Judah ben Samuel Halevi (c. 1075–1141) was the premier Hebrewpoet of his generation in medieval Spain. Over the course of somefifty years, from the end of the 11^th century to the middleof the 12^th, he wrote nearly 800 poems, both secular andreligious. However, because this was a time of intensifying religiousconflict characterized by physical, social, and political upheaval,Halevi also sought to develop a reasoned defense of the Jewishreligion, which was then under attack on all fronts. Christians andMuslims dismissed Judaism as a superseded religion and reviled itsadherents as guilty of both blindness and faithlessness. Those moreinclined to philosophy, inside as well as outside the Jewish faith,found many more points to contest. For some, these included even themost fundamental teachings of Judaism, such as God's creation of theworld and his involvement in the affairs of mere flesh and blood,which they regarded as perplexing, at best, or incrediblealtogether.

As a young man, Halevi had studied philosophy, and he continued tofollow its evolution in Spain as newer Aristotelian ideas began tocirculate among the courtier classes. However, his reactions to whathe learned were decidedly mixed. As a trained physician, he certainlyappreciated the high premium that the philosophers placed on carefulobservation and clear thinking. Lives were saved thanks to such skillsor lost when they were lacking. He also admired the philosophers'achievements in the formal disciplines of logic and mathematics,inasmuch as they came as close to generating certainty as anyone couldhave hoped. Yet this achievement was also part of a largerproblem. Halevi knew that since its inception philosophy had made thepursuit of truth in every domain its highest goal. It persistentlysought to distinguish between opinion and knowledge in order toreplace opinions about all things with knowledge of all things. To theextent that this project could succeed, those able to acquire suchknowledge, whether theoretical or practical, would presumably be ofone mind about the truth they came to know and also live their livesin accordance with it. However, Halevi also came to realize that wellbefore the goal is ever reached, opinions, conventions, and traditionsof all kinds as well as the practices associated with them, would berendered questionable or otherwise suspect, because they were notknownphilosophically to be true or right. Aconsequence of this demotion in status of everything unproved was thatthose best equipped intellectually to examine and judge such matterscould, and often did, believe, or allow others to believe, that theyhad the requisite knowledge of exactly what others lacked by virtue oftheir mastery of logic, theory, and other intellectualskills. Whether, in fact, lovers of wisdom were also as wise as manyof them or their proponents claimed seemed far from obvious toHalevi. But how could he even discuss such abstract issues in a workintended to vindicate the Jewish faith in a time of crisis? How,indeed, was he to give a reasoned account and defense of Judaism tohis increasingly dispirited or doubting co-religionists, when thechallenges came from so many different directions? Their detractorshad the prestige of power, numbers, worldly success, and specializednew knowledge to support their claims, while the Jews had only theirhistory, traditions, and what remained of their faith to fall backupon.

Ultimately, Halevi opted for a novel, yet entirely appropriate,solution. He let a widely-attested fact of recent history make thecase for him—the conversion of the Khazar kingdom to Judaismalmost four centuries earlier. The story was well known, even if lessstirring than it was when it first circulated in Spain. Obviously,the Khazar king and his people had other, more influential, religiousalternatives to choose from, but they chose Judaism nonethelessbecause of a truth that they saw as unique to it. Surely, the kingmust have discussed all this; and if he did, so couldHalevi—within the framework of a dialogue. Indeed, such anapproach would allow him to examine all of the relevant issues in thecourse of an on-going series of conversations, just as they are sooften encountered and discussed in real life. What is more, the realexperiences of the past, now presented with the help of all his poeticgifts, could be drawn upon to refute the calumnies and answer theobjections raised in the present. Through this connection with anevent in history, Halevi'sBook of Refutation and Proof on Behalfof the Despised Religion came to be known more simply as theKuzari. Under that title, his book would also become theemblematic expression of the lived truths of his people and theirfaith as these were experienced throughout their history, and, notsurprisingly, one of the most beloved works of the Jewish intellectualheritage.

• 1. Life
• 2. The Frame Story of the Kuzari and Its Setting
• 3. The Introductory Exchanges
• 4. Grounds for Belief in the Existence of God
• 5. The Hierarchy of Being
• 6. Qualifications for the Attainment of Prophecy and Prophetic Knowledge
• 7. The Problem of Creation vs. the Eternity of the World
• 8. The Origin of the Jewish Religion and the Theophany at Sinai
• Bibliography
  • Primary Sources
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life

Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141) was one of the most gifted Hebrewpoets and talented philosophical theologians of medieval Spain. He wasborn to an enlightened family of means living in Tudela, a town innortheastern Spain under Muslim rule. He received a comprehensiveeducation in both Hebrew and Arabic sources, encompassing the Bible,rabbinic literature, grammar, Arabic and Hebrew poetry, philosophy,theology, and medicine. As a youth, he traveled to southern Spain(al-Andalus) and was quickly recognized for his poetic ability afterwinning a contest in Cordova in which entrants were asked to write apoem matching the complex style of a composition by the famed Mosesibn Ezra. The renowned poet befriended the young man and brought himto Granada where he was welcomed into courtier circles, enjoyed ibnEzra's patronage, and composed numerous poems on mainly secular themesover several years.

This period of stability, discovery, and high culture was disrupted bythe invasion of the Almoravids, a fanatical Islamic sect from NorthAfrica, in 1090. After taking control of the petty kingdoms ofal-Andalus, in response to the fall of Toledo to the Christian armiesof Alphonso VI, Jewish life in Granada and beyond began to deterioraterapidly. Halevi left Granada in search of a more secure situation andeventually settled in Toledo, where his reputation as both a poet andphysician preceded him. He was again received with honor and admirationby the courtier Jews of the city, but he now supported himself as acourt physician. Nevertheless, clashes been Muslims and Christians, anddistrust of Jews on both sides of the divide, caused Halevi increasingdismay over how fragile Jewish life in Spain had become. His secularpoetry reflects these developments in its numerous references to loss,grief, and dislocation. As he puts it in one of his poems,

Between the armies of Seir [the Christians] and Kedar [the Muslims]
My army perishes and is lost …
When they fight their wars
We fall with their fall …

Not long after 1108, the year his patron in Toledo, Solomon ibnFerruziel, was murdered, Halevi began to move from city to city. Hetraveled in the company of his close friend and younger colleague,Abraham ibn Ezra, the grammarian, biblical exegete, and Neo-Platonicphilosopher. As his fame spread, Halevi enlarged his circle offriendships and contacts as far as North Africa and Egypt. One ofthese, Abu Said Halfon Ha-Levi of Damietta, a distinguished Jewishmerchant with whom Halevi corresponded and finally met in person in1127, became an especially trusted friend and partner in efforts toransom Jewish captives. He would later become Halevi's host inEgypt.

By this time, Halevi was at the height of his career in Spain. He hadby then married and had a daughter, who would be married to Isaac ibnEzra, the son of his friend Abraham. His secular and religious poetrymade him a celebrated figure throughout Spain and beyond. He had alsowritten the first drafts of what he called the “Khazaribook,” which was undertaken in response to questions raised byan unnamed heretical thinker, possibly a Karaite. It would eventuallybe reworked to become his most famous religio-philosophical work, theKuzari orBook of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of theDespised Religion. However, he had gradually become convincedthat a secure Jewish life in Spain was no longer viable and certainlynot for him. His religious poetry increasingly attested to an intenselonging for communion with God and also for a return to Zion. As theChristian policy of reconquering territories lost to the Muslimsproceeded apace, and in the wake of the First Crusade, messianicexpectations grew. He even records in one of his poems a propheticdream that forecast the downfall of the oppressive Islamic regimes inthe year 1130.

