The Kuzari: In Defense of the Despised Faith is the first new translation into English of The Kuzari since 1905, annotated and explained based on the classic commentaries. Written by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi of Spain over a period of twenty years and completed in 1140, The Kuzari has enthralled generations of Jews and non-Jews alike with its clear-cut presentation on Judaism, and its polemics against Greek philosophy, Christianity, Islam, and Karaism.

Texts and contexts: premodern dissemination and transmission -- The image and function of the Kuzari in the late Middle Ages -- The Kuzari in Renaissance Italy -- Judah Moscato's project and the making of an authoritative work -- The image and function of the Kuzari in early modern Europe -- The creation of an Enlightenment Kuzari -- Continuity and change in the nineteenth century -- Conclusion: The emergence of late modern dichotomies.

The Kuzari by Judah HaLevi, the Sephardic philosopher and poet, is one of the most important statements of Jewish thought from the last thousand years. It was written as an introduction to Judaism in the form of a dialogue, primarily between the king of the Khazars and the rabbi who explains Judaism to him. The King was exploring the possibility of converting to a monotheistic religion, and the question was whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam would be his choice. The (...) King called representatives of each of the three religious traditions to explain their central beliefs and practices. (shrink)

Ayant vecu en Espagne chretienne et en Espagne musulmane, en butte aux humiliations de la Croix et du Croissant, temoin de la diffusion parmi les Juifs de la philosophie greco-arabe dont il reconnait et deplore le pouvoir de seduction et les ravages qu'elle provoque, Juda Hallevi, l'un des plus grands poetes de l'Age d'or, achevera vers la fin de sa vie un ouvrage et accomplira une action d'eclat qui lui assureront une place de premier plan dans le judaisme. Defendant dans (...) un livre, devenu classique, sa foi contre la philosophie, le christianisme et l'Islam, il tentera, contrairement a la plupart des penseurs juifs du Moyen Age, de mettre en lumiere la specificite de la religion, qui cesse d'etre pour lui la version populaire allegorisee du systeme de Platon ou d'Aristote, et de fournir une interpretation de l'existence juive sur sa terre ancestrale et dans l'Exil. Ayant egalement compris que ni en Orient ni en Occident il n'existe un lieu d'espoir en qui puisse se fier, il s'arrach, non sans dechirement, a l'Espagne, sa terre natale, et bravant tous les dangers, il part pour Sion, qu'il a chantee en des vers emouvant. Mais sa mort en Egypte fait eclore la legende. (shrink)

Dans son ouvrage majeur, le Kuzari, Juda Hallévi déploie une critique précise de la philosophie, au profit de la révélation du Sinaï. Nous entendons montrer que cette critique est liée à la situation historique des Juifs qui suscite la rédaction du Kuzari (I), qu’elle s’adresse à un type assignable de philosophie (II) à laquelle elle substitue l’histoire (III). Ce faisant, il ne s’agit absolument pas pour Juda Hallévi de renoncer à toute exigence rationnelle, mais de la satisfaire en (...) la resituant en son vrai lieu (IV). Cet examen permet d’éclairer, certes par le petit bout de la lorgnette, mais à travers une pensée qui occupe au Moyen Âge une position originale, une partie des enjeux qui traversent les rapports entre foi et raison dans la philosophie juive médiévale en terre d’Islam. (shrink)

kerekh 1-2. Maʼamarim rishon ṿe-sheni -- kerekh 3-4. Maʼamarim shelishi u-reviʻi -- kerekh 5. Maʼamar ḥamishi u-firḳe mavo.

[1] Maʼamarim 1-3 -- ḥeleḳ 2. Maʻamarim 4-5.

ḥeleḳ 1. Maʼamar rishon -- ḥeleḳ 2. Maʼamar sheni -- ḥeleḳ 3. Maʼamar shelishi -- ḥeleḳ 4. Maʼamar reviʻi-ḥamishi.

