It was the 6th of Av, 5416 Barber Perfect said. He was sharpening the focal points in his Memory Theater and when he got to the right seat in the right Loggia, he paused and grinned. When Barber grins old creases appear and Lucky gets this pit in his stomach. Baruch de Spinoza was excommunicated from Jewdom on the 27th of July, in the year of our lord 1656. "Saint Pantaleon's Day - it was a cool day in a cold summer." St. Pantaleon is the Patron Saint of Doctors. He was an early Martyr under Diocletian in the 4th century of the 1st Bloody Millennia of Christianity. Kikidom. The early Christian Church was built on the Rivers of Blood of its Martyrs. And their Bones. And their severed skulls & their foreskins for all of that. Saints - to the Kikis - was like Oil to the Industrial Age. Spinoza was 23 when the United Congregation of Portuguese Jews announced from the Ark in the Synagogue of Talmud Torah in Amsterdam that Spinoza was no longer one of the Chosen People. Mokum Aleph unwrapped herself from the Little Jew's embrace. They did it in beautiful language: "By decree of the Angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinosa., with the consent of God, Blessed be He . . . " By Angelic Decree! How cool is that? Of course one of the roots of the problem with "the Little Jew" was that he no longer chose to believe in Angels. He thought they were silly - the flotsam of fools. And he had come to think that the whole bidnez of the Chosen People was idiotic from where he stood - sub quâdam - digging the View from Nowhere. Bento's conception of god had no truck with Choosing anything. Bento's god was only Necessary. Nothing else. And being Necessary made him like Geometry - predictable & bound by its own Rules. Spinoza's god couldn't care a loose shit about Heresy and whether or not it was loved. Or feared. Or even Forgotten.
But the Jew's god was a wholly different dude and he demanded a list of beliefs which the RaMBaM had codified into 13 "musts":

1. The Existence of God
2. God's Unity
3. God's Spirituality and Incorporeality
4. God's Eternity
5. God Alone can be Worshipped
6. Revelation comes thru God's Prophets
7. Moses is #1 Prophet.
8. God's Law given on Mount Sinai
9. The Immutability of the Torah as God's Law
10. God's Foreknowledge of Human Actions
11. Reward of Good and Punishment of Evil
12. The Coming of the Jewish Messiah
13. The Resurrection of the Dead

Spinoza could only do the first 2 - so he was fucked. In fact the entire matter could be summed up with the idea that the Jew's god was "wholly different." Ganz Andere. An Other. Hegel famously argued that Spinoza was of a stripe of Pantheism - but not the Hippy Pantheism which hits the bong then realizes that it IS the Bong. Hegel distinguishes between "die Allesgötterei" and the "Allgötterei." The 1st says "Everything is God." The 2nd claims that "God is All." They are not the same.

Spinoza - contrary to popular wisdom - was not the type of Pantheist who claimed that every object is god. Spin's problem was that he had come to see that there really were no Objects in the world at all. Hegel claimed that Spinoza's philosophy was an "Acosmism" which is another kind of Pantheism. Spin's Acosmism has 2 dialectics - 2 parts: the Negative Element is the view that the world/cosmos has no existence whatsoever. The World of Things is a Phenomenon which Is but which Lacks Reality. It's all just an Illusion. It's all Maya. Spinoza denied the independent existence of individual things. Individuality, distinction, difference - all were illusion. The Cosmos of Pronouns is Annihilated. The Positive Element in Spin's Acosmism says that since No Thing Exists that what does Exist is God. All things are reducible to God. The Illusion of Individuals are the "modes" of God. All fundamental Differences of Kind are simply Attributes of God. Let's say that the Color Red is God. When I talk about Redness that is not the thing itself but only an attribute of the thing. Wetness is not the Water clinging to the Rock. People get fooled by Attributes & never sense the Reality behind them. The Killing Joke of Spinoza's Milieu was the Argument over distinctions between Spirit and Matter. Between Mind and Matter. So when your position is that "The World does not Exist; only God Exists" - you are claiming that there are no distinctions between Mind and Matter since they do not exist - they are simply Attributes of the only Thing which does Exist. God. A Hindu Mystic gets to the Absolute by holding one thought in his head: "I am That." And so the Sadhu broadens his "Self" to include the entire Cosmos - Tvat Vam Asi! In the West, and in Spinoza's Umwelt, the path to the Absolute leads from the opposite pole and thus the Mantra in a Western Head is: "I am Not That." Or as Baruch wrote: "Determinatio est Negatio." To Determine is to Negate. A Western Self is born by crossing out all the things it Isn't. When we say that tits are pink we mean that they are not blue. Or red. Or yellow ... Spinoza realizes that thought, extension, finitude, time, space - are all Negations, limitations, fenced in, and therefore none of them exist in the Real.
