The Spinoza Problem

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Authors: Irvin D. Yalom
Tags: Historical, Psychology, Philosophy
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he got an air of peace and calmness. He also says he beheld the world more clearly. Those were the two main things.”
    “Exactly. We know that the great Goethe carried a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics in his pocket for a year. Imagine that—an entire year! And not only Goethe but many other great Germans. Lessing and Heine reported a clarity and calmness that came from reading this book. Who knows, there may come a time in your life when you, too, will need the calmness and clarity that Spinoza’s Ethics offers. I shan’t ask you to read that book now. You’re too young to grasp its meaning. But I want you to promise that before your twenty-first birthday you will read it. Or perhaps I should say, read it by the time you’re fully grown. Do I have your word as a good German?”
    “Yes sir, you have my word.” Alfred would have promised to read the entire encyclopedia in Chinese to get out of this inquisition.
    “Now, let’s move to the heart of this assignment. Are you fully clear why we assigned you this reading assignment?”
    “Uh, no, sir. I thought it was just because I said I admired Goethe above all others.”
    “Certainly that is part of it. But surely you understood what my real question was?”
    Alfred looked blank.
    “I’m asking you, what does it mean to you that the man you admire above all others chooses a Jew as the man he admires above all others?”
    “A Jew?”
    “Did you not know that Spinoza was a Jew?”
    Silence.
    “You have found out nothing about him these last two weeks?”
    “Sir, I know nothing about this Spinoza. That was not part of my assignment.”
    “And so, thank God, you avoided the dreaded step of learning something extra? Is that it, Rosenberg?”
    “Let me put it this way,” interjected Herr Schäfer. “Think of Goethe. What would he have done in this situation? If Goethe had been required to read the autobiography of someone unknown to him, what would Goethe have done?”
    “He would have educated himself about this person.”
    “Exactly. This is important. If you admire someone, emulate him. Use him as your guide.”

    “Thank you, sir.”
    “Still, let us proceed with my question,” said Headmaster Epstein. “How do you explain Goethe’s boundless admiration and gratitude to a Jew?”
    “Did Goethe know he was a Jew?”
    “Good God. Of course he knew.”
    “But, Rosenberg,” said Herr Schäfer, who was now also growing impatient, “think about your question. What does it matter if he knew Spinoza was a Jew? Why would you even ask that question? Do you think a man of Goethe’s stature—you yourself called him the universal genius—would not embrace great ideas regardless of their source?”
    Alfred looked staggered. Never had he been exposed to such a blizzard of ideas. Headmaster Epstein, putting his hand on Herr Schäfer’s arm to quiet him, did not relent.
    “My major question to you is still unanswered: how do you explain that the universal German genius is so very much helped by the ideas of a member of an inferior race?”
    “Perhaps it is what I answered about Dr. Apfelbaum. Maybe because of a mutation there can be a good Jew, even though the race is corrupt and inferior.”
    “That’s not an acceptable answer,” said the headmaster. “It is one thing to speak of a doctor who is kind and plies his chosen profession well and quite another thing to speak in this way of a genius who may have changed the course of history. And there are many other Jews whose genius is well-known. Think about them. Let me remind you of those you know yourself but maybe did not know were Jews. Herr Schäfer tells me that in class you’ve recited the poetry of Heinrich Heine. He tells me, too, that you like music, and I imagine you have listened to the music of Gustav Mahler and Felix Mendelssohn. Right?”
    “They’re Jews, sir?”
    “Yes, and you must know that Disraeli, the great prime minister of England, was a Jew?”
    “I did not know that,

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