Spinoza’s Butterfly Effect. Part 1: Wing Flaps |
Chaos Theory describes the Butterfly Effect as a phenomenon by which small disturbances in complex systems can produce large, unpredictable consequences over time. The meteorologist Edward Lorenz first identified this principle while studying weather patterns, observing that tiny variations in the initial conditions of his models could lead to dramatically different outcomes. In a lecture delivered in 1972, he captured the idea in a famous question—“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”—suggesting that seemingly minor disturbances can initiate chains of consequences that unfold far away in time and space.
History sometimes behaves in similar ways. And that brings us to Spinoza.
Little is known about the personal life of scholar-renegade Baruch Spinoza. Even less is known about how he initiated a butterfly effect that took four hundred years to mature.
The excommunication of a philosopher in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, for example, might appear to be a local communal flap of the wings, if you will. Yet, that philosopher’s ideas travelled quietly across Europe for generations, gathering momentum. Two centuries later, when they reached another philosopher, Salomon Rubin, they set in motion a sequence of events whose repercussions would ripple out over the next hundred years of my family’s history, culminating in a tornado.
It is a long shot blaming Spinoza with family events that took place centuries after his death. You cannot blame a Texas tornado on a butterfly somewhere in the Amazon. I do intend, however, to link the flap of the butterfly’s wings to the tornadoes that hit us.
This is not an emotional trip. It is a failure analysis. I will outline effective strategies for handling a herem and assess them with several case studies. And I will present how Spinoza’s butterfly effect migrated through time, creating a few tornadoes along the way, centuries after the butterfly first flapped its wings.
My initial encounter with this effect occurred during my research for the book I Want This in Writing: Heroes. Rogues. Family. This is when I discovered my connection with Salomon (Shlomo) Rubin. That delayed encounter is just one more aspect of the prolonged herem.
Herem’ed by the Angels
A herem (חֵרֶם)—a loaded word in Hebrew—is a formal religious ban imposed by a rabbinical court. It calls for absolute exclusion from social and religious institutions: no business dealings, no communal prayer, no burial rites, no contact, no help, and no support in any way. In short, it means “you are dead to us.” It is said that herems are used sparingly but have devastating effects when applied. That’s the point.
The most dramatic example of herem is Spinoza’s, which happened in Amsterdam in 1656, and which stands out because its language is unusually fierce. Here are a few choice phrases issued by the rabbinical court, beginning with a curse: “With the judgment of the angels and with that of the saints, we excommunicate, expel, curse, and damn Baruch de Spinoza…” Not exactly administrative language. On the contrary, it invokes cosmic authority—heaven joins the court. Also, it shows that the goal is not to correct or modify behavior. The objective is to terminate and annihilate.
The document then goes on to state: “Cursed be he [Spinoza] by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up.” In other words, the curse extends over every moment in time, every physical condition, and every action.
Next comes the annihilation clause: “May the Lord blot out his name from under heaven…” Total erasure.
And then came the social death sentence, in the form of detailed instructions: “That no one may communicate with him, orally or in writing, nor show him any favor, nor stay with him under one roof, nor come within four cubits of him…”—and finally, the intellectual penalty clause—“…nor read any treatise composed or written by him.”
The rabbinical decree does not explain the dictate to avoid repeating Spinoza’s ideas in public, although it does mention his books. This was a fatal mistake
The Lived Consequences of Spinoza’s herem
Perhaps the worst part of Spinoza’s 1656 ḥerem was the total social exclusion it imposed on him. He was officially severed from everything: family, livelihood, communal worship, charity, and burial rights—in other words, being placed completely beyond the bounds of permissible social contact. The ban was also intended to create material hardship for him, leaving him no choice but to do manual labor for a living.
The herem also denied Spinoza of burial rights; this may not, at face value, seem like that big of a deal. But think about it: this edict extends the social exclusion beyond life itself. In many traditions—including Judaism—burial affirms one’s belonging to an unbroken chain of ancestors and descendants. Denying this burial symbolically severs that bond, removing you from communal memory.
So, how did Spinoza respond to this absolute severance?
