In July 1656—over359 years ago—the Portuguese-Jewish congregation of Amsterdam, known as Talmud Torah, excommunicated Bento de Spinoza for his “abominable heresies and monstrous deeds.” It was the harshest writ of herem ever issued by the congregation, and it was never rescinded.
The reasons behind Spinoza’s herem remain a mystery; the extant document does not explicitly state what his offenses were. And yet,for anyone who has read Spinoza’s mature treatises—which he began just a few years after the excommunicationthere is no real mystery. Spinoza’s denial of a providential God, of the divine origin of Torah, and of the validity of the Torah’s mitzvot,and of the immortality of the soul, must certainly maintain disturbed the Amsterdam Portuguese community’s leaders. final Sunday, and a standing-room only crowd of 500 gathered in Amsterdam at a one-day symposium devoted to “The Spinoza Case,” to hear whether it was, at long final, and time to lift the ban.
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Source: feedburner.com