Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin :
I should like to take issue with Dr. Drachman’s statement regarding Spinoza in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of November 22nd.
If Spinoza were living today, he would not be excommunicated from the Jewish fold.
It is quite possible that the seventeenth century Jewish community of Amsterdam, Holland, disclaimed Spinoza as much because of a desire to be acquitted in the eyes of their Christian neighbors of any responsibility for his heresies, which were offensive to the Christian as well as to the Jewish theology of the day, as because of any particularly Jewish consideration.
It is true that Spinoza’s views on God, Israel and the Torah are entirely unacceptable to Orthodox Judaism today, and that his pantheism may not even be acceptable to many exponents of Reform Judaism. Nevertheless, I am sure that if he lived today, he would be hailed as a great Jew.
No Jew today is read out of the Jewish fold, unless he reads himself out.
The Jew of today should recognize in the frail lensgrinder philosopher of Amsterdam, the intellectual clarity and the moral courage which has given the Jew since the days of Abraham, the power to pierce the fogs of darkness and to break down altars of idolatry and superstition.
The Synagogue need not accept Spinoza’s doctrine, but Jewry may well acclaim his life.
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