Judah Halevi (also
Yehuda Halevi) (Hebrew:
יהודה הלוי) (c.1075–1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in
ToledoToledo, most notably, refers to the following two cities:*Toledo, Spain, a city and municipality located in central Spain*Toledo, Ohio, a city in the U.S...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
in 1085 or 1086, and died enroute to Jerusalem around 1140. Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was
The KuzariThe Kuzari is one of most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. Divided into five essays , it takes the form of a dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Jewish religion...
.
Biography
Convention suggests that Judah ben Shmuel HaLevi was born in Toledo, Spain in 1075. He often referred to himself as coming from Christian territory, which would point to Toledo, which was conquered by
Alfonso VIAlfonso VI , nicknamed the Brave or the Valiant, was King of León from 1065, king of King of Castile and de facto King of Galicia from 1072, and self-proclaimed "Emperor of all Spain"...
from the Muslims in Halevi's childhood (1086). As a youth, he seems to have gone to Granada, the main center of Jewish literary and intellectual life at the time, where he found a mentor in
Moses Ibn EzraRabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as ha-Sallah was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born at Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138.-Family:He was related to Abraham ibn Ezra and a pupil of Isaac ibn Ghiyyat...
. Although it is often said that he studied in the academy at Lucena, there is no evidence to this effect. He did compose a short elegy on the death of
Isaac AlfasiIsaac ben Jacob Alfasi ha-Cohen - also known as the Alfasi or by his Hebrew acronym Rif , was a Talmudist and posek . He is best known for his work of halakha, the legal code Sefer Ha-halachot, considered the first fundamental work in halakhic literature...
, the head of the academy. His aptitude as a poet was recognized early. He was educated in traditional Jewish scholarship, in Arabic literature, and in the Greek sciences and philosophy that were available in Arabic. As an adult he was a physician, apparently of renown, and an active participant in Jewish communal affairs. For at least part of his life he lived in Toledo and may have been connected with the court there as a physician. In Toledo he complains of being too busy with medicine to devote himself to scholarship. At other times he lived in various Muslim cities in the south.
Like all Jewish intellectuals of Muslim Spain, Halevi wrote prose in Arabic and poetry in Hebrew. He was in fact the most prolific of the Hebrew poets of the Hebrew Golden Age and was regarded by some of his contemporaries (and by modern critics as well) as the greatest of all the medieval Hebrew poets. Like all the Hebrew poets of the Hebrew Golden Age, he employed the formal patterns of Arabic poetry, both the classical monorhymed patterns and the recently-invented strophic patterns. His themes embrace all those that were current among Hebrew poets: panegyric odes, funeral odes, poems on the pleasures of life, gnomic epigrams, and riddles. He was also a prolific author of religious verse. As with all the Hebrew poets of his age, strives for a strictly biblical diction, though he unavoidably falls into occasional calques from Arabic. His verse is distinguished by special attention to acoustic effect and wit.
Nothing is known of Halevi's personal life except the report in his poems that he had a daughter and that she had a son, also named Judah. He could well have had other children. The tradition that this daughter was married to Abraham Ibn Ezra does not rest on any evidence, though Halevi and Abraham Ibn Ezra were well acquainted, as we know from the writings of the latter.
Journey to the Holy Land
We cannot reconstruct the Halevi's various residences in Spain; he seems to have lived at times in Christian Toledo, at others in Islamic Spain. He occupied an honored position as a physician, intellectual, and communal leader. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the development of his religious thought, he decided to abandon his home in order to end his days in the Land of Israel. His motivations were complex. His personal piety intensified as he aged, leading him to desire to devote himself entirely to religious life. The uncertainties of Jewish communal status in the period of the Reconquista led him to doubt the future security of the Jewish position in the diaspora. The failure of messianic movements weighed on him. His earlier commitment to philosophy as a guide to truth gave way to a renewed commitment to faith in revelation. He came to the conviction, elaborated in his treatise known as the
KuzariThe Kuzari is one of most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. Divided into five essays , it takes the form of a dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Jewish religion...
,that true religious fulfillment is possible only in the presence of the God of Israel, which, he believed, was most palpable in the Land of Israel. Contrary to a prevalent theory, his poetry shows beyond doubt that his pilgrimage was a completely individual act and that he had no intention of setting off a mass pilgrimage.
