## 1. Life




Judah Halevi (c. 1075-1141) was one of the most gifted Hebrew
poets and talented philosophical theologians of medieval Spain. He was
born to an enlightened family of means living in Tudela, a town in
northeastern Spain under Muslim rule. He received a comprehensive
education 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 after
winning a contest in Cordova in which entrants were asked to write a
poem matching the complex style of a composition by the famed Moses
ibn Ezra. The renowned poet befriended the young man and brought him
to Granada where he was welcomed into courtier circles, enjoyed ibn
Ezra's patronage, and composed numerous poems on mainly secular themes
over several years.




This period of stability, discovery, and high culture was disrupted by
the invasion of the Almoravids, a fanatical Islamic sect from North
Africa, in 1090. After taking control of the petty kingdoms of
al-Andalus, in response to the fall of Toledo to the Christian armies
of Alphonso VI, Jewish life in Granada and beyond began to deteriorate
rapidly. Halevi left Granada in search of a more secure situation and
eventually settled in Toledo, where his reputation as both a poet and
physician preceded him. He was again received with honor and admiration
by the courtier Jews of the city, but he now supported himself as a
court physician. Nevertheless, clashes been Muslims and Christians, and
distrust of Jews on both sides of the divide, caused Halevi increasing
dismay over how fragile Jewish life in Spain had become. His secular
poetry 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 ibn
Ferruziel, was murdered, Halevi began to move from city to city. He
traveled in the company of his close friend and younger colleague,
Abraham ibn Ezra, the grammarian, biblical exegete, and Neo-Platonic
philosopher. As his fame spread, Halevi enlarged his circle of
friendships and contacts as far as North Africa and Egypt. One of
these, Abu Said Halfon Ha-Levi of Damietta, a distinguished Jewish
merchant with whom Halevi corresponded and finally met in person in
1127, became an especially trusted friend and partner in efforts to
ransom Jewish captives. He would later become Halevi's host in
Egypt.




By this time, Halevi was at the height of his career in Spain. He had
by then married and had a daughter, who would be married to Isaac ibn
Ezra, the son of his friend Abraham. His secular and religious poetry
made him a celebrated figure throughout Spain and beyond. He had also
written the first drafts of what he called the "Khazari
book," which was undertaken in response to questions raised by
an unnamed heretical thinker, possibly a Karaite. It would eventually
be reworked to become his most famous religio-philosophical work, the
*Kuzari* or *Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the
Despised Religion*. However, he had gradually become convinced
that a secure Jewish life in Spain was no longer viable and certainly
not for him. His religious poetry increasingly attested to an intense
longing for communion with God and also for a return to Zion. As the
Christian policy of reconquering territories lost to the Muslims
proceeded apace, and in the wake of the First Crusade, messianic
expectations grew. He even records in one of his poems a prophetic
dream that forecast the downfall of the oppressive Islamic regimes in
the year 1130.




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


## 2. The Frame Story of the Kuzari and Its Setting




Halevi introduces the dialogue by assuming the voice of an
anonymous narrator. This figure identifies the overall concern of the
ensuing discussions by indicating that he had been asked about whatever
argumentation he had against those who differ or take issue with the
Jews, naming as examples the philosophers generally, the adherents of
the other major religions of the time (Christianity and Islam), and
those who have seceded from the great majority of Jews because of their
differences with them. Among the latter, it is likely that the Karaites
were foremost in his mind. The narrator then establishes the context of
the dialogue by recalling what he had heard of the arguments used by a
Jewish sage approximately four hundred years earlier that persuaded the
king of the Khazars to adopt the Jewish religion based on testimony
recorded in historical chronicles of the time. This recollection leads
directly to the frame story on which all that follows is
predicated.



According to this story, the king repeatedly dreams the same dream, in
which an angel appears to address him saying, "Your intention is
pleasing to God, but your actions are not pleasing" (K 1:1).
Notwithstanding the king's efforts to respond to its message through
diligence in presiding over the established forms of Khazar worship
and his sincere intent in doing so, the dream continued to come with
the same disturbing message. This unexpected result eventually
prompted him to examine the various religions and sects; after doing
so, both he and the majority of the Khazars converted to Judaism. At
this point, the narrator observes that *some* of the arguments
of the unnamed Jewish scholar that prompted the king to convert were
also persuasive to him and in accord with his own belief. Indeed, he
thought he should record this argumentation "just as it took
place," adding, "The intelligent will understand," a
biblical citation from Daniel 12:10 (K 1:1).




This remark, "The intelligent will understand," can be
interpreted in various ways. According to some, it indicates that the
argumentation presented in the dialogue must have been taken from the
*Book of Histories,* which the narrator also mentioned.
Others, however, maintain that it hints at the entire dialogue being a
literary fiction. Still, others have suggested that it points to the
fact that the dialogue may have been intended for very different kinds
of readers and thus written on at least two levels. According to this
last interpretation, the *Kuzari* is addressed on one level to
the multitude of Jews in order to reinforce both their traditional
opinions and their adherence to the forms of religious observance
established by the Talmudic sages. However, on a second level, it is
addressed to those more inclined towards exercising independent
judgment in the conduct of life, such as members of the courtier
class, philosophers, and their *proteges*, with a
view to providing instruction on how to live responsibly within their
own community. These interpretations are by no means exhaustive, but
collectively they suggest that Halevi's intentions should not be taken
as transparently obvious either in the dialogue as a whole or even in
specific exchanges between its interlocutors. Not even the narrator,
who comes closest to speaking for Halevi himself, admits to being
persuaded by all of the Jewish sage's arguments. Accordingly, the
intelligent reader is expected to follow the arguments and actions of
the dialogue with a view to analyzing and identifying the spoken and
unspoken assumptions of each speaker, the function of metaphors,
analogies, and even oaths, the types and relative cogency of the
arguments presented, and the significance of reformulations of earlier
statements by the same speaker, if he or she is to understand what is
recorded and how it might ultimately change one's life.




With this in mind, it is helpful to consider briefly what Halevi
discloses 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 correct
actions in all of the many areas in which such judgments are made. His
principal responsibility is to govern his people so that they will
survive and surmount any threats to their existence--internal or
external--and ultimately prosper in the long run. Insofar as he
also has priestly responsibilities, he is also concerned with pious
actions. Yet as a pious pagan, he stands outside and apart from the
three revealed religions. This might qualify him as a detached and
impartial judge of what they have to teach, but it also suggests that
he is disposed to be skeptical about their claims to possess a
revelation from God. Beyond this, he is inclined to disdain Jews
because of their despised condition and lowly estate. In general, he
places a high premium on what can be learned from experience and
proves himself ready to act upon what he learns. However, to the
extent that his openness to experience also includes religious
experience, he emerges as a divided man whose natural piety is at odds
with his skeptical inclinations.