All of this is sure fuckin' heresy as far as the Adam Jews were concerned but all of this is beside the point. At 23 Baruch Spinoza had not yet written a word of these beliefs. At least as far as History has as yet discovered. The Modern argument is whether or not Spinoza was an Atheist, but at 23 this concept of Spinoza was decades away. So what were the "Abominable heresies" and the "monstrous deeds" which his Proclamation of Kherem mentions? Barber tells the tale like this: As a young man, Spinoza fell into Bad company, as young men do. Especially those who want to be Philosophers and discover the Meaning of Existence or that Existence has no Meaning. Spinoza was linked to Jewish free thinkers like the notorious "Doctor Prado," as well as Christian sects which were borderline Heretical. Like the Quakers & the Pre-Adamites. Not good for a Jew in a Christian Country which will only allow you to be a Jew if you are a Good Jew and don't cause ripples. Hanging around with known enemies of Religion is not good cover in a deeply Religious milieu. But Amsterdam had over 400 Bookstores in 1656 and that spelled trouble & doubt for radical thinkers. Young men talk in Bookstores, and in Bodegas & Cafes, and in Bierstaubs and other men hear them. Mokum Aleph was too small for your opinions not to be noted. By 23, Bento de Espinosa. had already formed some dangerous opinions. Like others with a Linguistic bent, Bento had already noticed that the Torah could not have been written by one man - Moses - it was filled with different syntactic structures from different minds at different times. And it was filled with errors, inaccuracies and self-contradictions - so the Torah was not only not written by Moses, it was not written by God. Strike 1. And then too, Bento denied that his idea of god would have any dealings with a Chosen People - or in fact, with any people at all. So the Jews were not the Chosen People. Strike 2! Oh yah - and there's no such things as Angels, so scripture, which is flush with Angels is mostly Nonsense. Foul Ball. And then the Lynch Pin of his Kherem: Spinoza was known for denying that the Soul was Immortal. He denied that anything lived on after death. But wait ... if that were to be true then what use would religion, or scripture, or even god be? If there is no Immortal Soul - how could anything be saved? Without a Soul, what is there to be Redeemed? Strike 3 - yer out.
Nutshell: Baruch Spinoza was the 1st Thinker in the Western Tradition who literally Thought his way Outside of God. But he did not accomplish this legerdemain by himself. Remember the Great Gnosis of the Whole Earth Catalogue: Access to Tools. Spinoza lived in the Time of Descartes who had stayed for a part of that time in Spinoza's Amsterdam. Pooler Jones once pointed the Mathematician out to Bento on the bustling Houtgracht - but they never spoke. They didn't have to. Amsterdam was the most open city in Europa for publishing a book. You came to Mokum Aleph to read ideas which were no where else possible. Spinoza read Descartes & knew the new Cosmos thru his books. But he should have kept his mouth shut about the new ways of proving truth he found within them.