It is likely that the failure of the redemption to come as predictedonly strengthened his resolve to perform a redeeming act of his own,namely, to emigrate to the Land of Israel and devote himself entirelyto the religious life he describes in his writings. In the late summerof 1140, he departed for Egypt, accompanied by his son-in-law, Isaac.His correspondence and poetry attest that he remained there untilmid-May of 1141, despite attempts to set sail for the Holy Landearlier. It is possible that he arrived in Ashkalon by the end of May,and many scholars support this view. However, no documentary evidenceconfirms this. A letter from his friend Halfon confirms only that JudahHalevi died in July of 1141.

2. The Frame Story of the Kuzari and Its Setting

Halevi introduces the dialogue by assuming the voice of ananonymous narrator. This figure identifies the overall concern of theensuing discussions by indicating that he had been asked about whateverargumentation he had against those who differ or take issue with theJews, naming as examples the philosophers generally, the adherents ofthe other major religions of the time (Christianity and Islam), andthose who have seceded from the great majority of Jews because of theirdifferences with them. Among the latter, it is likely that the Karaiteswere foremost in his mind. The narrator then establishes the context ofthe dialogue by recalling what he had heard of the arguments used by aJewish sage approximately four hundred years earlier that persuaded theking of the Khazars to adopt the Jewish religion based on testimonyrecorded in historical chronicles of the time. This recollection leadsdirectly to the frame story on which all that follows ispredicated.

According to this story, the king repeatedly dreams the same dream, inwhich an angel appears to address him saying, “Your intention ispleasing to God, but your actions are not pleasing” (K 1:1).Notwithstanding the king's efforts to respond to its message throughdiligence in presiding over the established forms of Khazar worshipand his sincere intent in doing so, the dream continued to come withthe same disturbing message. This unexpected result eventuallyprompted him to examine the various religions and sects; after doingso, both he and the majority of the Khazars converted to Judaism. Atthis point, the narrator observes thatsome of the argumentsof the unnamed Jewish scholar that prompted the king to convert werealso persuasive to him and in accord with his own belief. Indeed, hethought he should record this argumentation “just as it tookplace,” adding, “The intelligent will understand,” abiblical citation from Daniel 12:10 (K 1:1).

This remark, “The intelligent will understand,” can beinterpreted in various ways. According to some, it indicates that theargumentation presented in the dialogue must have been taken from theBook of Histories, which the narrator also mentioned.Others, however, maintain that it hints at the entire dialogue being aliterary fiction. Still, others have suggested that it points to thefact that the dialogue may have been intended for very different kindsof readers and thus written on at least two levels. According to thislast interpretation, theKuzari is addressed on one level tothe multitude of Jews in order to reinforce both their traditionalopinions and their adherence to the forms of religious observanceestablished by the Talmudic sages. However, on a second level, it isaddressed to those more inclined towards exercising independentjudgment in the conduct of life, such as members of the courtierclass, philosophers, and theirprotégés, with aview to providing instruction on how to live responsibly within theirown community. These interpretations are by no means exhaustive, butcollectively they suggest that Halevi's intentions should not be takenas transparently obvious either in the dialogue as a whole or even inspecific exchanges between its interlocutors. Not even the narrator,who comes closest to speaking for Halevi himself, admits to beingpersuaded by all of the Jewish sage's arguments. Accordingly, theintelligent reader is expected to follow the arguments and actions ofthe dialogue with a view to analyzing and identifying the spoken andunspoken assumptions of each speaker, the function of metaphors,analogies, and even oaths, the types and relative cogency of thearguments presented, and the significance of reformulations of earlierstatements by the same speaker, if he or she is to understand what isrecorded and how it might ultimately change one's life.

With this in mind, it is helpful to consider briefly what Halevidiscloses about the Khazar king himself as the “original”addressee of the arguments presented. As a reigning monarch, he is,above all, a man of action who is naturally concerned with correctactions in all of the many areas in which such judgments are made. Hisprincipal responsibility is to govern his people so that they willsurvive and surmount any threats to their existence—internal orexternal—and ultimately prosper in the long run. Insofar as healso has priestly responsibilities, he is also concerned with piousactions. Yet as a pious pagan, he stands outside and apart from thethree revealed religions. This might qualify him as a detached andimpartial judge of what they have to teach, but it also suggests thathe is disposed to be skeptical about their claims to possess arevelation from God. Beyond this, he is inclined to disdain Jewsbecause of their despised condition and lowly estate. In general, heplaces a high premium on what can be learned from experience andproves himself ready to act upon what he learns. However, to theextent that his openness to experience also includes religiousexperience, he emerges as a divided man whose natural piety is at oddswith his skeptical inclinations.

3. The Introductory Exchanges

The dialogue proper begins to unfold only after the king, uponrealizing in his dream that he must try to find out what actions aretruly pleasing to God, turns to a philosopher and asks him about hisbeliefs. Why he seeks out the philosopher first and focusesspecifically on his beliefs as opposed to his knowledge or his actionsis not explained, although it is plausible to suppose that the natureof the king's invitation to his various interlocutors indicates inadvance what he expects to hear from each one and perhaps also what hedoes not expect to hear. In any case, the unnamed philosopher provideswhat is generally acknowledged to be both a masterful and conciseexposition of the Neoplatonic-Aristotelian world-view that dominatedso much of medieval intellectual life from the 10th century on. Whilemost of the claims put forward were common to all medievalAristotelians, three ideas in particular suggest the influence ofHalevi's contemporary, Ibn Bajjah (d. 1138), the foremost Aristotelianof his generation in Spain. These ideas are that union with the ActiveIntellect is possible during one's lifetime, that such union impliescognitive identity with other thinkers who know the truth, and that aphilosopher's life is essentially a solitary regimen.

The philosopher opens his presentation with a sharply negativeappraisal of the presuppositions underlying the king's dream andoffers a brief critical analysis to explain why he rejects eachone. Specifically, he denies that God is the kind of being who iseither pleased or displeased about anything, has knowledge ofparticular persons, actions, or events, or even can be regarded as the“Creator” of human beings, unless one understands this inpurely metaphorical terms. What warrants these confident denials isthe philosopher's conception of a perfect being and how thisshapes his understanding of divinity. Thus, a God who is capable ofbeing pleased and displeased must have various aims and desires, allof which signify privation of that which is aimed at or desired, untilit is provided. However, any being who is subject to privation andlack could hardly be considered perfect or divine. It would constantlybe in a deficient state and also dependent on others to providewhatever is desired. Thus, Divinity as a perfect being is simplyincompatible with having or experiencing privation. Accordingly, God,in contrast to all that is non-divine, is entirely beyond havingdesires and aims because he lacks no perfection worthy of thename.