## 3. The Introductory Exchanges




The dialogue proper begins to unfold only after the king, upon
realizing in his dream that he must try to find out what actions are
truly pleasing to God, turns to a philosopher and asks him about his
beliefs. Why he seeks out the philosopher first and focuses
specifically on his beliefs as opposed to his knowledge or his actions
is not explained, although it is plausible to suppose that the nature
of the king's invitation to his various interlocutors indicates in
advance what he expects to hear from each one and perhaps also what he
does not expect to hear. In any case, the unnamed philosopher provides
what is generally acknowledged to be both a masterful and concise
exposition of the Neoplatonic-Aristotelian world-view that dominated
so much of medieval intellectual life from the 10th century on. While
most of the claims put forward were common to all medieval
Aristotelians, three ideas in particular suggest the influence of
Halevi's contemporary, Ibn Bajjah (d. 1138), the foremost Aristotelian
of his generation in Spain. These ideas are that union with the Active
Intellect is possible during one's lifetime, that such union implies
cognitive identity with other thinkers who know the truth, and that a
philosopher's life is essentially a solitary regimen.




The philosopher opens his presentation with a sharply negative
appraisal of the presuppositions underlying the king's dream and
offers a brief critical analysis to explain why he rejects each
one. Specifically, he denies that God is the kind of being who is
either pleased or displeased about anything, has knowledge of
particular persons, actions, or events, or even can be regarded as the
"Creator" of human beings, unless one understands this in
purely metaphorical terms. What warrants these confident denials is
the philosopher's conception of a perfect being and how this
shapes his understanding of divinity. Thus, a God who is capable of
being pleased and displeased must have various aims and desires, all
of which signify privation of that which is aimed at or desired, until
it is provided. However, any being who is subject to privation and
lack could hardly be considered perfect or divine. It would constantly
be in a deficient state and also dependent on others to provide
whatever is desired. Thus, Divinity as a perfect being is simply
incompatible with having or experiencing privation. Accordingly, God,
in contrast to all that is non-divine, is entirely beyond having
desires and aims because he lacks no perfection worthy of the
name.




Similarly, God could hardly be the kind of being who knows
particular people, actions, intentions, or events, since these things
change with the passage of time. Were God to have knowledge of mutable
things, he, too, would be ever changing and always in need of being
informed of each new development. Far from being the exemplar of
perfect being and knowledge, lacking nothing worth knowing, the God of
the Khazar king's dream turns out to be at all times the most
epistemically needful and mutable of beings. This outcome also explains
why God cannot be conceived in any literal sense as the Creator of the
universe or humankind through some act of will meant to realize a
divine intention. For even if one were to assume that God's
intention had always been to create the world at a particular time,
*t*, and that this remained as true at
*t* + 1 as it was
at *t -* 1, God would
have had *to will* the
appropriate change at time *t*
or to have performed some act resulting in the world's
creation at that time, lest there be no grounds whatsoever for claiming
that God actually caused the world to exist. However, once God is
understood to be capable of changing in accordance with an intention,
volition, action, or relation, so as to become the Creator of the
universe, it becomes problematic to think of God as a perfect being.
Once again, the suggestion that God changes by exercising his will in
different ways at different times also suggests that there is privation
or potentiality within God, both before the act of creation, when
God's intention was as yet unrealized, and even more so
afterwards, because of all the new and variable relationships
established with the creation of the world. For these and similar
reasons, the philosopher concludes that God is better conceived of as
the cause of all causes involved in the creation of every created
thing, not through any intention or aim, but rather through an eternal
and essentially changeless process of emanation.




At this point, the philosopher turns his attention away from
an analysis and critique of the king's theological assumptions to
a systematic, topical exposition of his own largely
Neoplatonic-Aristotelian views on cosmology and the prerequisites for
human flourishing in the world as it is. Thus, he confidently maintains
that God did not create man at all because the world is eternal, and
human beings have never ceased coming into being from those who
preceded them. The universe itself turns out to be a complex system of
interacting causes and effects, which are necessarily connected to one
another on various levels. Human beings, naturally enough, are
constituted by and within this complex whole and combine within
themselves diverse forms, dispositions, character traits, and qualities
that reflect essentially three kinds of influences. These are, first,
influences associated with one's parents and relatives, although
we are not told whether these are primarily biological or psychological
in nature; second, those associated with environmental conditions, both
proximate and remote, such as air, climate, geographic location, types
of food and water, as well as the movements of celestial bodies; third
and finally, those associated with education and training, which
realize and perfect each person's particular potentialities as
fully as possible in order to complete an individual's
development. Inevitably, these influences give rise to a wide array of
individuals, with diverse aptitudes, perfections, and deficiencies in
various combinations and proportions. Together, they constitute the
entire human species, ranging from the most perfect and least deficient
to the exact opposite.



The philosopher, it turns out, is the one human type provided with all
of the dispositions needed to actualize the natural, moral,
intellectual, and practical virtues that bring about human flourishing
in the fullest sense. Thus, he alone is said to lack nothing pertaining
to perfection. What human perfection and flourishing ultimately consist
of is a state of intellectual illumination by the Active Intellect, in
which the passive or material intellect of the perfect individual
perceives itself as reaching the level of attachment to, and, indeed,
union with its light. The Active Intellect belongs to the divine
hierarchy. More specifically, it is the tenth and lowest of the
incorporeal Intelligences in the philosopher's cosmology, which
presides over the sub-lunar sphere and all it contains. Insofar as this
Intellect comprehends the forms of everything that exists or occurs
within our world, it is also capable of communicating what it knows,
either partially or completely, in the form of intellectual
illuminations (the aforementioned "light") to any
individual whose material intellect is suitably prepared to receive it.
Here, knowing follows the Aristotelian paradigm of becoming one with
the thing known, albeit in an immaterial way. Attachment to or union
with the Active Intellect thereby contributes to human perfection and
flourishing by first providing the individual with the pleasures of
discovery and genuine intellectual understanding and, second,
influencing the subsequent activities of the individual in practical
matters so completely that his limbs perform only the most perfect
actions, at the most appropriate times, in accordance with the best
conditions, "as if they were the organs of the Active Intellect
itself." Broadly speaking, the attainment of intellectual union
is presented as culminating in a life of rational self-sufficiency in
which one always recognizes what the most rational course of action is
and acts accordingly.