The ArgumentYehuda Halevi'sKuzariwas written in response to the challenge posed to Judaism by a highly spiritual, nondenominational philosophy. Science, especially that embodied in the Hellenistic heritage, was a major component of philosophy; thus, if for no other reason than to make Judaism a serious competitor, Halevi had to show that the Jewish tradition as well possessed a body of scientific knowledge. The superiority of the Jewish teachings was demonstrated chiefly by appeal to the criteria of tradition, consensus, and authority, which, (...) in Halevi's judgement, were in practice the criteria most influential in deciding scientific opinion. Despite the rather unique setting for the book, and the wide range of stances Halevi develops, theKuzariwas rather quickly and smoothly absorbed into the mainstream of Jewish religious thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition by Alan L. MittlemanMatthew LeveringDoes Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition by Alan L. Mittleman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), v + 227 pp.Alan Mittleman has written a profoundly thought-provoking book. A main question of the book is whether a higher (revealed) law may in some cases require harm to be done (...) to the neighbor—harm that otherwise would be unjust. Mittleman offers some fascinating examples of cases in which Jews have appealed to God's Law in order to justify oppression of Gentiles. He cites a contemporary halakhic text, Torat ha-Melekh (The King's Torah), as particularly egregious. While Torat ha-Melekh was widely condemned by rabbis and the general public in Israel, it had an audience among the ultra-Orthodox. According to the Torat ha-Melekh, Gentiles' souls are not intrinsically holy in the way that Jews' souls are. This means that killing Gentile children in wartime may be acceptable due to the threat that otherwise these children may grow up to kill Jews. The Torat ha-Melekh observes that many Gentiles do not practice and obey the seven Noachide commandments. Since this is so, the Gentiles who do not obey the Noachide commandments live "in an inhuman state, where the brutish nature of their souls has free rein and their lives have lost value" (186).Another example given by Mittleman is the status of the Holy Land and the Holy People. Insofar as the holiness of the land and people is thought to be intrinsic—an inseparable property—problems can arise. According to a midrash in Bereshit Rabbah, the land is so intrinsically holy that only the dead who are buried in the land—or whose dead bodies somehow travel to the land—will rise from the dead and enjoy everlasting resurrected life. Likewise, the land's air is presented as uniquely making its inhabitants wise, and the divine presence or shekinah comes only in the land. For the medieval Jewish philosopher Yehuda Halevi, in his Kuzari: The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Most Despised Religion (ca. 1140), the land of Israel is the most temperate climate and the most conducive to producing the ideal human beings. In addition, Halevi thinks that only certain descendants of Adam are "true Adamites" (66). A true Adamite is a son of God, just as Adam was. Specifically, only Seth and some of his descendants are fully human in accord with the Adamic model. It is only in the family of Jacob that "God's influence [finally] becomes the property of an entire people" (67). The true Adamites are Adam's (and Jacob's) seed; other humans are comparatively speaking mere husks. Although people can convert to Judaism, therefore, converts cannot be equal to those born of the Jewish nation. This does not mean that all who descend from Jacob are holy, since [End Page 745] it is possible for a Jew to distort his or her purity of soul. Nevertheless, for Halevi the Jewish people are a holy seed that is intrinsically superior to all other humans, so that it is possible to say that "Israel is an angelomorphic, even theomorphic race" (69).Moses Maimonides responded to Halevi, rejecting his viewpoint completely—on the grounds that holiness is not an intrinsic or biological (let alone racial) property. Yet, Halevi's viewpoint influenced Jewish Kabbalah in a major way. For the Kabbalist text the Zohar, the people of Israel derive from the emanations of the divine, whereas all other nations derive from the impure powers. The Zohar holds, "The other nations count for nothing in God's sight. They are the products of Eve's illicit union with the serpent," rather than coming forth from the theomorphic being who was Adam (70). Similarly, Moses de Leon—thought to be an author of the Zohar—argues that Gentiles ontologically possess impure souls that will carry them to spiritual damnation and will ensure that they have no participation in the resurrection of the dead. Another Kabbalist, Joseph of Hamadan, makes the same point that Gentiles... (shrink)

Naive Readings is a collection of nine of Ralph Lerner s essays on an astonishing range of notoriously difficult and complex authors and texts including Benjamin Franklin s secular and his liturgical writings, Jefferson s Summary View, and Abraham Lincoln s various writings on statesmanship before he took office; Bacon s Essayes, Gibbon s writings on Jews, and Tocqueville on Edmund Burke; and finally Judah Halevi s Kuzari, and Maimonides s Guide of the Perplexed. Lerner presents his essays as (...) experiments that challenge our current habits of reading which, especially in the case of such difficult texts, usually involve a hasty dismissal of whatever is deemed irrelevant and superficial. His aim is to show that such dismissal is almost always an error fatal to gaining a better insight into an author s intent. The antidote, he argues, is to read slowly and naively, paying particular attention to passages where the prose becomes self-conscious, impassioned, and idiosyncratic. It is in these passages, Lerner claims, that we can see a pattern which once it has been discerned appears to have been laying out in plain sight all along. Lerner is especially concerned to untangle surface questions such as the unity of opening and closing, the treatment of significant but not obviously thematic subjects, the surprising choice of a foil for one s argument, and a work s structure and organization. A central issue that animates each of the essays is the question of the author s intended effect on his audiences. Ultimately the plain but barely stated message of all these heterogeneous texts is that notwithstanding our limited understanding and finite powers, we are not absolved, individually or collectively, from confronting and mitigating as best we can the difficulties and dangers that life on earth poses to our flourishing.". (shrink)

Plato and Aristotle on the vocation of the philosopher -- Halevi's Kuzari as a platonic dialogue -- Maimonides and the imagination -- Elia del Medigo, Averroes and Averroism -- Paduan Averroism reconsidered -- Philosophy and mysticism -- Maimonides and Spinoza on good and evil -- A note on natural right, nature and reason in Spinoza -- Spinoza and Luzzatto : philosophy and religion -- On the interpretation of Maimonides: the cases of Samuel David Luzzatto and Ahad Haxam -- Harry (...) a. Wolfson as interpreter of medieval thought -- On the limitations of human knowledge. (shrink)

Developing character. Text: from The rule of the Rosh.--Going beyond the law. Text: If not higher, by Y. L. Peretz.--Using reason. Text: from The guide for the perplexed, by M. Maimonides.--Visiting the sick. Text: from Talmud (Tractate Nedarim).--Educating children. Text: from Kitzur Shulhan Arukh.--Preserving life. Text: from Talmud (Tractate Yoma).--Loving the land. Text: from The Kuzari, by Yehudah Halevi.--Being true to the Jewish people. Text: from Slavery amidst freedom, by Ahad Ha-Am.--Prayer. Text: from The duties of hearts, by Bahya (...) ibn Pakuda.--Study. Text: The Talmud student, H. N. Bialik.--Observing the Sabbath. Text: from Hok Leyisrael, by H. Vital.--Loving God. Text: from The path of the upright, by M. H. Luzzatto.--Further reading (p. [107]-111). (shrink)

An examination of the similarities between Kripke's treatment of the references of proper names, and Halevi's discussion of the reference of 'God'.