Similarly, God could hardly be the kind of being who knowsparticular people, actions, intentions, or events, since these thingschange with the passage of time. Were God to have knowledge of mutablethings, he, too, would be ever changing and always in need of beinginformed of each new development. Far from being the exemplar ofperfect being and knowledge, lacking nothing worth knowing, the God ofthe Khazar king's dream turns out to be at all times the mostepistemically needful and mutable of beings. This outcome also explainswhy God cannot be conceived in any literal sense as the Creator of theuniverse or humankind through some act of will meant to realize adivine intention. For even if one were to assume that God'sintention had always been to create the world at a particular time,t, and that this remained as true att + 1 as it wasatt – 1, God wouldhave hadto will theappropriate change at timetor to have performed some act resulting in the world'screation at that time, lest there be no grounds whatsoever for claimingthat God actually caused the world to exist. However, once God isunderstood to be capable of changing in accordance with an intention,volition, action, or relation, so as to become the Creator of theuniverse, it becomes problematic to think of God as a perfect being.Once again, the suggestion that God changes by exercising his will indifferent ways at different times also suggests that there is privationor potentiality within God, both before the act of creation, whenGod's intention was as yet unrealized, and even more soafterwards, because of all the new and variable relationshipsestablished with the creation of the world. For these and similarreasons, the philosopher concludes that God is better conceived of asthe cause of all causes involved in the creation of every createdthing, not through any intention or aim, but rather through an eternaland essentially changeless process of emanation.

At this point, the philosopher turns his attention away froman analysis and critique of the king's theological assumptions toa systematic, topical exposition of his own largelyNeoplatonic-Aristotelian views on cosmology and the prerequisites forhuman flourishing in the world as it is. Thus, he confidently maintainsthat God did not create man at all because the world is eternal, andhuman beings have never ceased coming into being from those whopreceded them. The universe itself turns out to be a complex system ofinteracting causes and effects, which are necessarily connected to oneanother on various levels. Human beings, naturally enough, areconstituted by and within this complex whole and combine withinthemselves diverse forms, dispositions, character traits, and qualitiesthat reflect essentially three kinds of influences. These are, first,influences associated with one's parents and relatives, althoughwe are not told whether these are primarily biological or psychologicalin nature; second, those associated with environmental conditions, bothproximate and remote, such as air, climate, geographic location, typesof food and water, as well as the movements of celestial bodies; thirdand finally, those associated with education and training, whichrealize and perfect each person's particular potentialities asfully as possible in order to complete an individual'sdevelopment. Inevitably, these influences give rise to a wide array ofindividuals, with diverse aptitudes, perfections, and deficiencies invarious combinations and proportions. Together, they constitute theentire human species, ranging from the most perfect and least deficientto the exact opposite.

The philosopher, it turns out, is the one human type provided with allof the dispositions needed to actualize the natural, moral,intellectual, and practical virtues that bring about human flourishingin the fullest sense. Thus, he alone is said to lack nothing pertainingto perfection. What human perfection and flourishing ultimately consistof is a state of intellectual illumination by the Active Intellect, inwhich the passive or material intellect of the perfect individualperceives itself as reaching the level of attachment to, and, indeed,union with its light. The Active Intellect belongs to the divinehierarchy. More specifically, it is the tenth and lowest of theincorporeal Intelligences in the philosopher's cosmology, whichpresides over the sub-lunar sphere and all it contains. Insofar as thisIntellect comprehends the forms of everything that exists or occurswithin our world, it is also capable of communicating what it knows,either partially or completely, in the form of intellectualilluminations (the aforementioned “light”) to anyindividual whose material intellect is suitably prepared to receive it.Here, knowing follows the Aristotelian paradigm of becoming one withthe thing known, albeit in an immaterial way. Attachment to or unionwith the Active Intellect thereby contributes to human perfection andflourishing by first providing the individual with the pleasures ofdiscovery and genuine intellectual understanding and, second,influencing the subsequent activities of the individual in practicalmatters so completely that his limbs perform only the most perfectactions, at the most appropriate times, in accordance with the bestconditions, “as if they were the organs of the Active Intellectitself.” Broadly speaking, the attainment of intellectual unionis presented as culminating in a life of rational self-sufficiency inwhich one always recognizes what the most rational course of action isand acts accordingly.

The philosopher comes closest to addressing the Khazar king'sspecific concern with actions pleasing to God or pleasing inthemselves, when he outlines what is required in order to reach thislevel. Thus, the soul must be purified of doubts and acquire knowledgeof the universals belonging to the sciences as they really are. It mustalso keep to the way of justice regarding both character traits andactions, for these activities help the soul in conceiving of what istrue and persevering in its inquiries. When these prerequisites arefulfilled, it will come to be like an angel, presumably, in the senseof actively and continuously contemplating the true realities of whatit understands. Among the other consequences associated with this wayof life, the philosopher indicates that the soul ceases to fear bodilyextinction, but delights in life instead. It does this, in part,because it joins and becomes one with great thinkers ranging from thesemi-divine Hermes Trismegistus and Aesculapius to Socrates, Plato, andAristotle, suggesting, at the very least, that those who genuinely knowthe truth are of one mind regarding it. Consequently, if anythingsymbolizes “God's being pleased,” it is just suchunion with the Active Intellect. Furthermore, the shift from passivityto activity in conceiving the true realities also generatescontentment, modesty, and submissiveness along with every otherdesirable character trait, including reverence for the First Cause.However, this reverence has nothing to do with hoping for its favor orbeing spared its wrath; the philosopher lives beyond such hopes andfears. Rather, philosophic reverence arises because it prompts one toimitate the Active Intellect by preferring truth to falsehood with theresult that one always accepts the truth and describes it in a fittingway. In effect, one reveres the First Cause because it isuseful.

The question of identifying specific acts through which one'sreverence might be expressed is ultimately a matter of indifference tothe philosopher. Thus, he advises the king not to be concerned aboutwhich “divine Law” to follow and what language, speech, oractions to employ in worship. If something is nevertheless deemednecessary in order to cultivate the appropriate character traits or,beyond that, to govern oneself and others, then the king should simplycreate his own religion or adopt one of the intellectualnomoi already composed by the philosophers toserve as his religion. Still, all of this is peripheral to theprincipal task, that of purifying one's soul of doubts, errors,misunderstandings, and other defects after acquiring genuine knowledgeof the universals belonging to the sciences, for this alone facilitatesattachment to the Active Intellect. Once this occurs, if indeed itdoes, the philosopher allows thatperhaps the Active Intellect willprovide the king, at some future time, with knowledge of hidden mattersand even commands conveyed through veridical dreams and appositeimagery. Notwithstanding this tentatively encouraging observation, thephilosopher seems to conclude his exposition very much as he began it,by casting doubt upon the credibility of the king's dream,inasmuch as the king has obviously not reached this level, even whileoutlining with utmost brevity what a philosophic theory of propheticdreams might look like.

In subsequent exchanges between the Khazar king and his interlocutors,Halevi goes on to furnish important additional information about boththe speakers themselves and also about the principles, themes, andcriteria of judgment that will be invoked to advance the dialogue andto evaluate the views and justifications offered to support them. Thisapplies especially to his depiction of the king. Accordingly, the kingresponds to the philosopher's speech by acknowledging that hefound it persuasive, but then immediately qualifies this by adding thatit was nonetheless unresponsive to his request for practical guidance.This divided response confirms from the outset that the king is himselfa divided man, someone open to and impressed by philosophy, but at thesame time open and plainly responsive to the claims of religion andparticularly claims regarding the importance of correct action. As thedialogue unfolds, therefore, he will often draw upon thephilosopher's skeptical stance or the various ideas introduced byhim in responding to other speakers in different contexts. However, theimportance he accords to his own experience and that of otherspossessing genuine empirical knowledge will play a decisive role in howhe seeks to have his particular concerns addressed and in the decisionshe ultimately makes regarding his own beliefs and actions.

