April 2019
J. R. Solonche
jsolo@frontiernet.net
jsolo@frontiernet.net
I’m professor Emeritus of English at SUNY Orange. I live in the Hudson Valley. I’ve published eight poetry collections as well as extensively in magazines and anthologies.
I was introduced to Spinoza's "Ethics" in a philosophy course in college. I didn't understand it. But I was drawn to his life, especially the drama of his excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam. And that he earned his living grinding lenses for telescopes and microscopes could not have been more ironic. I wrote six lines of a poem about him. Then I decided to keep going and see what happened. This is what happened.
I was introduced to Spinoza's "Ethics" in a philosophy course in college. I didn't understand it. But I was drawn to his life, especially the drama of his excommunication from the Jewish community of Amsterdam. And that he earned his living grinding lenses for telescopes and microscopes could not have been more ironic. I wrote six lines of a poem about him. Then I decided to keep going and see what happened. This is what happened.
SPINOZA
When I was twenty-four, my reasoned faith
was seen as threatening the Jewish world
of Amsterdam, my world. In the rabbis' eyes,
I was a heretic, traitor to the God
of Israel, the God of history. My light
was their darkness, and my philosophy
was dangerous, a calumny to faith.
When the rabbis questioned me, I closed my eyes
but answered honestly -- Yes, God
has a body. God's body is the world.
Yes, angels might be merely tricks of light,
hallucinations. Yes, philosophy
if true to itself, denies a God
who says," You are the Chosen of the world."
They offered to buy my philosophy.
They called it an annuity. In my eyes,
it was a bribe to be silent on faith.
Believe, they said, but not in the daylight.
I refused, of course, and left the dim light
of the synagogue. My orthodox world
was unsatisfied. My intolerant faith
demanded excommunication. My God
became a God who turns away his eyes.
I would not bargain with philosophy,
so again I was called before the faith-
ful when the synagogue blazed with candlelight,
and the shofar wailed. While a thousand eyes
watched, the candles, one by one, were snuffed, the world
unmade, until they cursed with a philosophy
of curses, and only darkness and God
and Chaos remained before my eyes.
So I was accursed in the sight of God
and in the sight of men. But the burden was light.
I lived with a family of the Christian faith.
I taught the daughter some philosophy
and ground lenses to earn my way in the world.
My burden was light. The great of the world
came to talk philosophy and faith,
and I made lenses for men's eyes to see God.
first published in Invisible (Five Oaks Press 2017
©2019 J. R. Solonche
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