In Spinoza's time the fate of the Jewish community was not yet settled in Holland. In the foreground was the conflict between the Calvinist establishment and the Arminian opposition - a bitter and doctrinaire battle over the theological principle of Predestination - the argument over whether or not human destiny, reward, and punishment was already predetermined. In the background, neither of these factions was overtly sympathetic to the fate of the Jews. In fact, Caspar Barlaeus - a Professor of Theology at the University of Leiden and a leader of the Arminian position - pointed out that Jews enjoyed more religious freedom in Holland than Christians: "Judge for yourself, glorious Prince, is it not a disgraceful and unjustified practice that the Jews, the overt enemies and blasphemers of our Savior, are given the right to enjoy religious freedom in the strongest city in Holland, while we, who are Christians and of the Reformed Church, are not granted this right neither there nor in any other place." But the muckyups in Amsterdam refused to be cowed by the Protestant pressure and turned back an attempt to make the Jews "wear special garments that would single them out." The key to the peace between Christians and Jews in Mokum Aleph was that the Jews took it upon themselves to regulate their own behavior so as not to give offense to the Christian majority. In other words - the Jews made it a point to remain low-key and inconspicuous. The Talmud Torah United Congregation even passed regulations to prohibit Jewish Wedding and/or Funeral processions. Strutting Jews in Narrow Kiki Kolks were easy targets. The Jews also passed a regulation which warned against any criticism of the Kiki Religion and forbade all discussions of religion with Christians. They even put a damper on the efforts of Turning Conversos back into Jews. They rationalized that Proselytizing towards Conversion was not a Jewish act. In Amsterdam there was no Ghetto, "no yellow badge, horned hat or lockup curfew behind gates or walls." To keep it this way the Jewish Communities of ADAM adopted a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Keep your nappy head down and shut the fuck up. Hide in plain site. Go Steganographic. Those were the rules. Jews were expected - by both Christians and other Jews - to be Law-Abiding, respectful of Dutch Authority, and Tacit defenders of the Kiki Faith by their Silent acquiescence to its Tolerance. A good Jew is an Invisible Jew. So Spinoza was in deep shit.
The Sitz: Descartes and Galileo had sent the old Aristotelian World crashing. Spinoza was resonant with his times. Everywhere, old settled truths were being pruned off of the great Tree of Truth - Spin's day was the Epoch which 1st noticed that after Pruning the Tree the Tree itself was gone. Man was no longer the Center of the Universe. Jews were no longer the Center of Man. Spinoza was no longer a Jew. "Teleological Storytelling" gave way to Mathematics and Logic as Proofing matter. Pretty Becky pounces: "Explanations in terms of Final Causes belonged to the Old Order." So, in truth, Spinoza might have been allowed to go unnoticed. Most of what he was saying was being said by others - but the Others were Christian. Not Jews. That, and this: Judaism and Kikidom shared certain core beliefs: the Existence of God, the Truth in Scripture, and the Punishment and/or Rewards of the Life after Death. Spinoza denied them all. So he wasn't just denying Jewish dogma; he was also rejecting Christian dogma. Who in Hell did the Little Jew think he was? Bruno? So Spinoza was Excommunicated for the same Political reasons that James Watson was recently fired. The glue which held the Dutch provinces together was the Corps of Religious Beliefs seemingly shared by both Christian and Jew. And, like Watson, it did not really matter whether or not the Corps of Beliefs was "True" - what mattered was that they were followed and obeyed. Spinoza was tossed out of Jewdom for Political Correctness. PC. He was a Blood Sacrifice to the Goyim - a "Specified Sum" paid to leave the rest of the Jews alone.
Can you hear Randy Newman? "It's Money that Matters!" That's the Amsterdam City Hall above as it was on the 6th of Av, 5416. No longer is the Cathedral or the Synagogue the Center of Power - if we owe the Golden Age of Holland anything it's the transition from Temple to Townhall. The Jews in Mokum "A" had also grown prosperous and moved from the "Good" to "goods." Any conspicuous deviation from Public Mores & Beliefs would put the entire Jewish Community's Economic status in great peril. "Stop pokin' the Beast with a Stick!" They warned Bento & to enforce the Pax-Mokum the Jews were prepared to use their biggest gun: Kherem.
