Q&A: Spinoza’s Doctrine of God and That of Kabbalah
Spinoza’s Doctrine of God and That of Kabbalah
Question
Hello,
Do you understand Spinoza’s conception of God and Kabbalah’s conception of God as identical?
Everything is God, God is in everything, etc., or is there a difference, seemingly Spinoza was not a heretic but understood the doctrine of God according to the esoteric tradition?!
Answer
I don’t understand Spinoza. Simply put, pantheism is just atheism. Calling the totality of what exists by the name “God” changes nothing whatsoever. It means there is no God, but the universe is called “God.” So what? It’s like saying that Macbeth was not written by William Shakespeare, but by his cousin, who was also named William Shakespeare. I discussed this in the second booklet; see there.
As for Kabbalah, there are different approaches and interpretations regarding it. Kabbalah in itself is a collection of structures (which are themselves also disputed). Their meaning depends on interpretation (which of them is connected to divinity, and how). Therefore there is no such thing as “the Kabbalistic conception.” You can interpret it like Spinoza, and you can interpret it otherwise. The interpretation of some Hasidim (such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe) is indeed pantheistic, and therefore they are basically atheists (or just confused). I explain this in my book on theology (currently in progress).
Discussion on Answer
What is the Lubavitcher Rebbe doing here? And why do we need him in order to bring someone who supports the existence of miracles? What’s wrong with Moses our teacher, for example?
In your answer you mention the Lubavitcher Rebbe as an example of a pantheistic and therefore basically atheistic interpretation, and about that I’m asking: doesn’t belief in miracles entail belief in a factor beyond nature?
Oops, I didn’t notice.
First, as is well known, they’re confused, and one does not bring proof from confusion.
Second, for him there is no nature except from our perspective, so from our perspective there is also miracle. Just don’t ask me what that means.
If so, why can’t one argue that he is simply an idealist in the style of Berkeley (there is only God, and He creates the ideas that we encounter)?
In whom are they created? Even the idealist accepts that he himself exists.
So along the way we’ve received a new principle of faith: a human being has to be separate from God.
Indeed. There are many more such “principles of faith,” for example: 2+3=5, a thing is identical to itself, contradictions are inadmissible, a person has two hands and two legs, dogs bark, there is a moon in the sky, and so on and so on.
The Holy One, blessed be He, desired to grant merit to Israel; therefore He gave them many principles of faith, as it is said: “The Lord desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to magnify the Torah and make it glorious.” Magnified and sanctified…
Most principles of faith were written for the needs of polemic, internal or external, and that seems to me to be the case here as well.
On the margins of the matter, I would note that we have received in the name of Hobbes that if 2+3=5 had political significance, a party would already have arisen claiming that it isn’t true.
It turns out that the dispute about the existence of the self began at an earlier stage:
The Lubavitcher Rebbe believed in miracles (at least that is the plain meaning of his words). Doesn’t a miracle presuppose some factor beyond nature?