The philosopher comes closest to addressing the Khazar king's
specific concern with actions pleasing to God or pleasing in
themselves, when he outlines what is required in order to reach this
level. Thus, the soul must be purified of doubts and acquire knowledge
of the universals belonging to the sciences as they really are. It must
also keep to the way of justice regarding both character traits and
actions, for these activities help the soul in conceiving of what is
true and persevering in its inquiries. When these prerequisites are
fulfilled, it will come to be like an angel, presumably, in the sense
of actively and continuously contemplating the true realities of what
it understands. Among the other consequences associated with this way
of life, the philosopher indicates that the soul ceases to fear bodily
extinction, but delights in life instead. It does this, in part,
because it joins and becomes one with great thinkers ranging from the
semi-divine Hermes Trismegistus and Aesculapius to Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle, suggesting, at the very least, that those who genuinely know
the truth are of one mind regarding it. Consequently, if anything
symbolizes "God's being pleased," it is just such
union with the Active Intellect. Furthermore, the shift from passivity
to activity in conceiving the true realities also generates
contentment, modesty, and submissiveness along with every other
desirable character trait, including reverence for the First Cause.
However, this reverence has nothing to do with hoping for its favor or
being spared its wrath; the philosopher lives beyond such hopes and
fears. Rather, philosophic reverence arises because it prompts one to
imitate the Active Intellect by preferring truth to falsehood with the
result that one always accepts the truth and describes it in a fitting
way. In effect, one reveres the First Cause because it is
useful.



The question of identifying specific acts through which one's
reverence might be expressed is ultimately a matter of indifference to
the philosopher. Thus, he advises the king not to be concerned about
which "divine Law" to follow and what language, speech, or
actions to employ in worship. If something is nevertheless deemed
necessary in order to cultivate the appropriate character traits or,
beyond that, to govern oneself and others, then the king should simply
create his own religion or adopt one of the intellectual
*nomoi* already composed by the philosophers to
serve as his religion. Still, all of this is peripheral to the
principal task, that of purifying one's soul of doubts, errors,
misunderstandings, and other defects after acquiring genuine knowledge
of the universals belonging to the sciences, for this alone facilitates
attachment to the Active Intellect. Once this occurs, if indeed it
does, the philosopher allows that
*perhaps* the Active Intellect will
provide the king, at some future time, with knowledge of hidden matters
and even commands conveyed through veridical dreams and apposite
imagery. Notwithstanding this tentatively encouraging observation, the
philosopher 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 while
outlining with utmost brevity what a philosophic theory of prophetic
dreams might look like.



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




To illustrate, he denies the need to purify his soul because
he already knows from his dream experience that his soul is pure. After
all, his intentions were described as pleasing to God, but his actions
were not. Surely, then, pure intention is not enough; certain actions
must be *pleasing in themselves*. Moreover, if
this consideration is not sufficiently probative, the collective
experience of both Christians and Muslims is offered to establish the
point. Together, they divide the entire inhabited world among
themselves and sincerely direct their intentions towards pleasing God,
even to the point of killing each other and readily sacrificing
themselves in their wars. Yet, however similar they may be in the
purity of their intentions, their forms of religious praxis are at
odds. Even more to the point, *it is rationally
impossible for both Muslims and Christians to be
right*. Whether Halevi's point, here, is to
emphasize the importance of collective experience through time in
deciding matters of correct behavior or to point out instead that the
philosopher's general indifference to praxis beyond recommending
prudent behavior as an aid to philosophical understanding borders on
relativism is not clear; his purpose may be either or both. What is
clear is that the king's rejoinder represents the beginning of a
critical appraisal of the philosopher's position that continues
long after the philosopher has left the scene.




This becomes clearer still after the philosopher replies
that the religion of the philosophers does not allow for killing either
of the contending parties--surely, a humane consideration that no
victim of religious discrimination or persecution, and especially no
Jew, could fail to appreciate. Yet, even though the king evidently
shares the philosopher's doubts about the religious doctrine of
creation in six days and goes on to highlight his own skepticism about
the possibility of divine-human contact in connection with it, he
nevertheless points out a glaring discrepancy between the
philosopher's theoretical account of prophecy and its
prerequisites and actual experience. He notes that given the
philosopher's exemplary standards for virtuous behavior,
knowledge of the sciences, and personal effort, prophecy should have
been well known and widespread among them. They should also have had a
reputation for performing wondrous feats. However, the facts show that
this is not the case. On the contrary, veridical or prophetic dreams do
come at times to people who are unconcerned with the sciences and
purifying their souls, and they do not come to those who have
deliberately sought such things. From this, the king concludes that the
divine order of things (*al-'amr*
*al-'ilahi*
) and the souls of certain human beings have a secret character that
differs from what the philosopher described. This reference to the
divine order and to the mysterious character of the souls of those who
have prophetic experiences associated with it introduces one of the
central themes of the
*Kuzari*. While it will ultimately be a
Jewish scholar who explicates and illustrates these notions for the
king, it is nonetheless significant that the king is the one who first
mentions them. His doing so raises, at the very least, the possibility
that a pious pagan who acknowledges what is hidden or mysterious may
perceive reality more completely and accurately than an overconfident
philosopher who immediately dismisses such things. The king's
statement also calls attention to the fact that whatever the divine
order may signify in subsequent discussions, a pious pagan and
presumably any others who come to speak of it are familiar with its
meaning and general use. In other words, the basic concept is not
unique to any particular religion.




