Episode
Ep. 43: Orthodox Judaism, Leo Strauss, and Baruch Spinoza’s Critique of Religion
- Podcast
- The Moral Imagination
- Published
- Jul 19, 2022
- Duration seconds
- 6317
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Summary
In this episode I speak with Jeffrey Bloom and Rabbi Jeremy Kagan about the book Spinoza, Strauss, and Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith published by Kodesh Press . The book is a collection of essays edited by Jeffrey Bloom, Alec Goldstein , and Gil Student . Jeffrey Bloom grew up secular, Jewish family and the idea of actually practicing Orthodox Judaism was outside of the realm of possibility. He studied at University of Chicago where he took a class with Professor Leon Kass on Genesis. (see book link below) This was the first time that he took religion seriously. He notes that as a child of divorce— he wanted stronger family life, and he was attracted to Orthodox Judaism, but still questioned whether it was reasonable. This led him to read Strauss critique of Spinoza’s critique of religious belief. The Enlightenment philosopher, Baruch Spinoza argued that religious belief was irrational. But in his book, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, Leo Strauss argued that while the enlightenment with Spinoza and his heirs claimed to refuted orthodox belief, they in fact did not. Strauss claimed that as long as orthodoxy is willing to make the concession that they can’t “know” and only “believe” the tenets of Judaism, then it is plausible and no weaker a position that rationalism because that is precisely what Spinoza is doing—when pressed, Enlightenment rationalism, like religion, rests on acts of “faith” in tenets that it cannot prove. Strauss’ argument opened up questions about reason, belief, truth, access to reality and more, and what it did for Bloom was make orthodox Judaism rationally and intellectually plausible. As Rabbi Jeremy Kagan puts it, “carved out a space for the Torah” and religion belief and practice. Yet Bloom had another question—Strauss o…