Spinoza's Eyes: The Ideological Motives of German-Jewish Spinoza Scholarship

Abstract

scant. He quotes a sentence in a letter of the Chancellor in which Bismarck admits that he found in Spinoza's works 'mathematische Klarheit, in denen ich Beruhigung uber das suchte, was menschlichem Verstande nicht faslich ist'. Grunwald also argues that Bismarck had been a student of Schleiermacher, 'der begeisterte Verehrer Spinozas'. But the main argument is of mystical nature: Bismarck's eyes were similar to Spinoza's eyes, and incidentally these eyes were also the eyes of Goethe and Frederick the Great. This comparison might seem farfetched; I nevertheless think it worthwhile to ask what we are to make of it, not in the last place because Grunwald was part of a widely shared GermanJewish appreciation of Spinoza - an interesting phenomenon in itself. Max Grunwald had, apart from his profession as a rabbi, also scholarly ambitions. Nowadays he is mainly remembered as one of the originators of the academic discipline of Jewish folklore research.2 But he was also part of a considerable group of late 19th early 20th century German- Jewish authors occupying themselves in a scholarly context with Spinoza. One might be tempted to say that this group dominated