To illustrate, he denies the need to purify his soul becausehe already knows from his dream experience that his soul is pure. Afterall, his intentions were described as pleasing to God, but his actionswere not. Surely, then, pure intention is not enough; certain actionsmust bepleasing in themselves. Moreover, ifthis consideration is not sufficiently probative, the collectiveexperience of both Christians and Muslims is offered to establish thepoint. Together, they divide the entire inhabited world amongthemselves and sincerely direct their intentions towards pleasing God,even to the point of killing each other and readily sacrificingthemselves in their wars. Yet, however similar they may be in thepurity of their intentions, their forms of religious praxis are atodds. Even more to the point,it is rationallyimpossible for both Muslims and Christians to beright. Whether Halevi's point, here, is toemphasize the importance of collective experience through time indeciding matters of correct behavior or to point out instead that thephilosopher's general indifference to praxis beyond recommendingprudent behavior as an aid to philosophical understanding borders onrelativism is not clear; his purpose may be either or both. What isclear is that the king's rejoinder represents the beginning of acritical appraisal of the philosopher's position that continueslong after the philosopher has left the scene.

This becomes clearer still after the philosopher repliesthat the religion of the philosophers does not allow for killing eitherof the contending parties—surely, a humane consideration that novictim of religious discrimination or persecution, and especially noJew, could fail to appreciate. Yet, even though the king evidentlyshares the philosopher's doubts about the religious doctrine ofcreation in six days and goes on to highlight his own skepticism aboutthe possibility of divine-human contact in connection with it, henevertheless points out a glaring discrepancy between thephilosopher's theoretical account of prophecy and itsprerequisites and actual experience. He notes that given thephilosopher's exemplary standards for virtuous behavior,knowledge of the sciences, and personal effort, prophecy should havebeen well known and widespread among them. They should also have had areputation for performing wondrous feats. However, the facts show thatthis is not the case. On the contrary, veridical or prophetic dreams docome at times to people who are unconcerned with the sciences andpurifying their souls, and they do not come to those who havedeliberately sought such things. From this, the king concludes that thedivine order of things (al-’amral-’ilâhî) and the souls of certain human beings have a secret character thatdiffers from what the philosopher described. This reference to thedivine order and to the mysterious character of the souls of those whohave prophetic experiences associated with it introduces one of thecentral themes of theKuzari. While it will ultimately be aJewish scholar who explicates and illustrates these notions for theking, it is nonetheless significant that the king is the one who firstmentions them. His doing so raises, at the very least, the possibilitythat a pious pagan who acknowledges what is hidden or mysterious mayperceive reality more completely and accurately than an overconfidentphilosopher who immediately dismisses such things. The king'sstatement also calls attention to the fact that whatever the divineorder may signify in subsequent discussions, a pious pagan andpresumably any others who come to speak of it are familiar with itsmeaning and general use. In other words, the basic concept is notunique to any particular religion.

After the philosopher departs, the king decides to speakwith the Christians and the Muslims on the assumption that one of theirforms of practice must be pleasing to God, but he declines to speakwith the Jews owing to their paltry numbers, despicable condition, andthe universal contempt in which they are held. Accordingly, he asks aChristian scholar and then a Muslim scholar about his “knowledgeand actions” (‘ilmwa-l-‘amal), and each replies, in turn,with an affirmation of his faith, a brief history of his religion, andat least an adumbration of its practice. In their attempt to addressthe king's practical concerns, each one also presents hisreligion as the culmination of a prophetic tradition going back to theexperiences of biblical Israel. Nevertheless, the king rejects bothpresentations, in the former case, because its principal claims arejudged to be at odds with reason, and in the latter, because it failsto provide adequate empirical evidence that a revelation actuallyoccurred and that its alleged content is itself miraculous. Despitethese negative appraisals, both exchanges (K 1:4–9) have the positiveeffect of making clear that what the king seeks is a statement ofpraxis supported by incontrovertible evidence that grips the heartcompletely. Building upon the paradigm of how natural scientistsexplain extraordinary phenomena, the king maintains that if directexperience, however unlikely or unexpected, is well founded and gripsthe heart, it must be accepted. This is because experience is primaryand foundational, while the task of theory is to show rationally howwhat initially seemed unlikely is actually plausible. Ultimately, heproposes four criteria for evaluating claims of divine contact withflesh and blood. The evidence in favor of a convincing claim must be:(1) genuinely miraculous in the sense of describing effects that areclearly transformative and beyond human powers to produce; (2)witnessed by multitudes; (3) seen with their own eyes; and (4) capableof being studied and examined repeatedly.

Because both his Christian and Muslim interlocutors hadgrounded their beliefs on God's widely attested revelation toancient Israel, the king concludes that he has no alternative but tospeak with a Jewish sage and ask about his belief. The sage replieswith an affirmation of his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, andIsrael, who is described as having miraculously rescued all of thechildren of Israel from Egyptian bondage, provided for them in thewilderness, given them the Holy Land, and sent Moses with the divineLaw. To this, he adds that God subsequently sent thousands of prophetsto support this Law through their promises and warnings. In addition tothe statement's remarkable brevity, it is significant in severalways. While asked to state his belief(i’tiqad) in the sense of opinion orreasoned conviction, the Jewish sage replies instead with a professionof faith (iman), signifyingtrust or steadfast reliance, which is typically the result of livedexperiences that culminate in special relationships and understandings.The statement is also notable for not basing faith on one momentousexperience within a single individual's lifetime, but rather forlinking it with a long series of memorable experiences over thelifetime of an entire people. Beyond this, the narrative alludesdirectly and indirectly to divine contacts with human beings that weresupported by public, empirical, and miraculous evidence that could bestudied, re-examined, and, in some sense, tested repeatedly. Indeed,the dispatch of thousands of prophets in support of the Law over thecenturies suggests that there was a recurrent need for re-studying theevidence and testing its import with the passage of time. Finally, thestatement is programmatic insofar as it identifies many topics andthemes to be addressed later, such as evidence for believing in theexistence of God, the relationship between familial ties and experienceof the divine, prophets and prophecy, revelation and divine Law, theHoly Land and its significance, and divine providence, among others.This is probably why the sage concludes his statement by noting thatthe Jewish faith embraces everything taught in the Torah, “butthe story is long.” (K 1:11)

In the discussion that immediately follows, Halevi putsforward the first of a series of distinctions and rejoinders thatcollectively amount to a broad-ranging critique of thephilosopher's statement and even of philosophy as such. Still, aswill become clear, his critique is not so comprehensive that itprecludes selective appropriation and adaptation of certainphilosophical ideas for his own purposes. Thus, the king expressessurprise that the sage said nothing about God's being the Creatorof the world, who orders and governs it in such a way that peoplestrive to imitate God's wisdom and justice in their own actions.To this, the sage replies that the king is referring to the kind ofsyllogistic, governmental religion to which speculation leads. Incontemporary terms, this would now be called a civil religion designedto govern and educate human passions based on practical reason. Thesage continues by saying that the king is overlooking the fact thatsuch religions contain many doubtful claims. What is more, he adds, theking will find that the philosophers do not agree on any single actionor belief, and this is contrary to the idealized picture of union andunanimity among the great thinkers that is mentioned in thephilosopher's speech. To be sure, they make many claims, but onlysome of these are strictly demonstrable. Others are, at best, merelyprobable or persuasive, and still others do not even reach that level.Here, then, one finds the sage using basic philosophical distinctionsabout the varying degrees of validity and soundness by which premisesand syllogisms are classified as either demonstrative, dialectical,rhetorical, poetic, or sophistical, to call into question the presumedsoundness and certainty of whatever the philosophers have to say. Bycontrast, however, the sage contends that matters of directobservation, such as those he had described in his opening statement,require neither proof nor demonstration. They are and ought to beaccepted as foundational. The king quickly indicates that he regardsthe sage's critical observations as more likely to be persuasivethan his opening statement was, but he requests additional proof. Whentold that the sage's opening statementwasthe proof, he is plainly at a loss to understand how that ispossible. It is with this expression of puzzlement (K 1:16) that theintroductory exchanges between the king and his successiveinterlocutors comes to an end. Clearly, the Jewish sage has not takenthe king very far from his skeptical moorings, but he has neverthelesssucceeded where his predecessors did not. He has caused the king towonder just how a person as critical and astute as the sage seems to becould regard his extraordinary claims as constituting proof for theirown veracity. His success, simply stated, was to engage theking's latent interest in his reply and, by doing so, to keeptheir conversation going.

