “A” in what was known as the ABC rabbinic families (the others being Bamberger and Carlebach). Over 150 pages are devoted to R. Zvi Benjamin Auerbach, who was the most prominent of the Auerbach rabbis. He was also the publisher of Sefer ha-Eshkol, to which he added his commentary Nahal Eshkol. In a number of posts I dealt with Auerbach’s edition ofSefer Ha-Eshkol, and discussed how both academic scholars and traditional talmidei hakhamim have concluded that the work is a forgery.1 Readers who are interested in the details can examine the earlier posts. In this newly published volume, which was called to my attention by Eliezer Brodt, the author speaks briefly about the Sefer ha-Eshkol controversy and responds to those who, in his words, continue to defame a gadol be-Yisrael (p. 382): הממשיכים לבזות גדול בישראל ולהכפישו באופן אישי In the note the author refers to Moshe Samet, who earlier had dealt with Sefer ha-Eshkol, and also to one of my posts on the Seforim Blog. While Seforim Blog posts have been cited in English scholarly writings, as far as I know this is the first time that there has been citation in a Hebrew volume.
    [Show full text]
  • The Guide of the Perplexed.Cwk
    An extended treatment of Jewish thought & practice by Moses Maimonides. He attempts to resolve the conflict between religious knowledge & secular. Heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonized Aristotelianism (finds expression in certain Islamic circles); it departs from Aristotelian thought by emphasizing limits of human knowledge & the questionable foundations of significant parts of astronomy & The Guide of the Perplexed (1190 AD) metaphysics. While a letter written to an advanced student who can’t decide whether to follow philosophy or the teachings of his religion, it is a commentary on biblical terms that seem to ascribe corporeal qualities to God, an uncompromising defense of negative theology, an extended critique of the kalam, a systematic treatment of creation, prophecy, & providence, & a theory of jurisprudence. BOOK 3: THE HARMONIOUS LIFE: A. An exposition of the mystical passage of the BOOK 1: THESIS AGAINST BOOK 2: DOCTRINE OF CREATION: Chariot found in Ezekiel (cf. Merkabah mysticism) ANTHROPOMORPHISM: A. An Aristotelian exposition of physical B. Explanation of the basic mystical A. Heresy present among unlearned Jews who assume structure of the universe w/ a spherical concepts via the Biblical terms referring God possess corporeal or positive attributes. earth in centre, surrounded by concentric to Spheres, elements & Intelligences. HeavenlySpheres. B. Meticulous case of more than 20 chapters whereby he C. Moral aspects of the universe: takes Hebrew attribute & claims it is a homonym; its (1) Though Aristotle's view of eternity of universe is rejected, Maimonides uses his proofs of existence of (1) Problem of evil (people responsible because of free will), usage is describing a physical entity that is completely trials, & tests (especially those of Job and the story of the different from when describing God.
    [Show full text]
  • The Language of Union in the Writings of Moses Maimonides and Moses Nachmanides
    Chapter 6 The Language of Union in the Writings of Moses Maimonides and Moses Nachmanides By the middle of the 12th century, Jewish thinkers were exposed to a philo- sophical trend deriving from Aristotelian philosophy, specifically to its later developments in the Arab world. This Neo-Aristotelian trend considered and presented itself as the authentic Aristotelian philosophy; it was highly criti- cal of both Islamic and Jewish Kalam theologies, as well as Neoplatonism. Moses Maimonides is the most important of the Neo-Aristotelian Jewish phi- losophers, using Aristotelian philosophy to develop and deepen a Jewish philo- sophical path yet at the same time articulating a systematic critique of Kalam and Neoplatonic Jewish theology; his writings, especially the Guide for the Perplexed, signifies the shift from Neoplatonic to Neo-Aristotelian influence on Jewish philosophy. Interestingly enough, Kabbalah and Jewish Neo-Aristotelian philosophy emerged around the same time, and shared a fundamental point of view: a deep systematic interest in the nature of God,1 and in the metaphysical realms that mediated between heaven and earth. In this worldview, the gulf between human and metaphysical realms, up to and including divinity itself, is crossable through conjunction and even union with the divine and/or with mediating sub-divine realms and beings. In the 13th century, Jewish philosophy shifted in emphasis towards a more Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle, signified by the central vocabulary and imagery of noetic union (knowledge as union) in this particular trend of thought. In the Jewish Averroistic worldview, the human agent can undergo changes through which his intellect can cleave with the metaphysical active intellect.
    [Show full text]