If you expected him to stage some kind of counteroffensive, you’d be mistaken—he neither pleaded for mercy before the court, nor recanted any of his beliefs, nor sought to circumvent or disregard the herem edict. He maintained his lifestyle and did not alter it to accommodate his prosecutors. He did not retract his ideas; instead, he adopted a posture of deliberate withdrawal and restraint.
In other words, the herem did not erase Spinoza, as its originators envisioned it would.
Intellectually, the herem did nothing to curb Spinoza’s creativity and writing. If anything, it freed him from any religious constraints. Still, Spinoza refused to be outright confrontational. He even arranged for his friends to publish his work after his death.
Spinoza had several factors working in his favor.
Far from being naïve, Spinoza took specific measures to counter the herem: his tactic was not to tackle it head-on, but rather to bypass it. Almost immediately, he changed his Hebrew name from Baruch to its Latin form, Benedictus—a defensive move of primary importance. The shift from Baruch to Benedictus was neither a rejection of his origins nor a gesture of religious conversion, but a deliberate act of translation and positioning.
The two names mean the same thing: “blessed.” However, whereas Baruch is Hebrew, Benedictus is Latin, the language of philosophy, correspondence, and publication—in other words, the language of Spinoza’s contemporaries, the community of early modern scholars who exchanged ideas through books and letters, and among whom he chose to work. Under the Latin name Benedictus, he was able to fashion a public identity that allowed him to travel intellectually among Christians and freethinkers while pledging himself to no church at all.
At its core, this transformation was not only about reshaping his identity but also about resilience. The community sought to erase his name; instead of disappearing, he sought support and friendship in other communities.
However, while the herem did not obliterate him as intended, Spinoza did not lead a happy life, neither by the standards of his time nor of those today. He lived alone, remained unmarried, was estranged from his family (officially, at least), had few friends, had to work hard for a living, and died young—probably due to illness caused by his work grinding lenses. But these are standards, and there was nothing standard about Spinoza. He had his own definition of happiness, independent of belonging, praise, or human attachment. This perspective made him less vulnerable.
Spinoza’s family history and attitude are critical in this regard. Spinoza’s upbringing and surroundings were characterized by a religious milieu that was not strictly dichotomous, thereby fostering greater acceptance of diverse viewpoints. His family had already embraced religious plurality as part of their values. The Spinozas were Christian converts (conversos) from Portugal; his other relatives, including his stepmother, were also Christians, and religious boundaries within such families were often fluid rather than absolute. Many families of similar backgrounds contained Jews, crypto-Jews, and practicing Christians simultaneously—sometimes across generations.
Even more importantly, in addition to their religious pluralism, neither Spinoza nor his family were unfamiliar with the world of herem. They knew religious persecution intimately. Having endured the Portuguese Inquisition’s tortures and trials, they found Amsterdam’s rabbinical courts almost quaint by comparison. While the Inquisitionists had wielded the full power of church and state—imprisonment, torture, execution—Amsterdam’s rabbis only demanded social exclusion, and even that only worked on those who craved the approval of their community. And Spinoza did not.
In other words, Spinoza’s family had survived worse. Far worse. And, because of their background, they did not erase him. Like Spinoza, they accepted the herem with quiet constraint, resisting its absolutist language. This attitude explains how Spinoza was able to continue living nearby, under his own name, without vanishing entirely from family life.
Equally important is the support Spinoza received from his friends. After the herem, his circle of friends was small, discreet, and almost entirely non-Jewish: Mennonites, physicians, publishers, and freethinking Christians who shared a distrust of religious authority and a commitment to reason. This small circle provided him with intellectual companionship, helped him financially, and protected him from exposure, forming a chosen family that replaced his community with voluntary loyalty and shared risk.