Halevi sailed for Alexandria. Arriving on September 8, 1140, he was enthusiastically greeted by friends and admirers. He then went to Cairo, where he visited several dignitaries, including the Nagid of Egypt, Samuel ben Hanania, and his friend Halfon ben Nethaniel Halevi. He did not permit himself to be persuaded to remain in Egypt, but returned to Alexandria and sailed for Palestine on May 14, 1141. Little is known of his travels after. He died during the summer, presumably after having reached Palestine. Legend, however has it that Halevi was killed by an Arab as he arrived in Jerusalem.
Halevi dealt with his pilgrimage extensively in the poetry written during his last year, which includes panegyrics to his various hosts in Egypt, explorations of his religious motivations, description of storms at sea, and expressions of his anxieties and doubts. We are well informed about the details of his pilgrimage thanks to letters that were preserved in the
Cairo genizaThe Cairo Geniza is an accumulation of almost 280,000 Jewish manuscript fragments that were found in the genizah or store room of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, presently Old Cairo, Egypt, the Basatin cemetery east of Old Cairo, and a number of old documents that were bought in Cairo in the...
. Poems and letters bearing on Halevi's pilgrimage are translated and explicated in Raymond P. Scheindlin,
The Song of the Distant Dove (Oxford University Press, 2007).
His work
The life-work of Judah ha-Levi was devoted to poetry and philosophy. His poetry is usually classified under the headings "secular and religious," or, as in Brody's new edition of the
Diwan, under "liturgical and non-liturgical." Such a division, however, can be only external; for the essential characteristic of Judah's poems is the expression of a deeply-religious soul, which is the lofty key to which they are attuned. Even in his drinking- and love-songs, an attentive reader may hear the vibrations of religion's overtones.
Secular poetry
The first place in his secular or non-liturgical poetry is occupied by poems of friendship and eulogy. Judah must have possessed an attractive personality; for there gathered about him as friends, even in his earliest youth, a large number of illustrious men, like Levi al-Tabban of Saragossa, the aged poet Judah ben Abun, Judah ibn Ghayyat of Granada,
Moses ibn EzraRabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as ha-Sallah was a Jewish, Spanish philosopher, linguist, and poet. He was born at Granada about 1055 – 1060, and died after 1138.-Family:He was related to Abraham ibn Ezra and a pupil of Isaac ibn Ghiyyat...
and his brothers Judah, Joseph, and Isaac, the vizier Abu al-Hasan, Meïr ibn Kamnial, the physician and poet Solomon ben Mu'allam of Seville, besides his schoolmates Joseph ibn Migas and Baruch Albalia. Judah is considered the Prince of Poets. However, the Vizier Samuel ha-Nagid of
GranadaGranada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain.- Overview :The city of Granada is placed at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, Beiro, Darro and Genil, at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
who excelled the Sephardic poetry scale was in the previous generation as was the poet
Solomon Ibn GabirolSolomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah was an Andalucian Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher. He was born in Málaga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia.-Biography:Little is known of Gabirol's life. His parents died while he was a child...
of
MalagaMálaga is a city in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. It is the second most populous city of Andalusia, the sixth largest in Spain and 43rd-most populous municipality in the European Union, with a population of 566,447 in 2008...
and Saragossa.
Also with the grammarian
Abraham ibn EzraRabbi Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Islamic Spain , and died c. 1164 ....
. In
Córdoba||-||-||}Córdoba is a city in Andalusia, southern Spain, and the capital of the province of Córdoba. Located at 37.88° North, 4.77° West, on the Guadalquivir river, it was founded in ancient Roman times as Corduba by Claudius Marcellus...
, Judah addressed a touching farewell poem to Joseph ibn Ẓaddiḳ, the philosopher and poet. In Egypt, where the most celebrated men vied with one another in entertaining him, his reception was a veritable triumph. Here his particular friends were Aaron ben Jeshua Alamani in Alexandria, the nagid Samuel ben Hananiah in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
, Halfon ha-Levi in Damietta, and an unknown man in Tyre, probably his last friend. In their sorrow and joy, in the creative spirit and all that moved the souls of these men, Judah sympathetically shared; as he says in the beginning of a short poem: "My heart belongs to you, ye noble souls, who draw me to you with bonds of love".
