D. Judaic Tradition the Soul in Jewish Neoplatonism: a Case Study of Abraham Ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi

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D. JUDAIC TRADITION THE SOUL IN JEWISH NEOPLATONISM: A CASE STUDY OF ABRAHAM IBN EZRA AND JUDAH HALEVI Aaron W. Hughes* The Greek philosophical tradition, as we know, made a large impact on rationalist Arabo-Islamic thinking, especially in the domain of philosophy that we now typically refer to as epistemology. It was specula- tion about the soul, for example, that provided the impetus for Arabic philosophers to re-define traditional theological monotheistic concepts such as revelation using natural theories of human cognition inherited from the Greeks. This speculative framework made its way into the Jewish philosophical tradition in the eleventh century, and its introduc- tion therein represents the translation of Greco-Arabic terms into the Hebraic vocabularies and categories associated with the Bible. In order to examine both the dynamics and tensions associated with this translation activity, what follows analyzes the theory of the soul developed by Abraham ibn Ezra (1092–1167), generally considered to be one of the foremost representatives of the medieval Jewish Neoplatonic tradition. Ibn Ezra, a polymath who wrote treatises on many topics, is perhaps most famous for his biblical commentaries, wherein he reads the Bible in light of contemporaneous philosophical and scientific theories. As such, these commentaries provide tremendous insights into the ways that Jewish thinkers overcame the strangeness of philosophical ideas by grounding them within autochthonous categories, thereby naturalizing the philosophical tradition within Judaism. Although successful on some levels since his commentaries came to be included within the miqraot gedalot, or the rabbinic Bible, his synthesis did not go unchallenged. One of the foremost representatives of the critique mounted against philosophy is ibn Ezra’s older contemporary and friend, Judah Halevi (1075–1141). Halevi was generally critical of philosophy because he felt that Jewish categories (e.g., prophecy) were sui generis and, when framed using non-Jewish vocabularies and understandings, were both unhelpful and ultimately pernicious to * SUNY, Buffalo..

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