After the philosopher departs, the king decides to speak
with the Christians and the Muslims on the assumption that one of their
forms of practice must be pleasing to God, but he declines to speak
with the Jews owing to their paltry numbers, despicable condition, and
the universal contempt in which they are held. Accordingly, he asks a
Christian scholar and then a Muslim scholar about his "knowledge
and actions" (*'ilm
wa-l-'amal*), and each replies, in turn,
with an affirmation of his faith, a brief history of his religion, and
at least an adumbration of its practice. In their attempt to address
the king's practical concerns, each one also presents his
religion as the culmination of a prophetic tradition going back to the
experiences of biblical Israel. Nevertheless, the king rejects both
presentations, in the former case, because its principal claims are
judged to be at odds with reason, and in the latter, because it fails
to provide adequate empirical evidence that a revelation actually
occurred and that its alleged content is itself miraculous. Despite
these negative appraisals, both exchanges (K 1:4-9) have the positive
effect of making clear that what the king seeks is a statement of
praxis supported by incontrovertible evidence that grips the heart
completely. Building upon the paradigm of how natural scientists
explain extraordinary phenomena, the king maintains that if direct
experience, however unlikely or unexpected, is well founded and grips
the heart, it must be accepted. This is because experience is primary
and foundational, while the task of theory is to show rationally how
what initially seemed unlikely is actually plausible. Ultimately, he
proposes four criteria for evaluating claims of divine contact with
flesh and blood. The evidence in favor of a convincing claim must be:
(1) genuinely miraculous in the sense of describing effects that are
clearly transformative and beyond human powers to produce; (2)
witnessed by multitudes; (3) seen with their own eyes; and (4) capable
of being studied and examined repeatedly.




Because both his Christian and Muslim interlocutors had
grounded their beliefs on God's widely attested revelation to
ancient Israel, the king concludes that he has no alternative but to
speak with a Jewish sage and ask about his belief. The sage replies
with an affirmation of his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel, who is described as having miraculously rescued all of the
children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, provided for them in the
wilderness, given them the Holy Land, and sent Moses with the divine
Law. To this, he adds that God subsequently sent thousands of prophets
to support this Law through their promises and warnings. In addition to
the statement's remarkable brevity, it is significant in several
ways. While asked to state his belief
(*i'tiqad*) in the sense of opinion or
reasoned conviction, the Jewish sage replies instead with a profession
of faith (*iman*), signifying
trust or steadfast reliance, which is typically the result of lived
experiences that culminate in special relationships and understandings.
The statement is also notable for not basing faith on one momentous
experience within a single individual's lifetime, but rather for
linking it with a long series of memorable experiences over the
lifetime of an entire people. Beyond this, the narrative alludes
directly and indirectly to divine contacts with human beings that were
supported by public, empirical, and miraculous evidence that could be
studied, re-examined, and, in some sense, tested repeatedly. Indeed,
the dispatch of thousands of prophets in support of the Law over the
centuries suggests that there was a recurrent need for re-studying the
evidence and testing its import with the passage of time. Finally, the
statement is programmatic insofar as it identifies many topics and
themes to be addressed later, such as evidence for believing in the
existence of God, the relationship between familial ties and experience
of the divine, prophets and prophecy, revelation and divine Law, the
Holy Land and its significance, and divine providence, among others.
This is probably why the sage concludes his statement by noting that
the Jewish faith embraces everything taught in the Torah, "but
the story is long." (K 1:11)




In the discussion that immediately follows, Halevi puts
forward the first of a series of distinctions and rejoinders that
collectively amount to a broad-ranging critique of the
philosopher's statement and even of philosophy as such. Still, as
will become clear, his critique is not so comprehensive that it
precludes selective appropriation and adaptation of certain
philosophical ideas for his own purposes. Thus, the king expresses
surprise that the sage said nothing about God's being the Creator
of the world, who orders and governs it in such a way that people
strive to imitate God's wisdom and justice in their own actions.
To this, the sage replies that the king is referring to the kind of
syllogistic, governmental religion to which speculation leads. In
contemporary terms, this would now be called a civil religion designed
to govern and educate human passions based on practical reason. The
sage continues by saying that the king is overlooking the fact that
such religions contain many doubtful claims. What is more, he adds, the
king will find that the philosophers do not agree on any single action
or belief, and this is contrary to the idealized picture of union and
unanimity among the great thinkers that is mentioned in the
philosopher's speech. To be sure, they make many claims, but only
some of these are strictly demonstrable. Others are, at best, merely
probable or persuasive, and still others do not even reach that level.
Here, then, one finds the sage using basic philosophical distinctions
about the varying degrees of validity and soundness by which premises
and syllogisms are classified as either demonstrative, dialectical,
rhetorical, poetic, or sophistical, to call into question the presumed
soundness and certainty of whatever the philosophers have to say. By
contrast, however, the sage contends that matters of direct
observation, such as those he had described in his opening statement,
require neither proof nor demonstration. They are and ought to be
accepted as foundational. The king quickly indicates that he regards
the sage's critical observations as more likely to be persuasive
than his opening statement was, but he requests additional proof. When
told that the sage's opening statement *was*
the proof, he is plainly at a loss to understand how that is
possible. It is with this expression of puzzlement (K 1:16) that the
introductory exchanges between the king and his successive
interlocutors comes to an end. Clearly, the Jewish sage has not taken
the king very far from his skeptical moorings, but he has nevertheless
succeeded where his predecessors did not. He has caused the king to
wonder just how a person as critical and astute as the sage seems to be
could regard his extraordinary claims as constituting proof for their
own veracity. His success, simply stated, was to engage the
king's latent interest in his reply and, by doing so, to keep
their conversation going.


## 4. Grounds for Belief in the Existence of God




The sage proposes to resolve the king's puzzlement by
means of a thought experiment comprised of two hypothetical situations.
While this experiment is ultimately about what counts as sufficient
grounds to persuade him of the existence of God *as the sage has
described him*, this is neither announced in
advance nor immediately obvious from what is said. Accordingly, the
sage asks the king whether, upon being told that the ruler of India was
a virtuous man and that the people of India also had excellent
character traits and behaved justly towards one another in all their
dealings, he would be compelled to revere their ruler and recount his
exploits with praise. The Khazar king replies that there could hardly
be any compelling obligation, if there is doubt about whether the
justice of India's people was entirely of their own making, and
they have no king at all, or whether it really was due to their king,
after all, or, finally, whether it was attributable to both. His
unstated but nonetheless crucial assumption is that, of course, there
is doubt, because no compelling evidence or argument has been provided
to establish any of the three alternatives just mentioned.




The second hypothetical case immediately follows. Now the
king 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 gifts
typical of India and specifically of its royal palaces, a message
signed by the king himself, as well as medicines to cure his illnesses
and preserve his health, and poisons by which to prevail over his
enemies. The king's reply is unqualifiedly affirmative, and he
immediately explains why. His previous doubt about whether India really
had a king would have been dispelled, and he would believe that both
his dominion and his order extend to include him. When the sage then
asks the king how he would then describe the Indian king he has never
met, he responds in a way that clearly recalls his earlier remarks
about natural scientists confronted by unexplained phenomena. He says
that he would describe him, first, in terms of attributes based on
direct observation, and then in terms of other attributes that are both
generally accepted and plainly applicable because of those based on
observation.