Especially tender and plaintive is Judah's tone in his elegies Many of them are dedicated to friends. Besides those composed on the deaths of the brothers Judah (Nos. 19, 20), Isaac (No. 21), and Moses ibn Ezra (No. 16), R. Baruch (Nos. 23, 28), Meïr ibn Migas (No. 27), his teacher Isaac Aifasi (No. 14), and others, one of the most affecting is that on Solomon ibn Farissol, who was murdered on May 3, 1108. The news of this friend's death suddenly changed Judah's poem of eulogy (Nos. 11, 22) into one of lamentation (Nos. 12, 13, 93 et seq.), which for grandeur and loftiness of tone has been compared to
DavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Bible. He is depicted as a righteous king, although not without fault, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician and poet .The biblical chronology sets his life c.1037–970 BCE, his reign over Judah c.1007–1000 BCE,...
's lament over Jonathan (see
David and JonathanDavid and Jonathan were heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, whose intimate relationship was recorded favourably in the Old Testament books of Samuel....
).
Love songs
Joyous, careless youth, and merry, happy delight in life find their expression in his love-songs. Many of these are epithalamia; and are characterized by a brilliant near-eastern coloring, as well as by a chaste reserve. In Egypt, where the muse of his youth found a glorious "Indian summer" in the circle of his friends, he wrote his "swan-song".
- Wondrous is this land to see, With perfume its meadows laden, But more fair than all to me Is yon slender, gentle maiden. Ah, Time's swift flight I fain would stay, Forgetting that my locks are gray.
Drinking songA drinking song is a song sung while drinking, that is, consuming alcohol. Many are bawdy . Some drinking songs are about drink, but many are not. Groups which still have a drinking song tradition include rugby players, hash house harriers, air force fighter pilots, and fraternities...
s and enigmas in rime by Judah have also been preserved.
Religious poetry
After living a life devoted to worldly pleasures, ha-Levi was to experience a kind of "awakening"; a shock, that changed his outlook on the world. Like a type of "conversion" experience, he turned from the frivolous life of pleasure, and his poetry turned to religious themes.
It seems that his profound experience was the consequence of his sensitivity to the events of history that were unfolding around him. He lived during the
First CrusadeThe First Crusade was a military expedition by European Christians to regain the Holy Lands taken by the Muslim conquest of the Levant, which resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. It was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to the appeal from Byzantine...
and other wars. There was a new kind of religio-political fanaticism emerging in the
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
and Muslim worlds.
Holy warHoly war may refer to:* a Religious war justified by religious differences.* The Cherem referred to in the Tanakh.* Crusades* French Wars of Religion* Jihad, a duty for Muslims which has different meanings.* Reconquista...
s were brewing, and ha-Levi may have recognized that such trends had never been good for the Jews. At the time, life was relatively "good" in Spain for the Jewish community. He may have suspected things were about to change for the worse, however.
If one may speak of religious
geniusA genius is a person, a body of work, or a singular achievement of surpassing excellence. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, genius is associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power. A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its...
es, then Judah ha-Levi must certainly be regarded among the greatest produced by medieval Judaism. No other writer, it would seem, drew so near to God as Judah; none else knew how to cling to Him so closely, or felt so safe in His shadow. At times the body is too narrow for him: the soul yearns for its Father in Heaven, and would break through the earthly shell. Without God, his soul would wither away; nor is it well with him except he prays. The thought of God allows him no rest; early and late He is his best beloved, and is his dearest concern. He occupies the mind of the poet waking and sleeping; and the thought of Him, the impulse to praise Him, rouse Judah from his couch by night.
Next to God, the Jewish people stands nearest to his heart: their sufferings and hopes are his. Like the authors of the Psalms, he gladly sinks his own identity in the wider one of the people of Israel; so that it is not always easy to distinguish the personality of the speaker.
Often Judah's poetic fancy finds joy in the thought of the "return" of his people to the Promised Land. He believed that perfect Jewish life was possible only in the
Land of IsraelThe Land of Israel is, according to the Hebrew Bible, the region which was promised by their God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This land forms part of the Abrahamic, Jacob and Israel covenants...
. The period of political agitation about 1130, when
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, so intensely hated by the poet, was gradually losing ground before the victorious arms of the Christians, gave Judah reason to hope for such a return in the near future. The vision of the night, in which this was revealed to him, remained indeed but a dream; yet Judah never lost faith in the eventual deliverance of Israel, and in "the eternity" of his people. On this subject, he has expressed himself in poetry:
- Lo! Sun and moon, these minister for aye; The laws of day and night cease nevermore: Given for signs to Jacob's seed that they Shall ever be a nation — till these be o'er. If with His left hand He should thrust away, Lo! with His right hand He shall draw them nigh.
