Judah Ha-Levi, also Yehudah Halevi, or Judah ben Samuel Halevi (Hebrew רבי יהודה הלוי) (c. C.E.) was a JewishSpanishphilosopher and poet. His most famous work, the Kuzari, defended Judaism against philosophy, saying that deductive reasoning cannot replace direct experience of God. He also mounted a strong defense of oral tradition and revelation in response to the Karaite movement, pointing out that oral tradition was necessary for the interpretation of the Scriptures.
Judah Ha-Levi is regarded as one of the greatest Hebrew poets. More than secular and liturgical poems are attributed to him; many of these are used in Jewish liturgical services. The union of religion, nationalism, and patriotism, characteristic of post-exilic Judaism, reached its height in Judah Ha-Levi and his poetry. He believed the Jewish nation had a special role in God's plan for the redemption of the world, and composed a number of "Zionides" in praise of the Holy Land.
Life
Judah Ha-Levi was born in Toledo, Spain, around It is thought that Judah's father, Samuel "the Castilian," sent Judah, who was his only son, to Lucena to be educated in the various branches of Jewi
The great Jewish poet, philosopher, and theologian, Judah ben Samuel Halevi (c. –) was the only son of a wealthy Spanish Jewish family, most likely born in Toledo. Toledo was under Muslim rule until its conquest by the Christian king, Alfonso VI, in , and produced a large number of prominent Jewish scholars, poets, scientists, and statesmen. It is possible that Halevi was educated for some time in Lunena, under the Talmudist Isaac Alfasi. In any event, his schooling qualified him as a rabbi. He was also familiar with Arabic literature and with Greco-Arabic science and philosophy.
The precarious balance resulting from the division of Spanish territory into quarrelling Christian kingdoms in the North and Muslim principalities, or Taifas, in the South, underpinned what is known in Spanish as the convivencia; a transient but creative period of tolerant co-existence among the three monotheistic religions in Spain. Beginning in the tenth century, the convivencia is sometimes described as a Golden Age for Spanish Jewry. The delicate fabric of the convivencia, however, had already begun to fray with a massacre of Jews by zealous Muslims in Granada in , and in the mid-twelfth c
GREAT THINKERS Judah Halevi
Hillel Halkin, Yehuda Halevi, Schocken,
Hillel Halkin&#;s long-awaited biography of Halevi does not disappoint. A wonderful work that captures both the heroism and profundity in Halevi&#;s life and thought.
From the Publisher:
A masterly biography of Yehuda Halevi, one of the greatest of Hebrew poets and a shining example of the synthesis of religion and culture that defined the golden age of medieval Spanish Jewry.
Like Maimonides, with whom he contrasts sharply, Yehuda Halevi spanned multiple worlds. Poet, philosopher, and physician, he is known today for both his religious and secular verse, including his famed &#;songs of Zion,&#; and for The Kuzari, an elucidation of Judaism in dialogue form. Hillel Halkin brilliantly evokes the fascinating world of eleventh- and twelfth-century Andalusian Spain in which Halevi lived and discusses the influences that formed him. Relying on the astonishing discoveries of the Cairo Geniza, he pieces together the mystery of Halevi’s last days, with its fateful voyage to Palestine, which became a haunting legend.
An acclaimed writer and translator, Halkin builds his account of H
The extant writing of the medieval Jewish poet, philosopher, and theologian Judah Halevi (c. –) includes personal letters, as many as a thousand Hebrew poems, and the Kuzari, a seminal philosophical and theological treatise on Judaism written in dialogue form. Halevi is widely considered the greatest poet of the Jewish Middle Ages, and, alongside Moses Maimonides (c. –), one of the two central instances of the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry. About three hundred of his religious poems have been adopted into the Jewish liturgy, and his theological principals have exerted a continuous and varied influence on the subsequent Jewish tradition. He is also regarded as a pioneering Jewish nationalist and an important commentator on the conflicts of religion and philosophy.
Religious and National Poetry
The important role of poetry in elite Spanish Muslim society inspired an influential school of Hebrew poetry among Spanish Jews. The Hebrew poets borrowed from Arabic sources and transformed them, so that by Halevi’s time an extensive national literature was already established. The many poems ascribed to Halevi reflect a wide range of genres. His secular poetry, written for the most part
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