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YOCHANANSILMAN, Philosopher and Prophet. Judah Halevi, the , and the Evolution of His Thought translated from the Hebrew by Lenn J. Schramm. SUNY Press: Albany NY, 1995. SUNY Series in Judaica, Michael Fishbane, Robert Goldenberg, and Elliot Wolfson, editors.

The Compunctious Philosopher?*

From the time that interest in Judah Halevi's "answers to the historical challenge" erupted during the Second World War-from the pens of Baron, Wolfson, Altmann, Buber, Heinemann, Baer, and Strauss, among others- much ink has been spilt on the issue of Halevi's "relevance."' The notion that Judah Halevi's work possesses relevance for its time, and that that les- son may be applied to the contemporary situation, retains its attractions, if not with the urgency it seemed to hold at mid-century.' Yochanan Silman,

' These include revisionary treatments by Salo Wittmayer Baron, "Yehudah Halevi: An Answer to a Historical Challenge," JewishSocial Studies 3 (1941),originally delivered in Toronto in honor of the octocentennial Halevi celebration, subsequentlyreprinted in Ancientand Medieval JewishHistory, edited by Leon Feldman, (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick,NJ, 1972): 128-48; Efros, "Some Aspectsof Yehudah Halevi's Mysticism,"PAAJR 11 (1941) [reprinted in Studiesin MedievalyewishPhilosophy (Columbia UniversityPress: New York and London, 1974): 141-155; Harry A. Wolfson, "Hallevi and on Design, Chance, and Necessity," PAAJR 1 1 (1 941):105-163; idem.,"The Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic Theories of Creation in Hallevi and Maimonides." Essaysin honorofy.H. Hertz (London, 1942); idem.,"Hallevi and Maimonides on Prophecy," JQR 33 (1942-1943);Alexander Altmann, "Torat ha-Aqlimim Ic- Rabbi Yehudah Halevi," MelilaI (1944):1-17; , "Judah Halevi's 'Kitab al Kusari'." ContemporaryJewish Record, 8 (1945):358-368; , "'I'he Law of Reason in the Kuzari," PAAJRXIII (1942):47-96. [reprinted in Persecutionand theArt of Wriling,University of Chicago: Chicago, 1952]; Yitzhak Baer, ToledothaYehudim bisefarad haAloiz7i/, 2 vols. (Am Oved: , 1945),in Hebrew; idem.,Galut, (English translation, 1947);Isaac Heinemann, "R. Judah Halevi- The Man and the Philosopher," KenesetVII (1942):261-279; idem.,':Judah Halevi's Conception of History," n.s. IX (1944): 144-177, both in Hebrew; idem.,abridgement of the Kuzari, in Three JewishPhilosophers (1946). Older German essays also were published in Hebrew in these years: David Kaufmann, "R. Judah Halevi," Sinai(1 941 / 1942)and D.Z. Baneth, "R. Yehudah Halevi ve-al-Ghazali," Yene.st7 (1942): 311-328 [the Hebrew translation of his groundbreaking essay published in 1924; translated into English in Studiesin Jewish Thought,edited by Alfred Jospe (Wayne State University Press: Detroit, 1981): 181-200]. In English there was David Druck, YehudahHalevi,. His Life and Works(New York, 194 1 ). A systematic reflection on what may be termed the "Halevian Renaissance" during the Shoah would seem to be in order. 2 Cedric Dover, "'he Racial Philosophy of Jehuda Halevi," Phylon 13 (1952): 213-322; 285 in his fine study, Philosopher and Prophet. Judah Halevi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of His Thought, attempts to solve the great puzzle of the Kuzari not by appeal to its relevance, but rather by reference to its internal development. While Philosopher and Prophet utilizes the materials of history, including the scant external evidence available on Halevi's biography, this study is very much an "immanent" study in Jewish thought.' Such a reading, however, tends to slight the impact of context on the internal development of the Kuzari, as I shall try to show in the following.

Silman's Account of the Composition

Philosopher and Prophet. Judah Halevi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of His Thought, originated as a Hebrew University doctoral dissertation, completed in 1973

Steven Schwarzschild,"Proseltyism and Ethnicism in R. Yehudah HaLevy," in Religionsgesprache in Mittelalteredited by Bernard Lewis and Fredrich Niew6hner. (Otto Harrassowitz:Wiesbaden, 1992); Eliezer Schweid, "Halevi and Maimonides as Representatives of Romantic Versus Rationalistic Conceptions of ," in Kabbalaund Romantik,edited by Eveline Goodman- Thau and Gerd Matten Kolt (Max Niemeyer Verlag: Tübingen, 1984): 979-92; Maria Rosa Menocal, "Contingenciesof Canonical Structures and Values of Change: Lessonsfrom Medieval ." Edebiyat,n.s. vol. 4, (1993): 13-34.Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, sees Halevi as precursor of Buber, for whom the God of Aristotle = I-It, and the God of Abraham = the 1-Thou. See Traditionin an UntraditionalWorld. Ammiel Alcalay objects to what he sees as the ideologicaluses to which the Kuzarihas been put: "At its most vulgar, this [ideological]use makes Halevi into some kind of proto-Zionist. This metamorphosis, naturally, precludes emphasizing the fact that he was also known as Abu al-Hassan; that his Socratic dialogue, the Kuzari,one of the most popular books among all Jews, was written in ; that most of his poetry, like that of Andalusian counterparts, was steeped in the material and spiritual culture of ; that the financial insurance behind his pilgrimage resulted from the holding in escrow, through a business partner, of an expensive silk turban, probably as extravagant an item as any of those found in the traders' invento- ries." AfterJews and Arabs.Remaking Izvanline Culture (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis and London, 1993): 174. One might consider the serious argument that context is irrelevant, a position nicely artic- ulated by Hans Blumenberg: "What deserved to be called an 'event' in philosophy would still have this distinction: to be indifferent to the timing of its appearance." "Does it Matter When? On Time Indifference,"unpublished English translation by David Adams, p. 4. I thank Professor Adams for allowing me to use his work on Blumenberg. For a metahistorical vision of the Kuzari see the beautiful Dictionaryof the .A LexiconNovel by Milorad Pavic (Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1988). Pavic's fantasy (written in Serbo-Croatian) reads as the ghostliest reminder of a vanished Yugoslavianinterreligiosity. Pavic's choice of the Kuzarito serve as the basis for his novel now strikes the reader as being itself painfully symbolic. 3 See David Biale's useful review of David Myers's Re-Inventing the JewishPast: EuropeanJewish Intellectualsand the ZionistReturn to History?Tikkun, (May/June 1996): 67-68], for "immanent" vs. "contextualist" readings of by Zionist historians of Judaism. A moving short biography of Judah Halevi, based on the available evidence, can be found in the final chap- ter of Goitein's ultimate volume of A MediterraneanSociety. Volume V- The Individual:Portrait of a MedilerraneanPersonality of theHigh Middle Ages as Reflectedin theCairo Geniza (University of California: Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1988): 448-468.