And then, there’s the dress rehearsal factor. Spinoza was prepared for the herem. He’d only needed to watch Uncle Uriel …
Uriel da Costa’s Herem
Uncle Uriel—aka Uriel da Costa (c. 1585–1640)—was, like Spinoza, born into a converso family in Portugal. He was raised Catholic. He was also related to Spinoza’s mother, and it’s assumed they were close. As a young man, while still living in Portugal, Uriel began doubting Catholic doctrine and turned toward what he believed to be the more ancient and rational faith of the Hebrew Bible. Fleeing Iberian persecution, he settled in Amsterdam, which, at that time, was one of the most liberal cities in Europe, offering the newly formed Portuguese–Jewish community relative safety.
But Uriel’s resettlement in Amsterdam did not lead to his conforming to Judaism; instead, he started doubting its sacred tenets as well. First, he denied the immortality of the soul as commonly taught in Jewish theology. Second, he argued that Jewish practices and beliefs are not grounded in the Hebrew Bible. Third, he criticized the rabbinical tradition of translating the written Bible into a set of rules called the Oral Law.
Uriel remained an outspoken critic of Christianity as well, and he was not shy about sharing and publishing his views. He questioned the concept of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, Christian rituals such as baptism, and the Church’s authority.
The Jewish community was worried that Uriel’s multi-frontal criticism might alienate Christian leaders, whose support was essential to their welfare. With the memories of the Iberian persecution still fresh on everyone’s mind, they had good reasons to worry about where this rabble-rouser would lead them.
So, naturally, the Jewish leadership responded with … what else …? A ḥerem. This herem, Uriel’s herem, preceded Spinoza’s by about fifty years; the ban first took effect in the 1620s.
However, Uriel did not have Spinoza’s support system. After a period of intense isolation and hardship, he sought reconciliation with the Jewish community and was readmitted. Then, having learned his lesson, he lived happily ever after, surrounded by family and friends.
Not true! Even after all that hardship, Uriel could not resist resuming his criticisms. He was again placed under herem—this time even more severe and prolonged.
Notably, centuries later, Uriel’s drama would enflame the imagination of the nineteenth-century playwright Karl Gutzkow. His play, aptly named Uriel Acosta, imagines Uriel listing his transgressions as follows:
I, Uriel Acosta, Portuguese
By birth, and Israelite by my Religion,
Do here, before the face of God, confess,
To feel unworthy of His boundless grace.
As boy already did my lips profess
The Christians’ faith rejected by my heart.
And then again, professing Jacob’s faith
With outward show and base hypocrisy,
I was not Jew, nor Christian, hated both;
I scorned whatever they held holy, and
Whate’er the Law forbids, I do for spite.
And when my reason’s power could not lend
I would resort to ridicule. I wrote….
These are not direct quotes from Uriel, obviously. Still, they have some grain of truth in them. They likely reflect how casual observers viewed him. And as such, he would have been a major cause of concern for the rabbis.
After years of exclusion from his community, Uriel again could not bear the isolation and sought readmission. Yes, this was the second time around. The community leaders agreed, but they wanted him to pay a heavy price this time. They wanted to see him tormented, tortured, and humiliated, and they wanted everyone to watch—in a public ceremony, held at the Amsterdam synagogue. Uriel was lashed 39 times, then ordered to lie on the floor at the main entrance for everyone to step on him on their way out.
This terrible affair ended in Uriel’s suicide a few days later.
But thirty-nine lashes … where did that number come from? The most famous recipient of this punishment is Paul the Apostle. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (11:24), he wrote: “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.” And before that, we have the forty years in the desert punishment.
Uriel’s public humiliation and suicide happened in 1640. Spinoza was eight years old at the time. It is unknown whether Spinoza was present at the Amsterdam synagogue during that awful night. But as he was growing up in Amsterdam’s tightly-knit Portuguese–Jewish community, Spinoza had many opportunities to hear Uriel’s story and to draw his conclusions. Even if he did not witness Uriel’s devastating humiliation, the example stood as a warning as he came of age. He certainly recognized that dissent could trigger a herem, and that any attempt at reconciliation could lead to public humiliation and social annihilation.
This concludes the “flapping of the wings” section. Next, I’ll explore strategies that were used to counter the effects of the herem, with varying degrees of success, through the life stories of individuals who successfully overcame a herem and others who were less successful.