Short Treatise on God/Life of Spinoza/2
§ 2. THE HOME OF SPINOZA
The name Spinoza (also written variously as Espinosa, d'Espinoza, Despinoza, and De Spinoza) was most probably derived from Espinosa, a town in Leon. The Spinozas lived originally in Spain. During the persecutions there some of them seem to have outwardly embraced Christianity. (As late as 1721 eight descendants of theirs, living in or near Granada, were condemned to life-long imprisonment as Judaising heretics.) Some fled to Portugal, others to France, but they met again in Amsterdam as soon as it became known that Jews were tolerated there. Benedict s grandfather is twice described in the Synagogue archives as Abraham Espinosa of Nantes, from which it would appear that he lived there some time. On the other hand, it seems that Michael (his son, and the father of Benedict) stayed at one time in Figueras, near Coimbra, and that his third wife hailed from Lisbon. And as tradition unanimously describes Spinoza as of Portuguese descent, it seems reasonable to suppose that his father and grandfather came from Spain or Portugal, and that their stay in France was only brief.
Very little is known of Spinoza's father and grandfather. They were merchants, and were evidently held in high esteem. For, already in 1622, we find Abraham Espinosa filling an important honorary office in the Amsterdam Jewish community, of which he seems to have been the recognised head in 1628. His son, Michael Espinosa, held office even more frequently. He was Warden of his Synagogue in 1633, 1637-8, 1642-3, and again in 1649-50, when he was also one of the Wardens of the Amsterdam Jewish School, and presided over the charity for granting loans without interest. If not rich, he was probably well-to-do. In 1641, it is true, we still find him living in the Vloyenburgh, but this was probably not at that time the poor quarter which it became subsequently. Soon afterwards, however, he moved into the Houtgragt (now the Waterlooplein), and the house in which he lived the closing years of his life looks substantial even now. It is numbered 41, and can also be identified by a stone tablet (placed there in 1743) which bears the inscription "'t Oprechte Tapijthuis" (the upright tapestry house). But, whatever his worldly fortune may have been, Michael had more than his share of domestic sorrow. His first wife died in 1627. His second wife, Hannah Deborah, the mother of Benedict, died in 1638. He married again in 1641; but his third wife, a Lisbon lady, also predeceased him in 1652. The year before, in 1651, his daughter, Miriam, died at the age of 22, and but a little more than a year after her marriage to Samuel de Casseres. Michael had also lost three other children, and only two of his six children, namely, Benedict and a daughter, Rebekah (born of the first marriage), survived him when he died shortly afterwards, in 1654.
The childhood of Spinoza was no doubt happy enough. Until he was five he would be entirely under his mother's care, as was the Jewish custom. Then his school-life would begin, with its quaint introductory ceremonial. The ceremony connected with the little boy s entrance into school-life was probably one of the last, and happiest, of the poor mother's experiences. It was performed partly in school and partly in the Synagogue, of which his father was Warden at the time. According to traditional custom, three cakes of fine flour and honey were baked for the boy by a young maiden, and fruit was provided in profusion. One of his father's learned friends would carry him in his arms to the Synagogue, where he would be placed on the reading-dais while the Ten Commandments were read from the Scroll of the Law. Then he would be taken to school to receive his first lesson in Hebrew. Some simple Hebrew verses would be smeared on a slate with honey, and little Baruch would repeat the Hebrew letters, and eat the honey and other dainty things, so that the words of the Law might be sweet to his lips. And then into his mother's arms!
Unfortunately his mother died when Baruch was barely six years old, and, for the next three years or so, he was left to the care of his stepsister, Rebekah, who may not have been more than twelve years of age herself. To judge by subsequent events, there was probably not much love lost between Rebekah and Baruch. For, when their father died in 1654, she did her utmost to prevent Benedict from receiving his share of the inheritance, and he went to law, though he let her keep nearly everything after he had won the lawsuit. At his death also her conduct was not exemplary; she hastened to the Hague to claim her inheritance, but made off again as soon as she learned that the property left was hardly enough to cover his debts and funeral expenses. All this, however, belonged as yet to the future. In the meantime one may well imagine the pathetic picture of the child standing by his mother's grave and lisping the mourner's prayer in Hebrew, which he had but just commenced to learn. For nearly a whole year afterwards he might be seen twice or three times each day in the neighbouring Synagogue, reciting aloud that same mourner s prayer, with a mysterious feeling of awe and solemnity, yet glad withal to be doing something for his poor mother. Each anniversary of her death would be commemorated by a special light that was kept burning at home for twenty-four hours in memory of a light that had failed, but was believed to be still shedding its rays in another sphere. And the solemn days of the Jewish calendar were only made more solemn for him by tender memories of "the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that was still."
