The Works of Judah Halevi

Halevi also studied the animal(prenominal) sciences, metaphysics, and Greek-Arabic philosophy, which was becoming "the quick-witted fashion at the time" (Minkin 184). Halevi obdurate on medicine as a profession and returned to Toledo where he was very successful at his profession and may imbibe risen as high as the "position of personify physician at the court of Castile" (Zinberg 84).

Halevi determined, however, that he preferred rhyme to medicine and found his career confining. He abandoned Toledo for some(prenominal) years of wandering from one city to the next--sampling the literary and intellectual life of each. He was welcomed everywhere as an important poet and a good companion but settled stock-stilltually in the city of Cordoba. The city was a major center of eruditeness which, in addition to being the western capital of Islam, hosted a large and flourishing Jewish community. Here, at the rabbinic honorary society established by Hadai ibn Shaprut Talmudic scholarship had achieved a level of chastity rivaling that of the Babylonian schools. It was in Cordoba that "the foundation of the post-biblical Hebrew revival was fit(p) [and] where the Jewish spirit was fostered and preserved" (Minkin 187).

Halevi was an important part of the Hebrew revival. Though he, and other Jewish intellectuals, wrote their philosophical works in Arabic, Hebrew was the language in which Halevi wrote his great poetry. Philosophy was create verbally in Arabic

Minkin, Jacob S. "Judah Halevi." abundant Jewish Personalities in Ancient and Medieval Times. Ed. Simon Noveck. London: woodpecker Owen, 1962. 182-201.

But Halevi's high spirits and sensuality gradually came to be combined with other ideals. As Goldstein notes, it was quite common for Jews to wait the Song of Songs "as a dialogue between matinee idol and Israel and, later, as a communion between man and his nous" (5). Halevi's poetry, for all its sensuality, was also a vehicle for his feelings ab bring out God's likeness to the world and Halevi's own relation to Judaism. But these subtle connections were gradually replaced "as the tone of Halevi's work bec[ame] steadily more anti-intellectual, didactic, and patriotic in outlook" (Cantor 368).

The feelings of longing and dissatisfaction which led to this change became spare gradually. In a remarkable wedding poem, a recoil Halevi frequently used to celebrate his friends' marriages, the poet suddenly turns from the usual reflections on the marital union to the wrenching conclusion, "Oh, when get out the poor daughter of Zion also find rest on the bridal bed, and when will God's voice resound, 'Arise you who wander in strange lands; behold the mean solar day comes and the sun has risen?" (quoted in Zinberg 90). In such poems the thought of Israel seems to lurk behind every thought and, in this case, bursts out when it can no longer be contained.

Zinberg, Israel. A narration of Jewish Literature. Ed. and trans. Bernard Martin. 12 vols. Cleveland: P of Case Western deem U, 1972.

The book was built around the conversion of the Tartar Khazars to Judaism in 740. In this work, however, Halevi was not preaching to Gentiles but to the Jews themselves. He jilted the notion of a reconciliation between revelation and reason, he rejected the notion of secularization, and he rejected the possibility that even secularization could lead to peaceful assimilation. The Kuzari was a direct invade on the Jewish intellectuals who supported
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