The May 2012 decision by a regional court in Cologne, Germany, that the circumcision of a four-year old Muslim boy ‘‘represents grievous bodily harm,’’ caused an outcry among German Jews and Muslims. They were rightly concerned that an overzealous concern to protect the human rights of vulnerable children had infringed on religious freedom. Moreover, the ruling demonstrated an almost unfathomable historical amnesia by the court and rights advocates. Not surprisingly, Spinoza has been mentioned by some in the context of these debates. In a review published in The Forward, Allan Nadler mocked the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Sir Jonathan Sacks, who attacked the decision of the Cologne court through a reference to Spinoza, as one who wrote that circumcision had the power to sustain Jewish identity over the centuries: ‘‘That Spinoza—who considered the ritual practices of Judaism entirely archaic and often barbaric—is marshaled by an Orthodox chief rabbi in the defense of any Jewish rite is quite incredible, especially given what Spinoza actually had to say about circumcision.’’ Prominent modern Jewish philosophers, such as Hermann Cohen and Emmanuel Levinas, have attacked Spinoza more systematically on just these grounds. For them, Spinoza represents the stereotype of a self-hating Jewish intellectual who betrays the Jewish people as a condition of his acceptance to the enlightened Republic of Letters. They also accuse him of advocating the view that Christianity supersedes Judaism. In other words, a spiritual Christianity fulfills and ultimately replaces a carnal Judaism. It may be, as Levinas puts it, that Christianity is only the ‘‘penultimate’’ stage on the road to the

中文翻译：

---

斯宾诺莎关于割礼和仪式：

德国科隆地区法院于 2012 年 5 月作出的裁决，即对一名四岁穆斯林男孩进行割礼“构成了严重的身体伤害”，这引起了德国犹太人和穆斯林的强烈抗议。他们担心过分关心保护弱势儿童的人权侵犯了宗教自由，这是理所当然的。此外，该裁决显示出法院和权利倡导者几乎深不可测的历史健忘症。毫不奇怪，在这些辩论的背景下，一些人提到了斯宾诺莎。在 The Forward 上发表的一篇评论中，艾伦·纳德勒嘲笑英国首席拉比乔纳森·萨克斯爵士，后者通过提及斯宾诺莎来攻击科隆法院的决定，因为他写道，割礼有能力在世纪：“那个斯宾诺莎——她认为犹太教的仪式习惯完全是过时的，而且常常是野蛮的——被一位东正教首席拉比召集为任何犹太仪式辩护，这真是令人难以置信，特别是考虑到斯宾诺莎实际上不得不说的割礼。”现代犹太哲学家，如赫尔曼·科恩和伊曼纽尔·列维纳斯，正是基于这些理由更系统地攻击斯宾诺莎。对他们来说，斯宾诺莎代表了一个自我憎恨的犹太知识分子的刻板印象，他背叛了犹太人，作为他接受开明的文人共和国的条件。他们还指责他鼓吹基督教取代犹太教的观点。换句话说，属灵的基督教实现并最终取代了属肉体的犹太教。正如列维纳斯所说，这可能是