It is only after the king has expressed himself in this way
that the sage begins to suggest that the entire thought experiment is
parabolical and that the king has, in effect, endorsed the rationality
and appropriateness of the sage's opening remarks. The
endorsement was in his having responded to the unanticipated diplomatic
mission to his court with all its concomitant benefits just as the
biblical Israelites responded to the unanticipated mission and
extraordinary benefits that came their way, which by their very nature
laid the foundation for a special relationship. By providing additional
examples about how God is known to be real only from experience or from
uninterrupted tradition which is deemed equivalent to it, rather than
from the tenuous and inconclusive arguments associated with
syllogistic, governmental religions, both the king and the reader are
left to work out the specific correspondences between the two
hypothetical cases and the claims of philosophy on the one hand, and
revealed religion on the other. Even a cursory reading, however,
establishes that in both parts of the thought experiment, the king of
India represents God, and India, the divine realm. In the first
hypothetical case, the justice of India's people seems to
represent either a pervasive, intelligible aspect of the cosmos (e.g.,
motion, causation) which serves as the starting point of cosmological
arguments generally, or, more specifically, evidence of intelligent
ordering, on which design arguments are typically based. The possible
explanations for the justice that prevails would presumably correspond
to various philosophical and theological positions that remain to be
identified. The key point is that the Khazar king recognizes that there
is no compelling evidence or argument to establish that the justice of
India's people is due to their king or that they even have a
king. Hence, he suspends judgment. In the second hypothetical case, it
is clear that the messenger of the king of India is
either an angel or a prophet, that the signed letter is most likely the
revealed Law, which repeatedly presents God, using his proper name, as
its author, and that the medicinal gifts are the divine commandments.
However the other elements of the parable might be understood, the key
point is that, based on the empirical evidence presented to him, the
king is not only prepared to acknowledge the existence of the king of
India, but also to recognize the authority of his dominion and obey his
order. In effect, the diplomatic mission which the second hypothetical
case describes creates a sense of indebtedness and obligation on the
part of the recipient which lays the groundwork for a special
relationship, such as that of a suzerain and vassal or patron and
client. As the dialogue proceeds, it will be helpful to keep in mind
both this brief reference to the Indian king's dominion and order
as well as the apparently insignificant fact that the king's
representative comes from India.


## 5. The Hierarchy of Being




The Khazar king is soon reminded that while he may have been
the beneficiary of the Indian king's largesse in the parable, the
sage's point was to show that the children of Israel were the
actual beneficiaries of divine largesse in reality. What is more, he
himself senses that their legacy seems to be confined to themselves.
Even though the sage explains that all who join them will share in
their good fortune, he also qualifies this by noting that they will
nevertheless not be equal to lineal descendants of Israel, since the
latter are "the choicest of the descendants of Adam." (K
1:26-27) Despite the king's obvious dismay, he is nonetheless
sufficiently curious about what lies behind this puzzling claim that he
agrees to the sage's request to be allowed to broaden his
explanation of it.




Halevi's task at this juncture is not only to explain
how God could have entered into contact with mere flesh and blood to
provide instruction about what is pleasing and displeasing to him, but
also to explain how *only* Israel could have
received this instruction. His strategy for explaining both
successfully is to build upon the king's skepticism regarding
claims of direct divine-human contact in order to strengthen his case
by raising such contacts to a higher level. Accordingly, the sage calls
the king's attention to the familiar hierarchical structure of
the empirical world, namely, the ascending orders of living beings that
can be perceived by the senses--plants, animals, and human beings
endowed with intellect. He also wins the king's basic assent to
his classification of each order
(*amr*) or level
(*rutbah*) by reference to the
various abilities and/or activities that distinguish the creatures that
belong to it. When the king is then asked what level might be above the
intellectual order, which distinguishes human beings as rational
animals from all other animals by virtue of their concern with
improving character traits, the household, and the city through
man-made laws and political institutions, he maintains that there is
none higher than that of great savants. To this, the sage counters that
they, too, belong to the intellectual order, since they differ from
other human beings only in degree, not in kind. So he asks about what
appears to be yet another hypothetical case: If he were to find someone
with an utterly extraordinary capacity for surviving amidst
life-threatening circumstances as well as amazing self-mastery and
knowledge of hidden things pertaining to both the past and the future,
would this not represent an essentially different level? The king
responds that it amounts to even more than that; it would be the divine
level characteristic of God's own kingdom,
*if it exists*. In addition, the person
described would come under the dominion of the divine order
(*al-amr al-ilahi*). After the
king's qualified revision of the hierarchy's true extent,
it remains only for the sage to explain that what he described were, in
fact, the attributes of the undisputed prophet through whom multitudes
of Israelites became aware of God's attachment to them and also
of the fact that God governs them in accordance with both his will and
their own obedience and disobedience, as recorded in the Bible's
historical and genealogical narratives. (K 1: 31-43)




In effect, then, the sage makes use of the king's
doubts about God's communicating with *ordinary*
human beings to persuade him that God might plausibly do so
with *super-human* beings. It
is not that the prophets, who exemplify the latter category, are not
flesh and blood, but rather that the qualities which distinguish their
souls (recalling the Khazar's concluding remarks to the
philosopher in K 1:4) raise them far above that level so as to belong,
quite literally, to one that is essentially different from and higher
than all the others, namely, "the divine order." Once this
is granted, there is no longer any insurmountable barrier between God,
angels, and human beings *of a certain
kind* that would preclude, in principle, contact
or communication between them, even though their respective powers and
ranks within the same order differ greatly. In this sense, prophets
belong to the divine order and speak on its behalf, just as the
messenger in the sage's parable comes from India with the
king's letter and appropriate gifts because he belongs to that
kingdom and was duly commissioned by its ruler. By the same token,
however, the king's appointed messengers might also be dispatched
to other members of the kingdom with announcements, instructions,
reproaches, or other communications for their benefit. Indeed, all of
these would be evidence of the king's attachment to them. They,
in turn, as subjects of the king, could be expected to have access to
him, and if they also had all of the requisite qualifications, they
might also become messengers, i.e., prophets, themselves. By
extrapolating thus from the sage's parable, it becomes clear why
Israel alone is designated as the choicest of Adam's descendents
and the recipient of God's instructions. Israel, too, belongs to
the divine order or kingdom and comes under God's own
dominion.