We must not, however, exaggerate the sad side of young Spinoza's life—though it certainly had its sad side. When he was in his ninth year he received a stepmother. Being but a recent Marano refugee from Lisbon she may not have been exactly the kind of woman to inspire young Spinoza with any specially warm attachment to Judaism. Like so many Maranos she may have been half Catholic in her training, from the necessity of outward conformity to Roman Catholicism. Still, she was probably kind to the children, and the home would resume its normal tone. The Jewish calendar, moreover, has its joyous Festivals, even its frivolous carnival; and a good Jew like Michael Espinosa was not likely to neglect his religious duty to be and to make merry on these occasions. First, there was the weekly Sabbath and Sabbath eve (Friday evening) so often and so justly celebrated in verse—even by Heine, in his Princess Sabbath. The spirit in which it was celebrated is perhaps best expressed in the following verses from one of the later Sabbath hymns:
"Thou beautiful Sabbath, thou sanctified day,
That chasest our cares and our sorrows away,
O come with good fortune, with joy and with peace
To the homes of thy pious, their bliss to increase!
"In honour of thee are the tables decked white;
From the clear candelabra shines many a light;
All men in the finest of garments are dressed,
As far as his purse each hath got him the best.
"For as soon as the Sabbath-hat is put on the head,
New feelings are born and old feelings are dead;
Yea, suddenly vanish black care and grim sorrow,
None troubles concerning the things of to-morrow.
"New heavenly powers are given to each;
Of everyday matters now hushed is all speech;
At rest are all hands that have toiled with much pain;
Now peace and tranquillity everywhere reign."[1]
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Then there were the three Pilgrim Festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all of them essentially joyous in character. On the first two evenings of Passover especially, children play an important rôle. One can easily imagine the important air with which little Baruch opened the domestic celebrations on these occasions by asking the meaning of such strange dishes as bitter herbs, a yellow-looking mixture of almonds, cinnamon and apples, &c. By way of answer his father would then relate to the assembled household the old, yet ever new story of the bitter lives which the Israelites had lived in Egypt, of the bricks and mortar with which they had to build Pithom and Ramses under cruel taskmasters, until God delivered them from their oppressors. And the familiar story of ancient Egypt and its tyrants would soon lead up to the more recent barbarities in Spain and Portugal. Possibly, nay most probably, there were strangers, guests at table—for hospitality had become, not a luxury, but a necessity among the wandering Jews. Perhaps some recent arrival, fresh from the hell-fires of the Inquisition, would relate the latest story of martyrdom. On such an occasion it may have been that Spinoza heard of the martyrdom of "a certain Judah, called the Faithful, who in the midst of the flames, and when he was already believed to be dead, commenced to chant the psalm To thee, God, I commit my Soul, and died singing it."[2] But the ground-notes of the Passover evening celebrations were those of courage, and faith that the Guardian of Israel neither slumbered nor slept.
There were also other celebrations of Israel's deliverance in the past. There was the Feast of Lights, or of the Re-dedication of the Temple (Chanukah) in memory of the brave Maccabees. A whole week was more or less spent as a half-holiday, and given to games and merriment. The spirit of the holiday is well expressed in a gay table-hymn composed by Ibn Ezra, the poet and commentator of whom Spinoza thought so highly. The following are the opening stanzas:
"Eat dainty foods and fine,
And bread baked well and white,
With pigeons, and red wine,
On this Sabbath Chanukah night.
chorus
"Your chattels and your lands
Go and pledge, go and sell!
Put money in your hands,
To feast Chanukah well!"[3]
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Lastly, mention may also be made of what may roughly be described as a kind of Confirmation ceremony when Spinoza completed his thirteenth year. On that Sabbath he would chant aloud in the Synagogue a portion of the Law, or Pentateuch, and possibly also the portion from the Prophets appointed to be read on that day. After the service in the Synagogue, his father would entertain all his friends at home in honour of the occasion, and young Baruch would, according to custom, make a speech at table. This speech would, of course, have been carefully prepared by him for the occasion, not without the assistance of his teacher; and filial gratitude for the past and lavish promises for the future would begin and end a more or less learned discourse. One would like to know what he actually did say, and what he thought of it all afterwards!
In the meanwhile his time must have been fully occupied. He was at school from 8 till n each morning, and from 2 till 5 in the afternoon on weekdays; and some of the hours when he was not at school were occupied in school preparation, and also in the study of secular subjects under a private teacher or teachers. Most probably he continued to study at the Jewish school or academy until he was eighteen, so as to give him an opportunity to develop that uncommon ability of which he showed unmistakable signs at the age of fifteen in the perplexing questions which he asked of Rabbi Morteira. At eighteen it was high time to think of a means of livelihood. His brother, or half-brother, Isaac died just about that time. His father may have thought of taking him into business. But Spinoza's tastes did not lie in the direction of business. He preferred to seek the means of support in some occupation that would keep him in touch with science and scholarship. This probably determined him to learn the art of polishing lenses, which was taken up by many learned men of his generation. By that time he may already have shown some of his heretical tendencies, and these may have given rise to some little friction at home. Possibly this was the reason why his half-sister Rebekah and his brother-in-law de Casseres tried soon afterwards to exclude him from his share of the property which his father left when he died. Spinoza, however, could scarcely have been so inconsiderate as to cause his father unnecessary pain, and most probably he kept most of his doubts to himself, and remained in his father's house so long as his father lived, that is to say, till March 1654, when he was in his twenty-second year.