Background
Judah Halevi was born in Toledo in 1075.
((German Edition) This is based on the story of the conve...)
(German Edition) This is based on the story of the conversion to Judaism of the Khazars, a tribe in the lower Volga region. According to a tradition, this occurred after a public disputation before the Khazar king and nobles with the participation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim spokesmen. Judah Halevi wrote his book in the form of a dialogue based on this dispute. Although the book has a philosophical intent, Halevi was strongly critical of rationalist thought and philosophy, teaching that Judaism propounds a higher truth, based solely on biblical revelation. Only religious faith brings man closer to God, and Judaism is superior to the other faiths because it is the original source from which the others derive. The Jewish people, then, is the heart of spirituality in the world, which imposes on the Jews special obligations. Their sufferings are to be seen as purification in anticipation of their return to their land. Kuzari was one of the most popular of Jewish theological books.
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1923
(The Kuzari by Judah Halevi is one of the most important s...)
The Kuzari by Judah Halevi is one of the most important statements of Medieval Jewish thought. It is written as an introduction to Judaism in the form of a dialogue, primarily between the king of the Khazars and an unnamed rabbi. According the Halevi's account, the King had decided to convert to a monotheistic religion, and the question was which was the best (Judaism, Christianity or Islam). The King called representatives of each of the three religious traditions to explain their central beliefs and practices.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935604260/?tag=2022091-20
Judah Halevi was born in Toledo in 1075.
Judah Halevi spent in his youth in various parts of Spain, receiving a rabbinical and secular education. He studied rabbinics, Hebrew and Arabic, medicine and philosophy.
Judah Halevi worked as a doctor in Toledo but the difficult position of Jews under Christian rule induced him to move to Cordoba in Muslim Spain where he continued his medical practice, and enjoyed success, fame, and affluence.
When already in his sixties, he was driven by his longing for the Holy Land to leave his home and family and set out for Jerusalem. He firmly believed that a full Jewish life could not be lived outside the Land of Israel and was determined to settle there. Reaching Egypt, however, he became involved in various activities, remained for a considerable time, and died and was buried there without achieving his dream of seeing the Land of Israel.
((German Edition) This is based on the story of the conve...)
1923(The Kuzari by Judah Halevi is one of the most important s...)
As the years passed and the situation of Spanish Jewry, caught in the middle of the Muslim-Christian conflict, deteriorated, Judah Halevi became concerned with the Jewish plight, and paid far less attention to the pleasures of life.
He was seized by a religious spirit and a love of God, thoughts of whom fill his poems. He also turned to messianism, and through the book of Daniel, tried to calculate the expected date of the arrival of the Messiah. Most especially, he was deeply conscious of the fate of the Jews and the tragedy of their exile from their homeland.
His position in domain of Jewish philosophy is parallel to that occupied in Islam by Ghazali, by whom he was influenced, yet Judah Halevi strongly despised Islam. Like Ghazali, Judah endeavored to liberate religion from the bondage of the various philosophical systems in which it had been held by his predecessors, Saadia, David ben Marwan al-Mekamez, Gabirol, and Bahya. In a work written in Arabic, and entitled Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fi Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil, كتاب الحجة و الدليل في نصرة الدين الذليل, (known in the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon by the title Sefer ha-Kuzari), Judah Halevi expounded his views upon the teachings of Judaism, which he defended against the attacks of non-Jewish philosophers, Aristotelean Greek philosophers and against those he viewed as "heretics".
A popular legend, widely retold through the ages, relates that he arrived in Jerusalem where he was struck down and killed by an Arab horseman; this, however, has been disproved by recently discovered documents throwing light on his visit to Egypt and his death there.
Quotes from others about the person
When God created the soul of Judah Halevi, He was so enraptured with his beauty and Exquisiteness that He could not restrain Himself and kissed it.
Heinrich Heine