It should be noted, however, that interpretations of exactly
what Halevi meant by the very significant term *al-amr
al-ilahi* vary greatly. While there is a general
consensus that it signifies experienced aspects of divinity in nature
and especially in history, explanations and descriptions range from the
very abstract (e.g., "the divine matter," "the divine
thing," "the divine," "an aura enveloping the
people and land of Israel") to a wide array of specific instances
or manifestations (e.g., "God as such," "God's
will," "a super-rational faculty in man for
prophecy," "divine light"). In order to clarify and
organize the basic connotations of the term in a way that enables us to
make sense of all of Halevi's specific usages, it is helpful to
distinguish between three distinct yet related connotations originally
suggested by Shlomo Pines. He based them on his study of Shiite and
Ismaili terminology used in the
*Kuzari,* but they are introduced here
because of their direct correlation with Halevi's clearest uses
of the term in the first parts of the dialogue.




The first and most basic connotation of *al-amr
al-ilahi* signifies an arrangement, dispensation
or ordering of things which governs the affairs of all who belong to
and participate in it, such as angels, prophets, and pious friends of
God, among others. (K 1: 4, 41-43; 3: 5) Thus, "the divine
order," 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 connotation
of "the divine order," which is derived from the first,
signifies the gift or influx of prophecy, both as an experience of the
divine and as the power, capacity, or faculty within the soul that
enables one to apprehend it. (K 1: 4, 25, 43, 95, 97, 109) It is
typically bestowed on those belonging to the divine dispensation as a
sign of favor or recognition of noble rank in a special audience with
God or a divine appointee that typically confers recondite information,
specific instructions, and special powers to speak or act on his
behalf, along with the possibility of future access. In this sense,
bestowal of the divine order
*qua*prophetic gift is comparable to
what a patron does in awarding an order of merit or a commission to his
client or what a monarch does when conferring the Order of the Empire
upon a worthy subject. The third and final connotation of "the
divine order" signifies orders or commands in the conventional
sense of directives that mandate what pleases God and prohibit what
displeases him. However, even this very specific sense of the term
sometimes allows for a broader usage that signifies the power or
authority 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 presuppose
the prior reception of prophecy itself and whatever knowledge or
instruction it provides, plus the transmission of such knowledge over
time through reliable tradition from parent to child and teacher to
student. Without these, one can only speculate about divine things in
general terms and largely out of ignorance.


## 6. Qualifications for the Attainment of Prophecy and Prophetic Knowledge




It remains, then, to identify what prerequisites must be
satisfied 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 towards
philosophy and the philosopher's opening statement, he does not
refrain from appropriating from the philosopher's presentation
those elements that he believes to be correct and which might serve,
when fully explained, to advance his general argument on behalf of the
Jews 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 as
possible whatever capacity members of the divine order possess to
become prophets or, at the very least, pious friends of God, just as
the philosopher identifies these same factors in the formation of the
perfect individual who allegedly attains union with the Active
Intellect.




Regarding the first prerequisite, superior lineage, Halevi
does not state explicitly whether the influence of parents and
relatives should be construed in biological or psychological terms, or
perhaps both. Interpreters have tended to understand it as being
biological or at least quasi-biological, insofar as it is the means by
which qualified individuals are endowed with *or
inherit* a divine faculty that comes after the
intellect and facilitates contact with God as well as knowledge of
truths with only the slightest reflection. (K 1: 95) According to the
sage, Adam, who was God's own creation and perfectly made, was
endowed with it. However, he did not succeed in transmitting this
faculty to all or even most of his offspring. On the contrary, for
generations it manifested itself only in unique individuals like Abel,
Seth, Enosh, Noah and others on through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each
of whom was the choicest offspring of his father. Sometimes it even
skipped over a generation. Ultimately, however, all of Jacob's
sons proved fit for the divine order, and eventually all of their
offspring, both male and female, came to be endowed with it. It is
noteworthy that the presence or absence of this faculty is not
attributed to a divine choice, but rather to the fitness or unfitness
of the potential recipients. Still, this unusual pattern of
transmission does not make a strictly biological explanation
particularly compelling. Further, when it is recalled that the Khazar
king originally spoke of the secret character of the divine order in
conjunction with the secret character of certain
*souls*, (K 1:4) a psychological or
even cultural mode of transmission becomes more plausible. This is
especially so when the sage later speaks of the divine faculty or
capacity as "the eye of prophecy," (K 2:24) and later still
as the "inner eye" which is "almost" the same
as "the imaginative faculty as long as it serves the intellectual
faculty." (K 4:3) All of these remarks all suggest that he is
probably referring to either an exceptionally powerful internal sense
or to a distinctive way of seeing or interpreting what is seen, which
might help to explain the link between familial ties and experiencing
prophecy. Yet even here, Halevi's language is sufficiently
equivocal to allow for a wide range of interpretations.




The second prerequisite stipulates that one must dwell
within the geographic environment that uniquely fosters the attainment
of prophecy or for the sake of which it occurs. That turns out to be
the region variously identified as Syro-Palestine or the Land of
Israel. Halevi explains the region's special standing in terms of
its ideal configuration of temperate climate, its placement at the
center of the inhabited world (as then known), and its location on the
*axis mundi* that historically links heaven and
earth through prophecy, as depicted in Jacob's dream. For all
these reasons, it represents the optimal location not only for the
attainment of prophecy by qualified members of the divine order, but
also for living out the "way of life characteristic of
God's kingdom" (K 5: 20, 4th premise) mandated
by the revealed Law and intended for all who participate in that order,
whether by birth or by choice. Indeed, God is portrayed as
transplanting "his people" to "his land," in
order to realize his purpose for the land itself--to guide the
entire inhabited world in the right path. (K 1: 95; 2: 9-24; 5:
22-28)




