[wordup] What Bach could have taught Spinoza about Judaism

[Adam Shand]

i don't have even the beginnings of enough historical or religious back  
group to judge this, but even taken as an anecdote i like it.

it reminds me of a friend i was talking to about life, careers and work  
when he said, "my dad told me once, it doesn't matter what you dedicate  
your work too, just choose something and do it well.  anything is  
interesting when studied in sufficient detail."

adam.

Via:  
http://purecontent.blogspot.com/ 
2004_02_22_purecontent_archive.html#107774145634322760
From: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0204/cardozo_bach_spinoza.php3

... <snip> ...

What we discover is that the self-imposed restrictions of Bach to keep  
to the traditional rules of composition forced him to become the author  
of such outstandingly innovative music that nobody after him was ever  
able to follow in his footsteps. It was within the "confinement of the  
law" that Bach burst out with unprecedented creativity. This proves,  
against all expectations, that the "finiteness" of the law leads to  
infinite riches. What Bach proved as nobody else was that it is not in  
novelty that one reaches the deepest of all human creative experiences,  
but in the capacity to descend to the depths of what is already given.  
Bach's works were entirely free of any innovation, but utterly new in  
originality.

This type of conventional creativity we do not find in Beethoven.  
Beethoven (in his later years) broke with all the accepted rules of  
composition. He was one of the founders of a whole new world of musical  
options. But it was his rejection of the conventional musical laws that  
made him less of a musical genius. To work within constraints and then  
to be utterly novel is the ultimate sign of unprecedented greatness.  
This is what Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) the great German poet  
and philosopher meant when he said:

In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, Und das Gesetz nur  
kann uns Freiheit geben. (Sonnet: "Was wir bringen")

(In limitation does the master really prove himself. And it is (only)  
the law that can provide us with freedom)

... <snip> ...