How I love this noble man / Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann / Einstein's poem to Spinoza

Click charts to enlarge.

Natal charts of Baruch/Benedict Spinoza

and Albert Einstein

Notification of this oddity reached me by e-mail while I was away in Maine. It should hardly be surprising that as all the minds who ever lived wander about the ideosphere, Einstein and Spinoza would have bumped into one another admiringly. That Einstein would look back on all the thinkers who had lived before him and pick out Baruch/Benedict Spinoza and write poetry to him.

During World War II, a little boy, about 12,looked out the window of his home and saw his land, the Netherlands, occupied by Nazi Germany. The most pleasant thing that he saw in his homeland was that nearly every Dutch person was starving; there was practically no food, it had all been seized and shipped back to be enjoyed in the conquerer's Fatherland. Everything else the little boy saw in his homeland was worse than slow starvation of his family and all his neighbors.

Then one day in his father's library he found a copy of Spinoza's "Ethics." He recalled turning the pages of this strange book (probably an accessible translation into Dutch -- the original was in Latin) and how instantly offended and outraged he was.

Outside the window was mass starvation, and police leading his neighbors away to be exterminated and to serve the monstrous war machine as slave labor.

And inside the house, in the pages of this old Dutch book, was PROOF -- exactly in the style of the geometry proofs of Euclid -- that all men and women must behave ethically toward each other. Proven, in the pages of this book, beyond any doubt -- Ethical, moral, humane behavior was the only possible rational way for human beings ever and always to live. Proof that this is how God designed the World.

I don't know how many pages he read; I have the sense he dropped the book like a pustulant fœtid fester and has hated it and his fellow Dutchman who wrote it to this day, 63 year later.

The little boy grew up and continues to live on Earth. Coincidentally, there are several large, grotesque, genocidal wars going on on Earth as this is written.
Spinoza is one of the most admired inhabitants of Planet Vleeptron -- the planet in the Dwingeloo-2 Galaxy whose last war (The Second Garlic War) ended 120,000 years ago. On his own planet, I have made special trips and visited both Spinoza's surviving homes, one in Rijnsburg near Leiden, the other (Domus Spinozana) in den Haag.

In the little garden behind his cottage in Rijnsburg is a bust of Spinoza. He doesn't look at all like a bookish nerd philosopher. (His day job was as a polisher of glass lenses.) He's a handsome, even rakish-looking man, almost soldier or pirate looking, a man ladies would have taken to very easily.
Perhaps the most bitter thing in the world is to be confronted by startling evidence of the difference between How The World Could Be, and How The World Actually Is. The technical term for what this contrast does to the human soul is Weltschmerz: World Pain.

The Excommunication and Anathema
Read over Baruch Spinoza
by the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam 
 (near Waterlooplein)

from http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/

The ceremony

Different versions are circulating. For some reason, this passage from Lucas (who might be Spinoza's earliest biographer) is popular:

When the people have assembled in the synagogue, the ceremony which they call Herim begins with the lighting of a quantity of black wax-candles and the opening of the ark where the books of the Law are kept. Then the precentor, standing on a slightly raised place, intones the words of the excommunication in a doleful voice, while another precentor blows a horn, and the wax-candles are turned upside down so as to make them fall drop by drop into a vessel full of blood. Thereupon the people, animated with a holy horror at the sight of the black spectacle, respond Amen in a furious tone, which bears witness to the good service which they believe they would render to God if they could tear the excommunicated to pieces; as they would do without doubt if they met him at that moment or when leaving the synagogue.

The statement of excommunication

More accurate translations can be found in Gullan-Whur and Nadler. But I think the following, from Wolf 1910, is amusing:

The members of the council do you to wit that they have long known of the evil opinions and doings of Baruch de Espinoza, and have tried by divers methods and promises to make him turn from his evil ways. As they have not succeeded in effecting his improvement, but, on the contrary, have received every day more information about the horrible heresies which he practised and taught, and other enormities which he has committed, and as they had many trustworthy witnesses of this, who have deposed and testified in the presence of the said Spinoza, and have convicted him; and as all this has been investigated in the presence of the Rabbis, it has been resolved with their consent that the said Espinoza should be anathematised and cut off from the people of Israel, and now he is anathematised with the following anathema:

"With the judgment of the angels and with that of the saints, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and of all this holy congregation, before these sacred Scrolls of the Law, and the six hundred and thirteen precepts which are proscribed therein, we anathematise, cut off, execrate, and curse Baruch de Espinoza with the anathema wherewith Joshua anathematised Jericho, with the curse wherewith Elishah cursed the youths, and with all the curses which are written in the Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lieth down, and cursed be he when he riseth up; cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be he when he cometh in; the Lord will not pardon him; the wrath and fury of the Lord will be kindled against this man, and bring down upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law; and the Lord will destroy his name from under the heavens; and, to his undoing, the Lord will cut him off from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of the Law; but ye that cleave unto the Lord your God live all of you this day!"

We ordain that no one may communicate with him verbally or in writing, nor show him any favour, nor stay under the same roof with him, nor be within four cubits of him, nor read anything composed or written by him.

The cubit referred to is a vague and ill-defined unit, but my best guess is that 4 cubits was about 6 feet or 2 meters.

