JOLLY DAYS

Spinoza

[via Denis Dutton]

Interesting interview with a woman who knows a lot about Spinoza.

There are these two, very different scholarly traditions in Judaism, the mystical and the Talmudic. And in Amsterdam, the mystical tradition—kabbalah—was very, very important. At least two of the three major rabbis in Amsterdam in Spinoza's time were kabbalists. In the Tractatus Spinoza indicates that he knows the kabbalah and doesn't think much of it. But there are certain preoccupations—why is there something rather than nothing; the meaning of suffering—that are the two ultimate mysteries that kabbalah wrestles with. And Spinoza wrestles with them as well.

Spinoza's rationalism was his salvation or his retreat, depending on your point of view.