The Spinoza Problem by Irvin D. Yalom

If you were involved in any form of psychotherapy training program since 1970, you probably know the name of this author, Irvin Yalom, M.D., a professor emeritus from Stanford. He wrote the definitive texts about group psychotherapy. I’ve read his books cover-to-cover and have used them as reference works since then. The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy is now in it’s 9^th edition. I was aware that Yalom had written a number of fiction books, but I had never ventured there until now. I’m not sure if my favorite genre is crime/espionage or historical fiction. I love both, but this book tends to tip the scales towards the latter.

The Spinoza Problem presents a very clever juxtaposition of the 17^th century Dutch philosopher Spinoza and the 20^th century Third Reich anti-Semitic ideologue Alfred Rosenberg. In reality, Spinoza’s work led to the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 18^th century, and Rosenberg authored some of the most important work that laid the foundation for the Holocaust. Rosenberg, from Estonia, held the 18^th and 19^th century German author and philosopher Goethe in highest esteem, but that led him to the “Spinoza problem.” Rosenberg could not understand why Goethe had so highly valued the work of Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was Jewish, at least until his excommunication from the Amsterdam community at the age of 23. Surely, thought Rosenberg, any valued thought that came from Spinoza must have been stolen from an earlier Aryan work, or Spinoza himself was not truly a Jew.

This is a dialogue driven novel as Spinoza wrestled with the evolution of his own ideas, as well as his excommunication from his community as the result of challenging not only the superstitions of Judaism, but of all religious practices. John Lennon’s song Imagine (“and no religions too”) is surely a Spinoza derivative. Much of the current day thought as represented by comedian and political satirist Bill Maher started with Spinosa. I had little familiarity with Spinosa before reading Yalom’s book, and I was surprised to learn that much of my own philosophy clearly derives directly from him. In Yalom’s book, Rosenberg, who rose to being the editor in chief of Hitler’s most important daily newspaper, was shown having believable conversations with Hitler and others. In order to help us understand Spinosa, Yalom takes us briefly back to Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus. The author brings remarkable richness to this work by fictionalizing an attempt at psychotherapy with the impenetrable Rosenberg. In a conversation with his psychiatrist, Rosenberg was told that Spinosa had been referred to as a “devious atheist, repeatedly using the term ‘God’ to encourage seventeenth-century readers to keep reading…. To Spinosa, Nature and God are synonyms; you might say he naturalizes God.”

At the Nuremburg Trials at the end of World War II, there were 24 defendants, and Rosenberg sat between the highest surviving SS officer and the governor-general of occupied Poland. Yalom wrote, “The chief American counsel, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert J. Jackson, wrote, ‘It was Rosenberg, the intellectual high priest of the “master race,” who provided the doctrine of hatred which gave the impetus for the annihilation of Jewry, and who put his infidel theories into practice against the Eastern Occupied Territories.” Ultimately, Rosenberg was the only member of the Third Reich at the Nuremburg trials who failed to repudiate his racist beliefs and dedication to the ideals of Hitler. Rosenberg was quoted at the trials as having said, “No matter how often I go over everything in my mind, I still cannot believe there was a single flaw in that man’s character.” Along with the 10 other defendants, Rosenberg was hanged on October 16, 1946.

This is a wonderful book, and if you’re ready for some high quality historical fiction and can tolerate an occasional fictional conversation with the Fuhrer, this book gets my highest recommendation.


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