Nothing Is Sacred Except For The Mind Poem by gershon hepner

Nothing Is Sacred Except For The Mind

Rating: 5.0


Nothing is sacred except for the mind,
said Spinoza. While sometimes he thought this was true,
he often spoke differently. Need I remind
you that Baruch Spinoza was born as a Jew,
Marrano-descended, a strange pedigree
that caused him to straddle two faiths, in the end
to neither devoted, his spirit so free
that to neither was he either ally or friend?
He thought Holy Scripture is in a way holy,
God’s word, though distorted, inscribed in men’s hearts,
So badly transmitted the word can’t be wholly
considered as sacred, except in small parts.

Disputing the texts he had carefully read,
he declared what is holy is not a man’s soul––
if one truly exists––proposing instead
that the mind plays uniquely a relevant role
that deserves the word sacred, and helps us engage
with the minds of our neighbors we love and our lovers.
When absent, of course, there is reason to rage,
for contained like small print that is packed between covers
of books are the thoughts we ourselves can project,
shedding light on a world that’s profoundly profane
when we use not our soul or our mind to object
to the sacred, when using our physical brain.

Inspired by a lecture entitled “Does Spinoza think the Bible (or any inanimate thing) is sacred? ” given by Nancy Levene, of Indiana University, on January 28,2009, at UCLA. Levene pointed out that whereas Spinoza declared the Bible “is merely a popular vehicle to deliver a moral (quasi-philosophical) kernel to the common people, ” he himself undermined this statement in conversation with disgruntled readers, quite typically deconstructing Spinoza by using Spinozan reasoning. According to him, “nothing is sacred or profane or impure in an absolute sense apart from the mind, but only in relation to the mind”,

1/28/09

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Patti Masterman 28 January 2009

A very good (and artistically done) distillation of Spinoza by an also excellent mind and pen!

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