4. Grounds for Belief in the Existence of God

The sage proposes to resolve the king's puzzlement bymeans of a thought experiment comprised of two hypothetical situations.While this experiment is ultimately about what counts as sufficientgrounds to persuade him of the existence of Godas the sage hasdescribed him, this is neither announced inadvance nor immediately obvious from what is said. Accordingly, thesage asks the king whether, upon being told that the ruler of India wasa virtuous man and that the people of India also had excellentcharacter traits and behaved justly towards one another in all theirdealings, he would be compelled to revere their ruler and recount hisexploits with praise. The Khazar king replies that there could hardlybe any compelling obligation, if there is doubt about whether thejustice of India's people was entirely of their own making, andthey have no king at all, or whether it really was due to their king,after all, or, finally, whether it was attributable to both. Hisunstated but nonetheless crucial assumption is that, of course, thereis doubt, because no compelling evidence or argument has been providedto establish any of the three alternatives just mentioned.

The second hypothetical case immediately follows. Now theking is asked whether he would be obligated to obey the ruler of India,if he were to be visited by his messenger, who brought with him giftstypical of India and specifically of its royal palaces, a messagesigned by the king himself, as well as medicines to cure his illnessesand preserve his health, and poisons by which to prevail over hisenemies. The king's reply is unqualifiedly affirmative, and heimmediately explains why. His previous doubt about whether India reallyhad a king would have been dispelled, and he would believe that bothhis dominion and his order extend to include him. When the sage thenasks the king how he would then describe the Indian king he has nevermet, he responds in a way that clearly recalls his earlier remarksabout natural scientists confronted by unexplained phenomena. He saysthat he would describe him, first, in terms of attributes based ondirect observation, and then in terms of other attributes that are bothgenerally accepted and plainly applicable because of those based onobservation.

It is only after the king has expressed himself in this waythat the sage begins to suggest that the entire thought experiment isparabolical and that the king has, in effect, endorsed the rationalityand appropriateness of the sage's opening remarks. Theendorsement was in his having responded to the unanticipated diplomaticmission to his court with all its concomitant benefits just as thebiblical Israelites responded to the unanticipated mission andextraordinary benefits that came their way, which by their very naturelaid the foundation for a special relationship. By providing additionalexamples about how God is known to be real only from experience or fromuninterrupted tradition which is deemed equivalent to it, rather thanfrom the tenuous and inconclusive arguments associated withsyllogistic, governmental religions, both the king and the reader areleft to work out the specific correspondences between the twohypothetical cases and the claims of philosophy on the one hand, andrevealed religion on the other. Even a cursory reading, however,establishes that in both parts of the thought experiment, the king ofIndia represents God, and India, the divine realm. In the firsthypothetical case, the justice of India's people seems torepresent either a pervasive, intelligible aspect of the cosmos (e.g.,motion, causation) which serves as the starting point of cosmologicalarguments generally, or, more specifically, evidence of intelligentordering, on which design arguments are typically based. The possibleexplanations for the justice that prevails would presumably correspondto various philosophical and theological positions that remain to beidentified. The key point is that the Khazar king recognizes that thereis no compelling evidence or argument to establish that the justice ofIndia's people is due to their king or that they even have aking. Hence, he suspends judgment. In the second hypothetical case, itis clear that the messenger of the king of India iseither an angel or a prophet, that the signed letter is most likely therevealed Law, which repeatedly presents God, using his proper name, asits author, and that the medicinal gifts are the divine commandments.However the other elements of the parable might be understood, the keypoint is that, based on the empirical evidence presented to him, theking is not only prepared to acknowledge the existence of the king ofIndia, but also to recognize the authority of his dominion and obey hisorder. In effect, the diplomatic mission which the second hypotheticalcase describes creates a sense of indebtedness and obligation on thepart of the recipient which lays the groundwork for a specialrelationship, such as that of a suzerain and vassal or patron andclient. As the dialogue proceeds, it will be helpful to keep in mindboth this brief reference to the Indian king's dominion and orderas well as the apparently insignificant fact that the king'srepresentative comes from India.

5. The Hierarchy of Being

The Khazar king is soon reminded that while he may have beenthe beneficiary of the Indian king's largesse in the parable, thesage's point was to show that the children of Israel were theactual beneficiaries of divine largesse in reality. What is more, hehimself senses that their legacy seems to be confined to themselves.Even though the sage explains that all who join them will share intheir good fortune, he also qualifies this by noting that they willnevertheless not be equal to lineal descendants of Israel, since thelatter are “the choicest of the descendants of Adam.” (K1:26–27) Despite the king's obvious dismay, he is nonethelesssufficiently curious about what lies behind this puzzling claim that heagrees to the sage's request to be allowed to broaden hisexplanation of it.

Halevi's task at this juncture is not only to explainhow God could have entered into contact with mere flesh and blood toprovide instruction about what is pleasing and displeasing to him, butalso to explain howonly Israel could havereceived this instruction. His strategy for explaining bothsuccessfully is to build upon the king's skepticism regardingclaims of direct divine-human contact in order to strengthen his caseby raising such contacts to a higher level. Accordingly, the sage callsthe king's attention to the familiar hierarchical structure ofthe empirical world, namely, the ascending orders of living beings thatcan be perceived by the senses—plants, animals, and human beingsendowed with intellect. He also wins the king's basic assent tohis classification of each order(amr) or level(rutbah) by reference to thevarious abilities and/or activities that distinguish the creatures thatbelong to it. When the king is then asked what level might be above theintellectual order, which distinguishes human beings as rationalanimals from all other animals by virtue of their concern withimproving character traits, the household, and the city throughman-made laws and political institutions, he maintains that there isnone higher than that of great savants. To this, the sage counters thatthey, too, belong to the intellectual order, since they differ fromother human beings only in degree, not in kind. So he asks about whatappears to be yet another hypothetical case: If he were to find someonewith an utterly extraordinary capacity for surviving amidstlife-threatening circumstances as well as amazing self-mastery andknowledge of hidden things pertaining to both the past and the future,would this not represent an essentially different level? The kingresponds that it amounts to even more than that; it would be the divinelevel characteristic of God's own kingdom,if it exists. In addition, the persondescribed would come under the dominion of the divine order(al-amr al-ilahi). After theking's qualified revision of the hierarchy's true extent,it remains only for the sage to explain that what he described were, infact, the attributes of the undisputed prophet through whom multitudesof Israelites became aware of God's attachment to them and alsoof the fact that God governs them in accordance with both his will andtheir own obedience and disobedience, as recorded in the Bible'shistorical and genealogical narratives. (K 1: 31–43)

