- - Interpreting Judah Halevi's Kuzari, Page 3 -

        While Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is the text that has made the most profound impression on me, the Kuzari continues to excite my interest. I ask myself what it is that I find in the text that speaks to me. I am far from Halevi's particularism, or so I would like to think. Perhaps his notion of an inherent Jewish superiority touches a responsive chord in some dark passage of my soul. The more evident answer is that Halevi, like Maimonides, is a loyal Jew, steeped in the law and lore of tradition, who grapples with the views of the philosophers. It is with the nature of this struggle that I identify. I may not feel comfortable with much of its product, but I cannot help but feel drawn to the way Halevi approaches the dilemma he faces.
        How do I read the Kuzari? I read it primarily, though certainly not exclusively, as a philosophic text offering a rational conception of Judaism. This conception emerges from Halevi's dialectic relation with Neoplatonic-Aristotelian philosophy. His love-hate relation with this philosophical tradition is reflected by many passages of the treatise. As much as Halevi rejects philosophy, he embraces it. As much as he defines Judaism as the antithesis of the philosophical approach, he essentially builds his own philosophy of Judaism upon it. In the process, he reinterprets older Jewish motifs and conceptions, instilling in them new meaning and vitality.
        Over the years, there has been a debate among scholars whether Halevi's Kuzari should be considered a philosophic text at all - that is, one in which a coherent, rational conception lies at its foundation. Some have argued that this work should be treated primarily as a polemical tract, as implied by its very subtitle - "The Book of Refutation and Proof of the Despised Faith". The Kuzari was not intended by Halevi to offer a unified conception of Judaism. Moreover, in the very introduction to the work, Halevi appears to distance himself from some of the arguments of its Jewish protagonist. ¹ Others agreed that Halevi was not only trying to defend Judaism against its detractors, but also attempting to formulate a conception of Judaism. They treated this conception, however, as more mystical than rational in character. ² There have also been attempts to treat the Kuzari as an evolving text. The treatise reflects the fundamental changes in Halevi's views and in his basic conceptual approach between the writing of the earlier and later strata. ³ Much material has been gleaned from the text in support of each of these approaches. The Kuzari contains many polemical/apologetic arguments and remarks. Halevi may not have personally identified with all of them. He presented them since they furthered one of the prime objectives of his work - namely, a defense of the "despised faith." This does not negate the view that a basic conception of Judaism emerges from the text. Halevi's work is also replete with mystical motifs. The line separating rationalism from mysticism is a thin one even in Halevi's Islamic philosophical sources, reverberating with Neoplatonic motifs. ⁴ In addition to these motifs, Halevi incorporates numerous motifs from older Jewish mystical texts. Yet the critical point is that his interpretation of these motifs is often of philosophic character. In all probability, it is also true that certain changes occurred in Halevi's thought during the course of writing his work. The problem remains how far reaching these changes were, and whether they hold the primary key to understanding the various problems and inconsistencies in the text. ⁵
        In the final analysis, Halevi presents his work as a unity. He apparently did not view any changes in his thought as fundamentally affecting the basic nature of his work. While a number of critical differences between some of Halevi's conceptions may be traced to changes occurring in his thinking in the course of writing his work, I prefer to treat the text according to the way in which Halevi presents it to us. The Kuzari certainly contains many apologetic remarks and mystical motifs. Nevertheless, I regard it as essentially wrong to treat it primarily as a polemical or mystical tract. Nor do I see Halevi as the anti-philosophers' philosopher as Harry Wolfson sought to depict him. ⁶ This approach perhaps says more of this great scholar's philosophy than about Halevi's own. David Kaufmann's view of Halevi as an Al-Ghazzali in Jewish guise also misses the "essence" of Halevi. ⁷ My interpretation is closest to that of Julius Guttmann. ⁸ Halevi's attitude to philosophy is a very complex one, marked by a great deal of ambiguity. This is probably no less true of Al-Ghazzali, despite the reputation he gained as a result of his work, The Destruction of Philosophy. Kaufmann was correct in pointing out the marked similarity between Al-Ghazzali and Halevi, but he placed the emphasis on the wrong points. Both were deeply committed to their religious traditions, and both wrestled with philosophy in an attempt to understand their traditions. ⁹
        Halevi's Kuzari revolves around two poles. The dominant one is the acceptance of the basic pillars of Judaism - belief in a freely willing creator God capable of miraculous acts in history, belief in Torah as the law revealed by God, belief in the choseness of the Jewish people, and belief in the choseness of the Land of Israel. Halevi never wavers in his commitment to these beliefs, which form the bulwark of Jewish particularism. Yet the second pole is only slightly less firm than the first. This is his commitment to rationalism, to the intellect's ability to understand. The relationship between rationalism - embodied by the scientific and philosophic knowledge of Halevi's day - and Jewish particularism is at best a very problematic one. It is the combination of these two commitments which gives Halevi's work its unique texture.
        Halevi was aware of the grave threat posed to Judaism by philosophy. Whatever the original form the Kuzari may have assumed, it is the philosopher who is the most dangerous antagonist in the final version. While he makes his formal appearance only at the beginning of the work, his presence can be detected throughout. For the philosopher, God is solely the guarantor of nature, rather than the freely willing God of history. There can be no revelation of a law directly from God, nor can there be purposeful interventions in the natural order. The philosopher does not attach any special significance to Jewish observance, to Jewish peoplehood or to the Land of Israel.
