The Jewish past stories are full of famous heretics, Baruch Spinoza being the best known. However, Jewish heretics live among us today! If you don’t believe it, read about Prof. Eric Maskin.

Maskin is a Jewish economist who taught in Princeton and lived in the house of Albert Einstein until 1955. He is scared of nothing, not even defying God.

Most people are misled to believe that to be religious is to believe in some Metaphysical grumpy entity with a long tangled beard, who is just waiting to send you to hell if you mixed some cheese into your burger. But the truth is, that religion’s basic definition is absolute faith in a superhuman order.

take for example the omnipotent God of capitalism – the free market. an adherent capitalist believes that no one and nothing may intervene in the free market – not even the government. Maskin, however, asserts the opposite – not only the government may intervene – in some cases it must do so. According to Maskin, the free market is indeed strong, but does not have divine powers. his models proved that totally free, unrestrained market lead to extreme inequality and enormous gaps between the rich and the poor. Governmental intervention is therefore essential to reduce damages.

however, unlike Spinoza, who was excommunicated by the 17th century Jewish community of Amsterdam, Maskin gained respect and recognition worldwide, and won the 2007 Nobel Prize in economy. It’s not enough to be a genius – you also need to choose to nice era to be born at.