Joy Against Enslavement: Spinoza, Moses, and the Politics of Enjoyment

What does a beer at Oktoberfest have to do with Moses? Quite a lot, according to Spinoza. Beginning with the seemingly simple question of why Jewish tradition regulates—and sometimes celebrates—the pleasures of eating and drinking, this class will explore Spinoza’s provocative account of Moses as a political leader and lawgiver who shaped not only Jewish belief, but the texture of everyday Jewish life.

Why did Spinoza regard Moses as such a remarkably successful political leader? And how might that very success have been the source of his most withering criticism of Moses and Mosaic law? We will consider how Jewish law transformed political authority into a way of life, shaping everything from communal structures to ordinary experiences of the body and the senses.

Finally, we will trace the surprising afterlives of Spinoza’s provocation, exploring how thinkers including Moses Mendelssohn, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Cohen, and Gilles Deleuze responded to and reworked his account of Moses, law, and Jewish life.

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Eugene Sheppard is a Professor of Modern Jewish History and Thought in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. He serves as the interim director of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis and is an editor for Brandeis University Press . He published in the Jewish Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and has made appearances on a number of podcasts. Sheppard is currently teaching a course entitled "Spinoza Now".