==========

Zu Spinozas Ethik
von Albert Einstein (1920)

Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fürcht' ich , dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.
So einen armen kleinen Wicht
Den führst du zu der Freiheit nicht.
Der amor dei lässt ihn kalt
Das Leben zieht ihn mit Gewalt.
Die Höhe bringt ihm nichts als Frost
Vernunft ist für ihn schale Kost.
Besitz und Weib und Ehr' und Haus
Das füllt ihn von oben bis unten aus.
Du Musst schon gütig mir verzeih'n
Wenn hier mir fällt Münchhausen ein,
Dem als Einzigen das Kunststück gedieh'n
Sich am eigenen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu zieh'n.
Du denkst sein Beispiel zeiget uns eben
Was diese Lehre dem Menschen kann geben.
Vertraue nicht dem tröstlichen Schein:
Zum Erhabenen muss man geboren sein.

by Albert Einstein, written 1920
Albert Einstein Archive, 31-018
See also transcription by Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 267, and translation of first stanza, p. 43.
Note: There are a few discrepancies between Max Jammer's transcription and the one above done for me by someone else. I need to reconcile them:
There are a few discrepancies between your transcription and Max Jammer's.
(1) stanza 5, line 2:

Transcription above: Was diese Lehre dem Menschen kann geben.
Jammer: Was diese Lehre den Menschen kann geben.

(2) stanza 2, line 2:

Transcription above: Den führst du zu der Freiheit nicht.
Jammer capitalizes "Du".

(3) stanza 4, line 1:

Transcription above: Du Musst schon gütig mir verzeih'n
Jammer: no apostrophe in "verzeihn"

(4) stanza 4, line 3:

Dem als Einzigen das Kunststück gedieh'n
Jammer: no apostrophe in "gediehn"

Otherwise, Jammer uses ue instead of ü, but I assume this is just a typographical convention.
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:00:23 +0200
From: hans68@eunet.at
To: rdumain@igc.org

i think my corrections are ok, but I added others.
I added full-stops, and I changed a capital M in "Musst"

Ralph Dumain
> (1) Your second correction:
>
> "Was diese Lehre dem Menschen kann geben."
>
> is rendered by Jammer as:
>
> Was diese Lehre ***den*** Menschen kann geben.
for me there is no doubt that Einstein wrote "dem Menschen" -
the singular for the pural
Ralph Dumain
> (2) stanza 2, line 2:
>
> "Den führst du zu der Freiheit nicht."
>
> Jammer capitalizes "Du".
no capital "D"
> (3) stanza 4, line 1:
>
> "Du Musst schon gütig mir verzeih'n"
>
> Jammer: no apostrophe in "verzeihn"
there is an apostrophe in the hand-writing but no space between the final letters. But it seems that Einstein meant it like in "zieh'n" (stanza 3.
Ralph Dumain
> (4) stanza 4, line 3:
>
> "Dem als Einzigen das Kunststück gedieh'n"
>
> Jammer: no apostrophe in "gedieh'n"
same as above apostrophe without space in between.
Grammatically there are no mistakes in the poem -
as far as i can see for now it is 100% of Einstein's hand-wiriting.

---Zu Spinozas Ethik

Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann
Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann.
Doch fürcht' ich, dass er bleibt allein
Mit seinem strahlenden Heiligenschein.
So einen armen kleinen Wicht
Den führst du zu der Freiheit nicht. [.]
Der amor dei lässt ihn kalt
Das Leben zieht ihn mit Gewalt. [.]
Die Höhe bringt ihm nichts als Frost
Vernunft ist für ihn schale Kost
Besitz und Weib und Ehr' und Haus
Das füllt ihn von oben bis unten aus
Du musst schon gütig mir verzeih'n [Musst]
Wenn hier mir fällt Münchhausen ein.
Dem als Einzigem das Künststück gediehn'n [Einzigem]
Sich am eigenen Zopf aus dem Sumpf zu zieh'n.
Du denkst sein Beispiel zeiget uns eben
Was diese Lehre dem Menschen kann geben. [.]
Vertraue nicht dem tröstlichen Schein:
Zum Erhabenen muss man geboren sein.

Max Jammer's partial translation:

How much do I love that noble man
More than I could tell with words
I fear though he'll remain alone
With a holy halo of his own.

Charles Senger's translation (19 Nov 2006):

How I love this noble man
More than I can say with words.
Yet I fear he'll stay alone
With his glowing halo.

Such a poor wee wight
You won't lead him to freedom.
Amor dei leaves him cold
Life pulls at him by force.

Height just brings him frost
Reason is stale fare for him.
Possessions, wife, honor and house
Absorb him top to bottom.

You must kindly pardon me
If I think here of Münchhausen,
As individual thriving on tricks
Pulling himself from the swamp by his own bootstraps.

You think his example shows us just
What this doctrine can give a person.
Don't trust this consoling semblance:
One must be born to the sublime.

Albert Einstein
On the Ethics of Spinoza
translated by Riccardo Pozzo

How do I love this noble man
More than I can say with words.
However, I fear he remains alone
With his radiating aureole.
Such a poor little fruit
Will you not bring to freedom.
The amor dei lets him cold
Life drives him with violence.
The height gives him nothing but frost
Reason is for him flat food.
Possession, woman and honor and house
This replenish him from top to bottom.
You benevolently ought to pardon me
If I here am reminded of Münchhausen,
Which alone succeeded in the acrobacy
Of raising himself by his hair-tail out the swamp.
You think his example shows us then
What this doctrine can give to man.
Give no confidence to the consolatory illusion:
For the sublime one has to be born.

R. Dumain attempting to convert literal to more poetic translation, in process. I'm not sure who the "he" is from stanza 2 on.

How I love this noble man
More than any words I'd say could show.
I fear, though, he'll remain alone
With his halo all aglow.
Such a poor little thing
To freedom you will fail to bring.
Amor dei leaves one cold,
Life drives one harshly to and fro.
Height brings a man nought but frost
Reason's stale fare ....
Owning things, wife, honor, house
Consume his life from top to bottom.
You must kindly pardon me
If Munchhausen here comes to mind,
the only one who acrobatically
could pull himself out of a swamp
You think his example shows us then
What this doctrine can give to man.
Don't trust this consoling illusion:
One must be born to the sublime.