Analysis of his poetry
The remarkable, and apparently in-dissoluble, union of
religionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
,
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
, and
patriotismPatriotism is love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. However, patriotism has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy....
, which were so characteristic of post-exilic Judaism, reached its acme in Judah ha-Levi and his poetry. Yet this very union, in one so consistent as Judah, demanded the fulfillment of the supreme politico-religious ideal of medieval Judaism—the "return to Jerusalem". Though his impassioned call to his contemporaries to return to "
ZionZion is a term that most often designates the Land of Israel and its capital, Jerusalem. The word is found in texts dating back almost three millennia...
" might be received with indifference, or even with mockery; his own decision to go to Jerusalem never wavered. "Can we hope for any other refuge either in the East or in the West where we may dwell in safety?" he exclaims to one of his opponents (ib.). The songs that accompany his pilgrimage sound like one great symphony, wherein the "Zionides" — the single motive ever varied — voice the deepest "soul-life" alike; of the Jewish people and of each individual Jew.
The most celebrated of these "Zionides" is found in every Jewish prayerbook, and is usually repeated in the synagogue on the Ninth of Ab.
- Zion, wilt thou not ask if peace's wing Shadows the captives that ensue thy peace, Left lonely from thine ancient shepherding?
- Lo! west and east and north and south — world-wide — All those from far and near, without surcease, Salute thee: Peace and Peace from every side."
Liturgical poetry
The poems of Judah ha-Levi, which have been adopted into the liturgy, number (in all) more than 300. The longest, and most comprehensive poem is a "Kedushah," which summons all the universe to praise God with rejoicing, and which terminates, curiously enough, in Ps. ciii. These poems were carried to all lands, even as far as
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
(Zunz, "Ritus," p. 57); and they influenced the rituals of the most distant countries. Even the Karaites incorporated some of them into their prayer-book; so that there is scarcely a synagogue in which Judah's songs are not sung in the course of the service. The following criticism of Judah's synagogal poems is made by Zunz:
- As the perfume and beauty of a rose are within it, and do not come from without, so with Judah word and Bible passage, meter and rime, are one with the soul of the poem; as in true works of art
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings...
, and always in nature, one is never disturbed by anything external, arbitrary, or extraneous.
Judah by his verses has also beautified the religious life of the home. His
SabbathShabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from sundown Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night...
hymns should be mentioned here; one of the most beautiful of which ends with the words:
- On Friday doth my cup o'erflow, What blissful rest the night shall know, When, in thine arms, my toil and woe Are all forgot, Sabbath my love!
- 'Tis dusk, with sudden light, distilled From one sweet face, the world is filled; The tumult of my heart is stilled — For thou art come, Sabbath my love!
- Bring fruits and wine and sing a gladsome lay, Cry, 'Come in peace, O restful Seventh day!'
Judah used complicated
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
meters in his poems, with much good taste. A later critic, applying a
TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
ic witticism to Judah, has said: "It is hard for the dough when the baker himself calls it bad." Although these forms came to him naturally and without effort, unlike the mechanical versifiers of his time, he would not except himself from the number of those he had blamed. His pupil Solomon Parḥon, who wrote at
SalernoSalerno is a small city in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
in 1160, relates that Judah repented having used the new metrical methods, and had declared he would not again employ them. That Judah felt them to be out of place, and that he opposed their use at the very time when they were in vogue, plainly shows his desire for a national Jewish art; independent in form, as well as in matter.
Judah was recognized by his contemporaries as "the great Jewish national poet", and in succeeding generations, by all the great scholars and writers in Israel.
As a philosopher
The position of Judah ha-Levi in the domain of Jewish philosophy is parallel to that occupied in Islam by Ghazali, by whom he was influenced. Like Ghazali, Judah endeavored to liberate religion from the bondage of the various philosophical systems in which it had been held by his predecessors,
SaadiaSaʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon , , was a prominent rabbi, Jewish philosopher, and exegete of the Geonic period....
, 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
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
translation of Judah ibn Tibbon by the title
Sefer ha-KuzariThe Kuzari is one of most famous works of the medieval Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. Divided into five essays , it takes the form of a dialogue between the pagan king of the Khazars and a Jew who was invited to instruct him in the tenets of the Jewish religion...
), Judah ha-Levi expounded his views upon the teachings of Judaism, which he defended against the attacks of non-Jewish philosophers, against the Karaites, and against those he viewed as "
hereticsHeresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief such as canon. It is sometimes confused with apostasy which is disaffiliation from orthodoxy and blasphemy which is...
".
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