In effect, then, the sage makes use of the king'sdoubts about God's communicating withordinaryhuman beings to persuade him that God might plausibly do sowithsuper-human beings. Itis not that the prophets, who exemplify the latter category, are notflesh and blood, but rather that the qualities which distinguish theirsouls (recalling the Khazar's concluding remarks to thephilosopher in K 1:4) raise them far above that level so as to belong,quite literally, to one that is essentially different from and higherthan all the others, namely, “the divine order.” Once thisis granted, there is no longer any insurmountable barrier between God,angels, and human beingsof a certainkind that would preclude, in principle, contactor communication between them, even though their respective powers andranks within the same order differ greatly. In this sense, prophetsbelong to the divine order and speak on its behalf, just as themessenger in the sage's parable comes from India with theking's letter and appropriate gifts because he belongs to thatkingdom and was duly commissioned by its ruler. By the same token,however, the king's appointed messengers might also be dispatchedto other members of the kingdom with announcements, instructions,reproaches, or other communications for their benefit. Indeed, all ofthese would be evidence of the king's attachment to them. They,in turn, as subjects of the king, could be expected to have access tohim, and if they also had all of the requisite qualifications, theymight also become messengers, i.e., prophets, themselves. Byextrapolating thus from the sage's parable, it becomes clear whyIsrael alone is designated as the choicest of Adam's descendentsand the recipient of God's instructions. Israel, too, belongs tothe divine order or kingdom and comes under God's owndominion.

It should be noted, however, that interpretations of exactlywhat Halevi meant by the very significant termal-amral-ilahi vary greatly. While there is a generalconsensus that it signifies experienced aspects of divinity in natureand especially in history, explanations and descriptions range from thevery abstract (e.g., “the divine matter,” “the divinething,” “the divine,” “an aura enveloping thepeople and land of Israel”) to a wide array of specific instancesor manifestations (e.g., “God as such,” “God'swill,” “a super-rational faculty in man forprophecy,” “divine light”). In order to clarify andorganize the basic connotations of the term in a way that enables us tomake sense of all of Halevi's specific usages, it is helpful todistinguish between three distinct yet related connotations originallysuggested by Shlomo Pines. He based them on his study of Shiite andIsmaili terminology used in theKuzari, but they are introduced herebecause of their direct correlation with Halevi's clearest usesof the term in the first parts of the dialogue.

The first and most basic connotation ofal-amral-ilahi signifies an arrangement, dispensationor ordering of things which governs the affairs of all who belong toand participate in it, such as angels, prophets, and pious friends ofGod, among others. (K 1: 4, 41–43; 3: 5) Thus, “the divineorder,” one of several literal renderings of the Arabic term,corresponds to the supreme level in the hierarchy of things, which God,its supreme member, has willed to be as it is. The second connotationof “the divine order,” which is derived from the first,signifies the gift or influx of prophecy, both as an experience of thedivine and as the power, capacity, or faculty within the soul thatenables one to apprehend it. (K 1: 4, 25, 43, 95, 97, 109) It istypically bestowed on those belonging to the divine dispensation as asign of favor or recognition of noble rank in a special audience withGod or a divine appointee that typically confers recondite information,specific instructions, and special powers to speak or act on hisbehalf, along with the possibility of future access. In this sense,bestowal of the divine orderquaprophetic gift is comparable towhat a patron does in awarding an order of merit or a commission to hisclient or what a monarch does when conferring the Order of the Empireupon a worthy subject. The third and final connotation of “thedivine order” signifies orders or commands in the conventionalsense of directives that mandate what pleases God and prohibit whatdispleases him. However, even this very specific sense of the termsometimes allows for a broader usage that signifies the power orauthority that lies behind such commands. (K 1: 87,98; 2: 4, 6, 50; 3:23, 53)References to the divine order in this third sense clearly presupposethe prior reception of prophecy itself and whatever knowledge orinstruction it provides, plus the transmission of such knowledge overtime through reliable tradition from parent to child and teacher tostudent. Without these, one can only speculate about divine things ingeneral terms and largely out of ignorance.

6. Qualifications for the Attainment of Prophecy and Prophetic Knowledge

It remains, then, to identify what prerequisites must besatisfied if a member of the divine order, understood as dispensation,is to attain prophecy and with it receive knowledge of hidden things.Notwithstanding Halevi's generally critical stance towardsphilosophy and the philosopher's opening statement, he does notrefrain from appropriating from the philosopher's presentationthose elements that he believes to be correct and which might serve,when fully explained, to advance his general argument on behalf of theJews and Judaism. Accordingly, he, too, highlights the influence of (1)parents and relatives, (2) geographic environment, as well as (3)education and training as indispensable for realizing as fully aspossible whatever capacity members of the divine order possess tobecome prophets or, at the very least, pious friends of God, just asthe philosopher identifies these same factors in the formation of theperfect individual who allegedly attains union with the ActiveIntellect.

Regarding the first prerequisite, superior lineage, Halevidoes not state explicitly whether the influence of parents andrelatives should be construed in biological or psychological terms, orperhaps both. Interpreters have tended to understand it as beingbiological or at least quasi-biological, insofar as it is the means bywhich qualified individuals are endowed withorinherit a divine faculty that comes after theintellect and facilitates contact with God as well as knowledge oftruths with only the slightest reflection. (K 1: 95) According to thesage, Adam, who was God's own creation and perfectly made, wasendowed with it. However, he did not succeed in transmitting thisfaculty to all or even most of his offspring. On the contrary, forgenerations it manifested itself only in unique individuals like Abel,Seth, Enosh, Noah and others on through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, eachof whom was the choicest offspring of his father. Sometimes it evenskipped over a generation. Ultimately, however, all of Jacob'ssons proved fit for the divine order, and eventually all of theiroffspring, both male and female, came to be endowed with it. It isnoteworthy that the presence or absence of this faculty is notattributed to a divine choice, but rather to the fitness or unfitnessof the potential recipients. Still, this unusual pattern oftransmission does not make a strictly biological explanationparticularly compelling. Further, when it is recalled that the Khazarking originally spoke of the secret character of the divine order inconjunction with the secret character of certainsouls, (K 1:4) a psychological oreven cultural mode of transmission becomes more plausible. This isespecially so when the sage later speaks of the divine faculty orcapacity as “the eye of prophecy,” (K 2:24) and later stillas the “inner eye” which is “almost” the sameas “the imaginative faculty as long as it serves the intellectualfaculty.” (K 4:3) All of these remarks all suggest that he isprobably referring to either an exceptionally powerful internal senseor to a distinctive way of seeing or interpreting what is seen, whichmight help to explain the link between familial ties and experiencingprophecy. Yet even here, Halevi's language is sufficientlyequivocal to allow for a wide range of interpretations.

