{"id":54,"date":"2026-09-19T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/?page_id=54"},"modified":"2026-09-19T22:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T22:00:17","slug":"baruch-spinoza","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/?page_id=54","title":{"rendered":"Baruch Spinoza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Baruch Spinoza<\/h1>\n\n\n

God, or Nature<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Baruch Spinoza, c. 1665 (public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community at 23, for views the community’s leaders considered heretical. Three and a half centuries later, Spiritual Humanistic Judaism stands closer to Spinoza than to almost any other Jewish thinker — not because he tried to reform Judaism, but because he asked, more clearly than anyone before him, what is actually left of “God” once you take the supernatural Subject away.<\/p>\n

Deus Sive Natura<\/h2>\n

Spinoza’s phrase Deus sive Natura<\/em> — “God, or Nature” — collapses the distance between creator and creation entirely. For Spinoza, there is one infinite substance, and everything that exists is a way that substance expresses itself. God does not stand outside the universe, willing it, judging it, intervening in it. God simply is<\/em> the universe, understood completely. There is no one to pray to, because there is no one apart from everything there is.<\/p>\n

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why He Matters Here<\/h2>\n

Spinoza did not found a movement or write a liturgy. But his move — keeping the word “God” while entirely emptying it of personhood, will and supernatural agency — is the oldest and starkest version of the same move Spiritual Humanistic Judaism makes when it sets aside God<\/em>, godly<\/em> and godliness<\/em> as terms in its own theology and liturgy. Where Spinoza kept the word and redefined it, we’ve chosen to set the word down and speak instead of holiness enacted — but the underlying conviction is the same: reality does not need a ruler standing over it to be worthy of awe.<\/p>\n

It is fitting that the community’s own study circle takes his name: the Spinoza Havurah<\/strong><\/a>, whose rabbi wrote Tefilotenu<\/a>, this community’s siddur.<\/p>\n

See also Our Scholarship<\/a> for how this connects to Kaplan, Schulweis and Falk.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community at 23, for views the community’s leaders considered heretical. Three and a half centuries later, Spiritual Humanistic Judaism stands closer to Spinoza than to almost any other Jewish thinker — not because he tried to reform Judaism, but because he asked, more clearly than anyone before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-54","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/54\/revisions\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualhumanisticjudaism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}