Spinoza and Other Heretics. Vol. 1: The Marrano of Reason. Vol 2: The Adventures of Immanence (review)

Volume 9. No.4 Summer 1991 BOOK REVIEWS 125 Spinoza and Other Heretics. Vol. 1: The Marrano of Reason. Vol 2: The Adventures of Immanence, by Yimiyahu Yovel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Vol. 1: 240 pp. $24.50. Vol. 2: 257 pp. $29.50. $45.00/set. This two-volume study of the historical origins and consequences of Spinoza's thought can be seen as an attempt to show that the "philosophical revolution" of this Jewish thinker was much more important than has been realized thus far. More specifically, Yovel wants to show that Spinoza "anticipated major trends in European modernization, including secularization, biblical criticism, the rise of natural science, the Enlightenment, and the liberal -democratic state" (p. ix). What allowed him to do so was mainly his conviction that the world we inhabit now exhausts all of reality, that there is no transcendental realm, that God and the world are identical, and that the laws of nature and reason, not the decrees of the Bible, should form the basis of our morals. The first volume is an attempt to show that Spinoza's philosophical convictions were deeply influenced by what the author calls "his Marrano experience" (p. x). Drawing heavily on the research of Carl Gebhardt, Israel Revah, Yosef Kaplan, and others,he paints a lively and exciting picture of the Amsterdam Jewish community in which Spinoza grew up. Many of its members were former Marranos: Jews who had been forced in Spain to convert to Christianity, and who returned to Judaism after escaping from Spain. Most of them had never given up Judaism completely, even though the punishment for "Judaizing" was severe. However, most of them also had rather vague notions of Jewish traditions and practices. They were, as Gebhardt put it, "Catholics without faith and Jews without knowledge" (p. 40). Yovel believes that he can trace consequ~nces of the Marranos' "split mind" in Spinoza, and he finds six "main patterns," namely, "(1) heterodoxy and the transcendence of revealed religion; (2) a skill for equivocation and dual language ; (3) a dual life-inner and external; (4) a dual career with a break between ; (5) toleration versus Inquisition; (6) a zeal for salvation, to be gained by alternate ways to that of tradition ... coupled with ... this-worldliness, secularism, and the denial of tradition" (p. 28). His book presents a sustained argument that all these features can be found in Spinoza, and that they must be explained by his Marrano background. However, it is far from clear that his reduction of Spinoza's philosophical thinking to this particular historical background is successful. First of all, Spinoza himself was not a Marrano. He "received a traditional Jewish educa- 126 SHOFAR tion, studying Hebrew and Scripture, Talmud and Jewish philosophy," as Yovel himself acknowledges (p. 4). He certainly was not a Jew "without knowledge." Nor was he brought up as a Catholic "without faith." Whatever he knew of the "Marrano experience," he knew second-hand. Secondly-as Yovel also knows-Spinoza read a great deal on secular subjects such as mathematics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He had first-hand acquaintance with the philosophy of the moderns, and must have been affected by it just as much as the Marranos themselves. It is really strange how miniscule a role philosophy and science have to play in this book. Thirdly, some of the features of the "Marrano experience" that Yovel traces in Spinoza are not really in Spinoza. The chapter on "dual language" in Spinoza is certainly the weakest and least convincing. Spinoza's "translations" of traditional terms into his philosophical discourse (pp. 147ff) are far too straightforward to count as "dual language." In any case, very few people made the mistake of reading his books as traditional theology. The comparison with Roja's La Celestina is far-fetched-to say the least. Fourthly, some of the "patterns of the Marrano experience" are not exclusively part of this experience, but are part of what it means to be human in a less than perfect society. The Marrano ofReason goes much too far in its conclusions. Though Yovel offers a muchneeded corrective to the standard view of Spinoza that sees him mainly in...