"...What did I, a philosopher and Spinoza scholar, recommend? I confess that after much deliberation, I concluded that there were no good historical or legal reasons for lifting the ban, and rather good reasons against lifting it. Some may find this disappointing. But rather than see my recommendation as a betrayal of Spinoza or a capitulation to religion, I think of it as a reminder of what philosophy and religion, at their best, should both stand for: the quest for understanding and truth. The ban against Spinoza was the harshest ever issued by the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community. Though the writ speaks only of his “abominable heresies and monstrous deeds,” without telling us exactly what they were, for anyone who has read Spinoza's philosophical treatises, there really is no mystery as to why he was expelled. In those works, Spinoza rejects the providential God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; insists that the Bible is not literally of divine origin but just a haphazard compilation of human writings handed down through the centuries; denies that Jewish law and ceremonial observance are of any validity or relevance for latter-day Jews; maintains that there is no theological, moral or metaphysical sense in which Jews are different from any other people; and rejects the idea of an immortal soul. Scholars have offered a number of alternative hypotheses to explain Spinoza's excommunication, but if he was saying any of these things around the time of his ban — and there are good reasons for thinking that he was — it is no wonder that he was punished by his community. These were heresies."

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“Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco; homo enim affectibus obnoxius sui juris non est sed fortunæ in cujus potestate ita est ut sæpe coactus sit quanquam meliora sibi videat, deteriora tamen sequi.”

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