The second prerequisite stipulates that one must dwellwithin the geographic environment that uniquely fosters the attainmentof prophecy or for the sake of which it occurs. That turns out to bethe region variously identified as Syro-Palestine or the Land ofIsrael. Halevi explains the region's special standing in terms ofits ideal configuration of temperate climate, its placement at thecenter of the inhabited world (as then known), and its location on theaxis mundi that historically links heaven andearth through prophecy, as depicted in Jacob's dream. For allthese reasons, it represents the optimal location not only for theattainment of prophecy by qualified members of the divine order, butalso for living out the “way of life characteristic ofGod's kingdom” (K 5: 20, 4^th premise) mandatedby the revealed Law and intended for all who participate in that order,whether by birth or by choice. Indeed, God is portrayed astransplanting “his people” to “his land,” inorder to realize his purpose for the land itself—to guide theentire inhabited world in the right path. (K 1: 95; 2: 9–24; 5:22–28)

The third and final prerequisite identifies exactly what theinstruction and training mentioned in the philosopher's speechconsists in, if it is to culminate in the experience of prophecy. Here,abstract principles, general guidelines, andad hocjudgments, no matter how intelligent or astute, do not sufficeto produce the desired result. Only adherence to the specificcommandments and prohibitions embodied in the Written and Oral Law fromGod can do so. That is because the specifics in their totality and dueproportion constitute a regimen that imparts to human souls both theconduct and the disposition of the angels. Indeed, Halevi claims thatperseverance in performing acts mandated by the Law raises one to thelevel of revelation, which is the human level closest to the divine. (K1: 87, 98; 2:48, 50; 3: 7, 11, 53; 4:19; 5:20, 4^thpremise)

What ties together these three prerequisites isHalevi's attempt to give both actual and specific content to whatthe philosopher sketched out only in broad outline. His emphasis onspecific ancestry and lineage was surely intended to call attention toactual people whose lives were characterized by special relationshipsthat could affect the course of history and, as a result, to reconnectone's own life with theirs. His emphasis on a particulargeographical environment was plainly intended to renew and strengthenhis people's sense of connection to and love for their ancestralhome and, given both the dialogue's ending and Halevi's ownchoice, a willingness to return it. His emphasis, finally, on thecommandments as the clearest embodiments of what is pleasing to God wasclearly meant to nourish not only respect for the nobility ofIsrael's ancestral way of life, but also to encourage renewedcommitment to that life as defined by worthy deeds and self-masteryover and above pleasing intentions and intellectually respectableopinions. By the same token, his elaboration of these prerequisitesover the course of the dialogue may also be intended as a critique ofphilosophy in the sense that it is by its very nature unable to providemore than general principles and guidelines in the realm of action. Itspreoccupation with the search for universals inevitably finds claimsabout special qualities, places, relationships and actions to be, moreoften than not, problematic or naïve, and what Halevi would regardas appropriate concern with matters of detail, outside itspurview.

7. The Problem of Creation vs. the Eternity of the World

While the sage fully appreciates that the Khazarking's principal concern is to learn what actions are pleasingand displeasing, he also recognizes that the king has been perplexedand preoccupied from the beginning with the claim that God created theworld out of nothing in six days. The discussion of the divine orderand of what the attributes of the undisputed prophet are made it clearthat knowledge of hidden things in both the past and future was onesuch attribute. So it is that in the course of responding to a queryabout the reliability of the Bible's chronology, the sageaddresses himself to several of the reasons for the king'sperplexity about creation, and he does so in unexpected ways. First, heflatly dismisses claims about the great antiquity of certain monumentsin India that allegedly refute the Bible's chronology and ofcertain records that name people who lived before Adam. He argues thatthese claims are unconfirmed and that the uneducated multitude whichaccepts such things is wayward and unreliable. It is precisely becausethe multitude lacks both well established beliefs and an agreed-uponchronology, such as the Jews possess, that they succumb so easily tocredulousness.

When the sage is reminded, however, that the philosophersbelieve in the past-eternity of the world and support their claims byscrupulous investigation, the sage rejects the philosopher's viewof the past-eternity of the world as well. However, he also excuses thephilosophers for being mistaken because their lineage and geographicalenvironment have left them poorly equipped to receive or acquire, notto mention preserve and transmit, reliable information on the matter.As Greeks, they were descendents of Yaphet rather than Shem, whichmeans that they lacked knowledge confirmed by a divine order (i.e., aprophetic experience apprehended by the divine faculty that sees thingsas they really are). Accordingly, they could only speculate about thematter. In addition, the variability and instability of the northernclimates contributed to the destruction or loss of what knowledge theydid have. The opposite holds true for the descendents of Shem and theregion that was their home. Having no special claim to credibility,Aristotle's view should not be accepted. In fact, the argumentsfor the two positions turn out to be evenly balanced against each otherand are therefore inconclusive. In the end, Aristotle preferred theidea of the world's past-eternity because of an essentiallycultural predilection for the abstract argumentation supporting it and,of course, because he lacked a reliable tradition supporting thecontrary view. Having no such tradition of his own, he never eventhought to ask others about theirs. Had he lived within a nation thatpossessed such a tradition, like Israel's own, Halevi contendsthat he would certainly have argued for thepossibility of creation, for, as the sagepoints out most emphatically in an oath, the Torah teaches nothing thatdirectly contradicts the clear evidence of sense experience or theconclusion of a genuine demonstration. Halevi does not spell out why hethinks Aristotle would have decided to argue for the opposing view, butit seems to have some connection with the status and function of oaths,which calls for further reflection. In any event, even if it wereeventually proven that matter is eternal into the past and many worldspreceded this one, an adherent of the Law would still be able tomaintain that traditions about the temporal origin ofthis world and its earliestinhabitants remain intact and his faith unimpaired.

8. The Origin of the Jewish Religion and the Theophany at Sinai

Halevi's treatment of the theophany at Sinai presents aremarkably rich, nuanced, yet compact summary of familiar themes in thebiblical accounts of this axial event, set within the context of theliberation from bondage. At the same time, it links up with othersignificant themes already discussed or elaborated on later in thedialogue. Following a brief discussion of what we can know aboutnature, causation, and divine agency, (K 1:68–79) the king asks thesage to tell him how his religion developed and spread beyond its pointof origin, how it overcame internal dissension to achieve unity, andhow it eventually became well established. From the question itself, itis obvious that the king conceives of Judaism's emergence inpurely naturalistic terms, akin to what the sage had previouslyidentified as a syllogistic, governmental religion. Much to hissurprise, however, the sage asserts that only man-madenomoi (laws) arise in this way, whileanomos that has its originin God arises suddenly. On being told to be, it obediently came intobeing, just like the creation of the world. The king confesses to beingawestruck by this unexpected declaration, although it is unclearwhether he is more impressed by the miraculous suddenness of what isclaimed or the element of obedience associated with it.

Halevi builds upon this ambiguity as the sage proceeds to describe theremarkable loyalty, courage, cohesiveness, and sheer endurance of theHebrew slaves. He traces their path out of the humiliation and miseryof Egyptian slavery to their ultimate deliverance under the leadershipof Moses and Aaron, amidst miraculous plagues announced in advance. Hegoes on to recount their subsequent rescue at the sea and, finally, thebeginning of their journey into the wilderness of Sinai. Although thesage matter-of-factly characterizes the story as lengthy andwell-known, the king's response registers its intended effect. Hesays that this is truly the divine order at work, since no doubt aboutthese events having come about through magic, subterfuge or imaginationgrips the heart. While his informal survey ofpossible explanations is by no means exhaustive, it does underscore thepeople's belief that their God can indeed do whatever he wisheswhenever he wishes—at least within the parameters of the story astold thus far. However, it does not dispel either their doubt or theking's own doubt as to whether God enters into contact with fleshand blood. Halevi makes it clear that the theophany at Sinai wasintended to resolve that doubt once and for all. (K1:80–87)

In the first of the discussion's three phases, the nature of thispersistent doubt is explained. The people are convinced that speakingis a corporeal phenomenon, presumably because physical organs areneeded both to produce and to apprehend the sounds and a physicalmedium such as air is needed to carry or convey them. But if that isso, speech without a flesh and blood speaker seems highly unlikely.Yet, the people had also come to believe that God was well above thecharacteristics and accoutrements of flesh and blood. To remove boththe doubt itself and the concomitant supposition that any allegedlydivine Law actually had to be the result of human thought and opinion,the people were instructed first to prepare inwardly and outwardly overthree days of great terror for the theophany to come. Significantly,however, when Halevi undertakes to describe the momentous revelation,he carefully distinguishes between the events that the peoplewitnessed, on the one hand, and how they reported and transmitted whatthey apprehended, on the other. What they actually witnessed was (1)lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and fires that surrounded themountain; (2) Moses entering and emerging from the fire, alive; (3) thepresentation of the Ten Commandments; and (4) the stone tabletsinscribed with divine writing. The description is uncharacteristicallybare of any reference to God having said or done anything and likewisebereft of any biblical citations to fill in the lacunae.

