Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher and religious thinker who was born on November 24, 1632 in Amsterdam. His family was Spanish-Portuguese Jews who were refugees to Holland. Spinoza was taught his early education from Jewish sources. He later went on to study other Jewish thinkers such as Maimonides, Gersonides, and Crescas. Baruch became interested in the physical sciences and the works of Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes. As a result of his studies, he grew away from Judaism and withdrew from the synagogue. In 1656, the rabbis banished Spinoza from Amsterdam. For the next five years he lived on the outside of the city where he supported himself by grinding optical lenses. During this time, Spinoza wrote his first philosophical work Treatise on God and Man and His Happiness. This work explained and outlined a good part of Spinoza's philosophical beliefs. In 1661, Spinoza moved to Rijnsburg and a few years later he moved to Voorburg. From there he moved to the Hague. Soon after moving to the Hague, he was offered a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. Spinoza declined the offer. He was afraid it might compromise his freedom of thought and speech. At this time, Baruch Spinoza was well known and was well respected for his work. King Louis XIV of France offered Spinoza a pension on the condition that he dedicate one of his works to the monarch. Again, Spinoza rejected the offer. Spinoza's work, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometric Order, was one of the best outlines of his theoretical framework. In this work, Spinoza divided his ethical thinking into five different parts—'On God,' 'On the Nature and Origin of the Mind,' 'On the Nature and Origin of the Emotions,' 'On Human Bondage,' and 'On Human Liberty'. Spinoza believed that the universe is identical with God, who is the uncaused 'substance' of all things. Baruch Spinoza used substance for God because he believed God was not a material reality but a basis for all things that are reality. Spinoza also stated that humans can only use two kinds of attributes of substance, thoughts and extension. With thought and extension comes parallelism. Parallelism is a theory that Spinoza developed that explained the order between the two of them. 'The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.' Along with this theory, Spinoza believed that there was no room in the substance universe for the ignorance of one's actions. With these actions Spinoza believed the affect will change the rest of the body's power to act. It could increase or decrease the power even though God alone is the cause of those actions. Spinoza discussed the concept of 'human bondage' as a natural tendency for feelings and passions to take control of life and to make individuals into slaves. He believed that the only remedy for passion was actions. If a human can clearly understand their passions they can overcome their bondage much easier. The reasoning behind the work was to lay out a program for the perfection of the human nature. Baruch had many sources for his work, but his knowledge of the work of Rene Descartes had a considerable influence on his own. He used most of Descartes vocabulary, definitions, and mathematical ways of thinking. Baruch Spinoza died on Feb. 21, 1677 from tuberculosis. He is credited for the most thorough study of Pantheism. Many poets relate to his work as inspiration for their writings. The word 'synagogue' in the second paragraph most probably means ______.