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but also in the spec ific issues by whic h Jewish philosophers sought to address those
problematic s. What makes it hard to c ount Spinoza as a c ontributor to Jewish
philosophy is not that he did not c onfine himself to a philosophy of Judaism – for no
major Jewish philosopher did t hat – but that the c irc umstanc es of his life and epoc h
turned him dec isively away from t he met hods of ac c ommodat ion and c rit ic al
appropriation that other Jewish philosophers had found. The result, as with Marx or
Freud, was a rupt ure t hat led t o great er radic alism – bot h c reat ivit y and host ilit y –
than is found in those who were able, or enabled, to keep faith with the generations
of their Jewish predecessors and contemporaries.
The outc ome of suc h radic alism is striking: for suc h thinkers, in their moment,
like any alienated person, become isolated both from some of the constraints and
from some of the resourc es of a human c ommunity that might have been of help to
them. Later Jewish thinkers c an still profit from what Spinoza, Marx, or Freud
achieved. Parts of their thought become dated and provincialized by the very
t opic ality that once made them the matter of the moment or the century. Other
elements are reabsorbed into the c ontinuing c onversation of philosophy at large or
the partic ular foc i of Jewish philosophic al c onversation. One c annot say,
moralist ic ally, t hat suc h thinkers, who are alienated to one degree or another, by
c hoic e or exc lusion or forc e of c irc umstanc e, have thereby lost more than they have
gained. For there is a deep potential for conceptual value to be gleaned in
radic alism. But radic alism, like heresy, limit s c at holic it y, blunt s synt hesis, foc uses
attention sharply on a single issue or nexus, and may overstress it or press it to the
breaking point. Just as there is balanc e in c ommunity and value in synthesis, there
is philosophic al and not just prac t ic al wisdom in an irenic post ure t owards t he
philosophic al past. Thus, when the prophets reflec t on the future of human
thinking, they envision all nations turning to a purer language (Zephaniah 3:9), and
part of the means by whic h they expec t this to be ac hieved is the reconciling of the
fathers to the sons (Malac hi 3:24).