Immediately afterwards, the sage indicates that the multitude did nottransmit the Ten Commandments as something declared by individualsamong them or by a prophet, but by God. Later, when Moses had beenasked to serve as their intermediary with God, they believed that hewas addressed by speech that had its origin in God, but without priorthought on his part. To make the point of God's involvementclearer still, we are told that when Moses came down from the mountainwith the inscribed tablets in hand, all conjectures about his havingformulated the Ten Commandments on his own or with the help of theActive Intellect, or as a figment of his imagination while dreamingwere refuted by the theophany itself—a clear invitation tore-examine what they witnessed—and by the fact that the people“saw them asdivine writing, just astheyheard them as divinespeech.” (K1:87; italics added) Given the fact that Halevi was anaccomplished poet and sensitive to the nuances of language, there isevery reason to suppose that he knew that “seeing” and“seeing as” do not signify the same kind of activity. Therelational and interpretive character of “seeing as” and“hearing as” raises the possibility that the imaginationmay have had at least some role in how the people understood the eventsthey witnessed, even though the only explicit reference to it thus fardenies it any role in what Moses experienced. By the end of this phaseof Halevi's discussion, (K 1:87) it is clear that the skepticalIsraelites have at last been persuaded that God does enter into contactwith flesh and blood. They are plainly unanimous about what theyexperienced and unanimous about accepting the Law as divine andauthoritative. From the standpoint of the king's four criteriafor resolving his own skepticism, the sage's account would seemto have addressed them all with the added prospect that politicalbenefits like stability and cohesiveness might likewise result from hisfollowing the Israelites example. (cf. K 1: 21–22)

In the second phase of the discussion, (K 1: 88–90) the king offers tworesponses to what he has heard, but neither one explicitly states hisown view. The first suggests that “someone” who hears allthat the sage described would surely be excused for supposing that Jewsbelieve that God is corporeal. In saying this, he calls attention to acommon misunderstanding many people have upon first encounteringbiblical and rabbinic narratives relating to God. The second responseaddresses the sage, and through him the Jews generally, by allowingthat they, too, may be excused for rejecting reason and speculationbecause of theundeniable and plainly visible sightsjust related. By excusing his interlocutor and those herepresents, however, the king indicates, albeit indirectly, his ownacceptance of the evidence presented and, with it, the implication thatexperience trumps both reason and speculation, (cf. K 1:4, 5)apparently without qualification. This plainly ignores several of themore qualified observations offered by the sage (e.g., the“seeing”/ “seeing as” distinction), but it alsoshows that the king has reached one of several turning points thatculminate in his conversion to Judaism (K 2:1) and his continuingeducation through the end of the dialogue.

Unlike the king, the sage is by no means prepared to jettison reasonand speculation altogether, even and perhaps especially in defense ofhis faith. Thus, he invokes God's name in an informal oath, onceagain, to forbid the acceptance of anything that the intellect regardsas absurd or impossible, which in the case at hand would clearly applyto construing God as corporeal. While his oath is surely no syllogisticargument, it is a performative utterance to be taken with the utmostseriousness, especially when the strictures against taking God'sname in vain are recalled. By speaking in this manner, the sageacknowledges the supremacy of the divine order in all of its senses,but he does this now in defense of reason andrationality. Since oaths are taken, in part, toestablish truth in an inquiry, his purpose in taking this oath isevidently to base all inquiries in pursuit of the truth on theauthority of the Law and respect for its foundations. He illustratesthe point by noting that the first of the Ten Commandments mandates theacceptance of God's sovereignty, and his oath assuredly doesthis. The second Commandment, in turn, forbids representing Godcorporeally inany form. Ifso, it would be utterly absurd for the Law to presuppose what itprohibits (i.e., that God must be corporeal), given what the Biblerelates about the great theophany.

Once the religious and legal basis for reason's denial of divinecorporeality is established, the sage does not hesitate to offer aspeculative argument of his own. He presents it in theafortioriform often used to interpret the Lawand argues that if we maintain that many of God's creations areabove corporeality, “like the rational soul, which is what man isin reality,” how shall we not maintain that God is also abovecorporeality? Using Moses as an example, he notes that the part ofMoses that speaks to, understands, and governs his people is not histongue, brain, or heart, which are merely organs and instrumentsbelonging to him, but rather his rational soul, which is what he reallyis. On the basis of this clearly Platonic conception of the soul, hegoes on to argue that, owing to the soul's incorporeality, noplace is too narrow for it to enter, nor is it too narrow for the formsofall created things tofind a place in it. The restriction of what the soul may eventuallyunderstand to created things is entirely consistent with thesage's account of the hierarchy of being. What is unexpected andultimately more important is that Halevi gives enormous latitude towhat the soul, or, more concretely stated, philosophers and naturalscientists, may inquire into and understand within the created worlditself. Whatever the limits of our capacity to understand divine thingsrationally, he is certainly not an irrationalist or even ananti-rationalist if that is understood to mean someone who completelyrejects inquiry and theorizing. The second phase ends with the sagereminding the king that we must not reject what has been transmittedabout the theophany, but say instead that we do not understand howthese events and the miraculous deliverances that accompanied them tookplace. As noted above, “what has been transmitted” includesnot only Moses’ reports but also the multitude'sunderstanding and interpretation of what took place, and, insofar asthis, too, is preserved in the Written and Oral Law, rejecting it wouldbe tantamount to rejecting the Law itself and with it the socialcontract that it embodies. Thus, it is not surprising that the kingaccepts all that has been said as persuasive for the purposes ofargument.

In the third and concluding part of the discussion, (K 1:90) thesage acknowledges that he is not saying categorically that the mattertook place just as he described. He allows that it may have takenplace in an even more profound way than he canimagine. Here,the sage's admission would seem to create some difficulty forhis earlier claim that uninterrupted tradition is as valid as directobservation. (K 1: 25; 5: 14) However, it also invites hisinterlocutor and the reader to fulfill the last of the king'sfour requirements or criteria for overcoming his skepticism aboutrevelation, namely to study and test the evidence repeatedly, but nowit is in order to arrive at a more profound understanding of it.

Perhaps most unexpected of all is the sage's explicit reference torole of imagination in relating events of the past. Despite hisefforts to dismiss philosophical accounts of the imagination's role indream prophecy and its mimetic function in intellectual prophecy, henow accords it a role in representing decisive events from thepast. By the time imagination reappears in Halevi's discussion of the“inner eye” of prophecy, (K 4:3) it also has a role inunderstanding and interpreting events, states of affairs, and thenatures of created things in the present. The question that remains tobe answered is whether the inner eye had the same function and alsoperformed that function in connection with the events associated withthe theophany at Sinai. Halevi does not address the issue. The mostthat he is prepared to say is that those who witnessed those events,noting especially the events' unprecedented character, were convincedthat they came from the Creator without intermediary, as did thecreation of the world itself. That is why faith in the divine Law isthereafter associated by the faithful with a matching faith that theworld, too, is God's entirely originated creation.

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• Judah Halevi, article from the Jewish Encyclopedia
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