        Any commitment to rationalism thus appears to entail an undermining of the foundation of Judaism. A philosopher who is Jewish may choose to continue to obey the Torah and maintain an outer loyalty to the Jewish people, just as a philosopher who is Moslem may continue to live according to the laws of Islam. One's inner loyalty, however, is to a universal, though elitist, conception of human perfection. This perfection is characterized more by the state of one's theoretical knowledge than by one's actions. It is not determined by one's religious beliefs. The most significant and only eternal bond is between the intellectually perfect, irrespective of their religious practices or national origin. This is how Halevi understood the philosophic conception, as evidenced by the speech of his "philosopher" at the beginning of the Kuzari. Halevi develops his historical proof of Judaism as a response to the intellectualism characterizing the philosophers' view. The God of history, Halevi essentially argues, is not simply a conception designed for instilling the belief in God in the masses. This conception is not to be regarded as inferior to that of the philosophers, who grasp God through the study of nature. The contrary is true. Approaching God from the perspective of history provides one with the most certain rational foundation upon which to base one's faith.
        Halevi, on the other hand, is enamored by the vision of the philosophers, who see a rational order underlining the workings of the world. No less than the philosophers, he cannot conceive of God as acting arbitrarily. Rational rules, as reflected in the impersonal system of cause and effect in nature, should be seen as underlying all divine activity. Halevi's attraction to the vision of the world presented by the philosophers is too great to allow him to view the philosophers solely as adversaries, (even if noble ones). Their vision may be a threat to Judaism. With a certain amount of modification, however, it may also be used to understand Judaism. As much as Halevi is intent on defending Judaism, he seeks to comprehend it. The giving of the Torah solely to the Jewish people, and the singling out of the Land of Israel, are not to be regarded simply as God playing favorites.
        Even Halevi's racial theory is not so much bolstered by rational arguments as it is, in large measure, motivated by rational considerations. Jewish particularism is to be best understood as the ultimate expression of the rational rules governing divine activity as depicted by the philosophers. The philosophic principle that entities receive only that which they are prepared to receive is the fundamental principle in Halevi's view of the world (Kuzari V.20). The philosophers divide the sublunar orders into four - inanimate, vegetative, animate, and rational. Yet they also recognize a stage that is quasi sublunar and quasi angelic - namely, that of conjunction with the Active Intellect. Halevi has only to build upon this notion to ascribe a special place to the Jewish people in the hierarchy of existence. If parents, human or animal, prepare their offspring to receive their natural form in the philosophers' view, Jewish parents prepare their offspring for their special state in the view of Halevi. In a similar vein, the scientific doctrine of climatology posits that certain places, due to their location, exert a more positive influence on the dispositions of their inhabitants than other places. The singling out of the Land of Israel thus can be explained in terms of the physical advantages it possesses and confers. Finally, if the rational soul is a substance in its own right, as maintained by some of the philosophers, one's activities can be evaluated from the perspective of their influence on the state of this substance. The performance of the commandments is treated by Halevi as having the most salutary influence on the soul. It helps to arrange its three component parts -- appetitive, wrathful and rational -- in a harmonious relationship (II.50; III. 5). Halevi's God knew Plato and Plotinus well when legislating the Law.
        Halevi's grappling with the views of the philosophers emerges in many of the discussions in his work. He presents his views as a rejection of those of the philosophers when he seeks to defend Judaism, at the same time that he often modifies and incorporates them when he seeks to understand it. He maintains that the philosophers failed to attain the direct apprehension of God possessed by the prophets. This accounts for the inferiority of their knowledge in comparison to that found in Jewish tradition (IV.15). Yet he cannot help but concede to their view that the divine essence is non-corporeal, unfathomable and an indivisible unity, and he interprets Jewish tradition accordingly (II.2).
        This dual attitude to the conceptions of the philosophers at times leads Halevi to adopt ambiguous positions on fundamental issues, or to waver between conflicting conceptions. For example, he is not clear on whether the prophets were able to attain positive knowledge of the divine essence, or if this knowledge is in principle closed to everyone. Overall, his view of God wavers between the Plotinian One and the freely willing God of tradition. He is convinced that the particulars of the natural order and the miraculous events at Sinai prove the existence of divine will. At the same time he is vague as to its ontic status (II.5-6). To treat it as "part" of God is to violate the unity of the divine essence as proven by the philosophers. To treat it as apart from God is to posit active intermediaries between God and the world. This contradicts what is for Halevi a fundamental principle of Judaism (V.20). If God is not the active causal agent in nature and history, what remains of the God of Jewish tradition?
        Halevi's view of prophecy reflects a similar type of ambiguity. At times he comes close to accepting the philosophic view of prophecy, treating the prophetic visions as the product of the imaginative faculty (IV.3). ¹⁰ At other times he rejects this view and insists upon the objective reality of the sights seen by the prophets (I.87). The latter approach is to be found in all the discussions bearing upon the revelation of the Torah. I do not regard the apologetic nature of the text as the primary reason for the differences between his views, though it may be an important factor. Halevi is not simply being indifferent to the relation between the views he presents, so long as they serve to bolster Judaism. There is a genuine struggle going on in his mind on the relationship between the central ideas of Judaism and the philosophic world view. On the basis of his dialectical relation with philosophy, Halevi approaches many of the major issues with which he deals. I do not mean to suggest that this struggle characterizes the entire text. Other major issues also occupy Halevi's thought - e.g., his arguments with the Karaites and with the proponents of the other religions. Yet I see this issue as the central one for understanding the text. It may be argued with much justification that my judgement is heavily influenced by my own intellectual concerns. Nonetheless, I maintain that this is the Archimedean point for glimpsing the essence of Halevi's thought. I will not try to defend this reading in the confines of this essay. This would involve a careful analysis of too many issues, together with a discussion of the shortcomings of other readings. I present it as the conclusion to which I have been drawn as a "scholar," and one which has the additional virtue of speaking directly to me across time.

Interpreting Judah Halevi's Kuzari

by Haim Kreisel