Ian Buruma's new biography, "Spinoza: Freedoms Messiah," presents the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza as a champion of free thought, whose ideas about the nature of God were highly controversial in both the Jewish and Calvinist communities.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, Professor Allison Coudert from UC Davis discusses the historical relationship between science and religion, with a special focus on the influence of Kabbalah.

Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL), a prominent French intellectual known as a philosophe, explores the connection between Judaism, his personal life, and political activism in "The Genius of Judaism."

In 1785, Moses Mendelssohn, a prominent Enlightenment philosopher and a symbol of religious tolerance, found himself embroiled in a controversy sparked by Friedrich Jacobi's public disclosure that their mutual friend, Lessing, had embraced Spinozism.