The third and final prerequisite identifies exactly what the
instruction and training mentioned in the philosopher's speech
consists in, if it is to culminate in the experience of prophecy. Here,
abstract principles, general guidelines, and *ad hoc*
judgments, no matter how intelligent or astute, do not suffice
to produce the desired result. Only adherence to the specific
commandments and prohibitions embodied in the Written and Oral Law from
God can do so. That is because the specifics in their totality and due
proportion constitute a regimen that imparts to human souls both the
conduct and the disposition of the angels. Indeed, Halevi claims that
perseverance in performing acts mandated by the Law raises one to the
level of revelation, which is the human level closest to the divine. (K
1: 87, 98; 2:48, 50; 3: 7, 11, 53; 4:19; 5:20, 4th
premise)




What ties together these three prerequisites is
Halevi's attempt to give both actual and specific content to what
the philosopher sketched out only in broad outline. His emphasis on
specific ancestry and lineage was surely intended to call attention to
actual people whose lives were characterized by special relationships
that could affect the course of history and, as a result, to reconnect
one's own life with theirs. His emphasis on a particular
geographical environment was plainly intended to renew and strengthen
his people's sense of connection to and love for their ancestral
home and, given both the dialogue's ending and Halevi's own
choice, a willingness to return it. His emphasis, finally, on the
commandments as the clearest embodiments of what is pleasing to God was
clearly meant to nourish not only respect for the nobility of
Israel's ancestral way of life, but also to encourage renewed
commitment to that life as defined by worthy deeds and self-mastery
over and above pleasing intentions and intellectually respectable
opinions. By the same token, his elaboration of these prerequisites
over the course of the dialogue may also be intended as a critique of
philosophy in the sense that it is by its very nature unable to provide
more than general principles and guidelines in the realm of action. Its
preoccupation with the search for universals inevitably finds claims
about special qualities, places, relationships and actions to be, more
often than not, problematic or naive, and what Halevi would regard
as appropriate concern with matters of detail, outside its
purview.


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




While the sage fully appreciates that the Khazar
king's principal concern is to learn what actions are pleasing
and displeasing, he also recognizes that the king has been perplexed
and preoccupied from the beginning with the claim that God created the
world out of nothing in six days. The discussion of the divine order
and of what the attributes of the undisputed prophet are made it clear
that knowledge of hidden things in both the past and future was one
such attribute. So it is that in the course of responding to a query
about the reliability of the Bible's chronology, the sage
addresses himself to several of the reasons for the king's
perplexity about creation, and he does so in unexpected ways. First, he
flatly dismisses claims about the great antiquity of certain monuments
in India that allegedly refute the Bible's chronology and of
certain records that name people who lived before Adam. He argues that
these claims are unconfirmed and that the uneducated multitude which
accepts such things is wayward and unreliable. It is precisely because
the multitude lacks both well established beliefs and an agreed-upon
chronology, such as the Jews possess, that they succumb so easily to
credulousness.




When the sage is reminded, however, that the philosophers
believe in the past-eternity of the world and support their claims by
scrupulous investigation, the sage rejects the philosopher's view
of the past-eternity of the world as well. However, he also excuses the
philosophers for being mistaken because their lineage and geographical
environment have left them poorly equipped to receive or acquire, not
to mention preserve and transmit, reliable information on the matter.
As Greeks, they were descendents of Yaphet rather than Shem, which
means that they lacked knowledge confirmed by a divine order (i.e., a
prophetic experience apprehended by the divine faculty that sees things
as they really are). Accordingly, they could only speculate about the
matter. In addition, the variability and instability of the northern
climates contributed to the destruction or loss of what knowledge they
did have. The opposite holds true for the descendents of Shem and the
region that was their home. Having no special claim to credibility,
Aristotle's view should not be accepted. In fact, the arguments
for the two positions turn out to be evenly balanced against each other
and are therefore inconclusive. In the end, Aristotle preferred the
idea of the world's past-eternity because of an essentially
cultural predilection for the abstract argumentation supporting it and,
of course, because he lacked a reliable tradition supporting the
contrary view. Having no such tradition of his own, he never even
thought to ask others about theirs. Had he lived within a nation that
possessed such a tradition, like Israel's own, Halevi contends
that he would certainly have argued for the
*possibility* of creation, for, as the sage
points out most emphatically in an oath, the Torah teaches nothing that
directly contradicts the clear evidence of sense experience or the
conclusion of a genuine demonstration. Halevi does not spell out why he
thinks Aristotle would have decided to argue for the opposing view, but
it seems to have some connection with the status and function of oaths,
which calls for further reflection. In any event, even if it were
eventually proven that matter is eternal into the past and many worlds
preceded this one, an adherent of the Law would still be able to
maintain that traditions about the temporal origin of
*this* world and its earliest
inhabitants 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 a
remarkably rich, nuanced, yet compact summary of familiar themes in the
biblical accounts of this axial event, set within the context of the
liberation from bondage. At the same time, it links up with other
significant themes already discussed or elaborated on later in the
dialogue. Following a brief discussion of what we can know about
nature, causation, and divine agency, (K 1:68-79) the king asks the
sage to tell him how his religion developed and spread beyond its point
of origin, how it overcame internal dissension to achieve unity, and
how it eventually became well established. From the question itself, it
is obvious that the king conceives of Judaism's emergence in
purely naturalistic terms, akin to what the sage had previously
identified as a syllogistic, governmental religion. Much to his
surprise, however, the sage asserts that only man-made
*nomoi* (laws) arise in this way, while
a *nomos* that has its origin
in God arises suddenly. On being told to be, it obediently came into
being, just like the creation of the world. The king confesses to being
awestruck by this unexpected declaration, although it is unclear
whether he is more impressed by the miraculous suddenness of what is
claimed or the element of obedience associated with it.



Halevi builds upon this ambiguity as the sage proceeds to describe the
remarkable loyalty, courage, cohesiveness, and sheer endurance of the
Hebrew slaves. He traces their path out of the humiliation and misery
of Egyptian slavery to their ultimate deliverance under the leadership
of Moses and Aaron, amidst miraculous plagues announced in advance. He
goes on to recount their subsequent rescue at the sea and, finally, the
beginning of their journey into the wilderness of Sinai. Although the
sage matter-of-factly characterizes the story as lengthy and
well-known, the king's response registers its intended effect. He
says that this is truly the divine order at work, since no doubt about
these events having come about through magic, subterfuge or imagination
*grips the heart*. While his informal survey of
possible explanations is by no means exhaustive, it does underscore the
people's belief that their God can indeed do whatever he wishes
whenever he wishes--at least within the parameters of the story as
told thus far. However, it does not dispel either their doubt or the
king's own doubt as to whether God enters into contact with flesh
and blood. Halevi makes it clear that the theophany at Sinai was
intended to resolve that doubt once and for all. (K
1:80-87)



