Against Ceremonial Law

Abstract

Abstract Spinoza asserted that “after the destruction of their state the Hebrews are not bound to perform ceremonies [… and] God requires nothing special of the Jews … beyond the natural law which binds all mortals.” Spinoza was alienated from Judaism and did not even regard himself as a Jew. He wrote the Theological-Political Treatise primarily, if not exclusively, for Christians. Yet in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, his analysis of the ceremonial law shaped conversations about modern Judaism. This chapter analyzes how David Friedländer deployed Spinoza’s and Moses Mendelssohn’s conceptions of the Jewish ceremonial law to argue against its continued authority. Friedländer did not simply return to Spinoza’s conception of Jewish ceremonial law but affirmed central features of Mendelssohn’s conception of it. The chapter concludes by pointing to how Friedländer’s arguments led to the emergence of something Spinoza never contemplated—a Reform Judaism free of binding ceremonial law.