In May of 1655 - just 14 months before Baruch's Kherem - Abraham Nuñez Bernal had been Burned at the Stake by the Spanish Inquisition in Cordoba. And just 2 months before that, one Yithak da Almeida Bernal had gone "the Way of the Smoke" in Galicia. Spics were burning Jews and using them as space-heaters. Dangerous times to tell Everyone to go fuck themselves. All of this is playing itself out while this subcurrent argument about the place of "Jewish Suffering" is raging in both Christian and Jewish quarters. The biggest problem with the `design' of the Monkey-Mind is the ways it settles Cause and Effect situations. The Inference-Systems which handle the differing kinds of Causality are very keen to be Satisfied. Both personal as well as group suffering needs an "adequate" or at least a "useful" explanation. Not a Truth. Just an Explanation. Modern Jews reject the idea that Auschwitz and the Holocaust were a Judgment or the Climax of a Narrative History. In other words - they reject the Heilgeschichte take on Jewish Suffering. No one can deny the Geschichte of Jewish Angst - well, some still do, but the Pope forgives them - you don't need a faith to count skulls. It's Christian Logos which predicts the Suffering/Persecution and eventual Conversion of the Jews. But in Amsterdam, in 1656, you can see the seeds of a civil war sprouting from the "pulpits" of Rabbi Morteira & his Halakha Stick of Maimonides the RaMBaM, and Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel - gone woolly-eyed Messianic & actively trying to create the conditions necessary for the Coming of the Messiah. Then there was Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and his Kabbalistic take on the Tikkun Olam and Apokatafuckingstasis! The Redemption of the World thru the Restoration of Satan. Yah! Throw a knife between the 3 of them and see about the Meaning of Jewish Suffering. The last thing in the Cosmos that Amsterdam needed was an Atheist Jew who held that Suffering had no Meaning at all. At least to the god who did not exist. And it didn't matter that Spinoza was not an Atheist - when you tell everyone that "their" god does not exist you must give them a new Model. The "little Jew's" dilemma was that his model was logical, rationalistic, and geometrically mathematical. Such a `god ' does not yield to an Image. Such a god, in fact, is so Omni-Omni that it trumps the Set of all Possible Gods. Such a god is the god so fucking intelligent that it does not have to exist. Such a god is difficult to explain to the Johns and the Rubes and if you do, and you are successful, why would they come back to your Kirk or Temple? There is a parallel explication going on Under all of the Images on this page - Roll over them in sequence. But both explanations of Spinoza's Kherem come to the same conclusion: Heretics Cannot be Allowed. Period. Anything which occasions Doubt must be Annihilated. Our Minds have an Immune System . . .
It's interesting that Rabbi Aboab, the Lurianic Pomegranate freak who preached Apokatastasis and the eventual Redemption of the entire Cosmos - including Satan - voted for the Excommunication of Spinoza. Especially since Baruch's Kherem stipulates precisely that No Redemption is possible in Bento's case and that the Little Jew was therefore Outside of god and god's people forever. Skippy loves the Irony and the Image: at the end of time, when everything that ends, ends - there will be the Ain Sopf of the Nothing and one Lost Particle called Baruch Spinoza, forever outside the mix. The little jew had thought himself outside of god. There's got to be some larger lesson in all of this. There just has to be . . . because if not, then there are no lessons at all. It's a Killing Joke & it puts you in Awe of the god which doesn't Be because it's not Necessary to Be. To Be.
There is a similar idea to Spinoza's dilemma with god found in a Book which Skippy has just acquired. It's called: The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion and is by the frog Marcel Gauchet. It was the great Sociologist Max Weber who first used that term: entzauberung der welt. The Disenchantment of the World. Weber was remarking on the end of Magical Thinking as Causality and the price for that skill. The Specified Sum. Gauchet extends the concept to the entire sweep of Western History and argues that Judeo-Christianity had inherent assumptions that once played out would result in Christianity becoming the "Religion for departing from Religion." Monotheism it turns out is a kind of Cancer for the gods and even the idea of god. "Kherem" too has an extended meaning beyond excommunication. It means "the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to God, often by totally destroying them." It means: Annihilation. Exile.
Use your Browser to go Back or Click on This to Dive into Deus Sive Natura