In the first of the discussion's three phases, the nature of this
persistent doubt is explained. The people are convinced that speaking
is a corporeal phenomenon, presumably because physical organs are
needed both to produce and to apprehend the sounds and a physical
medium such as air is needed to carry or convey them. But if that is
so, speech without a flesh and blood speaker seems highly unlikely.
Yet, the people had also come to believe that God was well above the
characteristics and accoutrements of flesh and blood. To remove both
the doubt itself and the concomitant supposition that any allegedly
divine Law actually had to be the result of human thought and opinion,
the people were instructed first to prepare inwardly and outwardly over
three 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 people
witnessed, on the one hand, and how they reported and transmitted what
they apprehended, on the other. What they actually witnessed was (1)
lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and fires that surrounded the
mountain; (2) Moses entering and emerging from the fire, alive; (3) the
presentation of the Ten Commandments; and (4) the stone tablets
inscribed with divine writing. The description is uncharacteristically
bare of any reference to God having said or done anything and likewise
bereft of any biblical citations to fill in the lacunae.



Immediately afterwards, the sage indicates that the multitude did not
transmit the Ten Commandments as something declared by individuals
among them or by a prophet, but by God. Later, when Moses had been
asked to serve as their intermediary with God, they believed that he
was addressed by speech that had its origin in God, but without prior
thought on his part. To make the point of God's involvement
clearer still, we are told that when Moses came down from the mountain
with the inscribed tablets in hand, all conjectures about his having
formulated the Ten Commandments on his own or with the help of the
Active Intellect, or as a figment of his imagination while dreaming
were refuted by the theophany itself--a clear invitation to
re-examine what they witnessed--and by the fact that the people
"*saw them as*divine writing, just as
they *heard them as* divine
speech." (K1:87; italics added) Given the fact that Halevi was an
accomplished poet and sensitive to the nuances of language, there is
every reason to suppose that he knew that "seeing" and
"seeing as" do not signify the same kind of activity. The
relational and interpretive character of "seeing as" and
"hearing as" raises the possibility that the imagination
may have had at least some role in how the people understood the events
they witnessed, even though the only explicit reference to it thus far
denies it any role in what Moses experienced. By the end of this phase
of Halevi's discussion, (K 1:87) it is clear that the skeptical
Israelites have at last been persuaded that God does enter into contact
with flesh and blood. They are plainly unanimous about what they
experienced and unanimous about accepting the Law as divine and
authoritative. From the standpoint of the king's four criteria
for resolving his own skepticism, the sage's account would seem
to have addressed them all with the added prospect that political
benefits like stability and cohesiveness might likewise result from his
following the Israelites example. (cf. K 1: 21-22)



In the second phase of the discussion, (K 1: 88-90) the king offers two
responses to what he has heard, but neither one explicitly states his
own view. The first suggests that "someone" who hears all
that the sage described would surely be excused for supposing that Jews
believe that God is corporeal. In saying this, he calls attention to a
common misunderstanding many people have upon first encountering
biblical and rabbinic narratives relating to God. The second response
addresses the sage, and through him the Jews generally, by allowing
that they, too, may be excused for rejecting reason and speculation
because of the *undeniable and plainly visible sights*
just related. By excusing his interlocutor and those he
represents, however, the king indicates, albeit indirectly, his own
acceptance of the evidence presented and, with it, the implication that
experience trumps both reason and speculation, (cf. K 1:4, 5)
apparently without qualification. This plainly ignores several of the
more qualified observations offered by the sage (e.g., the
"seeing"/ "seeing as" distinction), but it also
shows that the king has reached one of several turning points that
culminate in his conversion to Judaism (K 2:1) and his continuing
education through the end of the dialogue.



Unlike the king, the sage is by no means prepared to jettison reason
and speculation altogether, even and perhaps especially in defense of
his faith. Thus, he invokes God's name in an informal oath, once
again, to forbid the acceptance of anything that the intellect regards
as absurd or impossible, which in the case at hand would clearly apply
to construing God as corporeal. While his oath is surely no syllogistic
argument, it is a performative utterance to be taken with the utmost
seriousness, especially when the strictures against taking God's
name in vain are recalled. By speaking in this manner, the sage
acknowledges the supremacy of the divine order in all of its senses,
*but he does this now in defense of reason and
rationality.* Since oaths are taken, in part, to
establish truth in an inquiry, his purpose in taking this oath is
evidently to base all inquiries in pursuit of the truth on the
authority of the Law and respect for its foundations. He illustrates
the point by noting that the first of the Ten Commandments mandates the
acceptance of God's sovereignty, and his oath assuredly does
this. The second Commandment, in turn, forbids representing God
corporeally in *any* form. If
so, it would be utterly absurd for the Law to presuppose what it
prohibits (i.e., that God must be corporeal), given what the Bible
relates about the great theophany.



Once the religious and legal basis for reason's denial of divine
corporeality is established, the sage does not hesitate to offer a
speculative argument of his own. He presents it in the *a
fortiori*form often used to interpret the Law
and argues that if we maintain that many of God's creations are
above corporeality, "like the rational soul, which is what man is
in reality," how shall we not maintain that God is also above
corporeality? Using Moses as an example, he notes that the part of
Moses that speaks to, understands, and governs his people is not his
tongue, brain, or heart, which are merely organs and instruments
belonging to him, but rather his rational soul, which is what he really
is. On the basis of this clearly Platonic conception of the soul, he
goes on to argue that, owing to the soul's incorporeality, no
place is too narrow for it to enter, nor is it too narrow for the forms
of *all created things* to
find a place in it. The restriction of what the soul may eventually
understand to created things is entirely consistent with the
sage's account of the hierarchy of being. What is unexpected and
ultimately more important is that Halevi gives enormous latitude to
what the soul, or, more concretely stated, philosophers and natural
scientists, may inquire into and understand within the created world
itself. Whatever the limits of our capacity to understand divine things
rationally, he is certainly not an irrationalist or even an
anti-rationalist if that is understood to mean someone who completely
rejects inquiry and theorizing. The second phase ends with the sage
reminding the king that we must not reject what has been transmitted
about the theophany, but say instead that we do not understand how
these events and the miraculous deliverances that accompanied them took
place. As noted above, "what has been transmitted" includes
not only Moses' reports but also the multitude's
understanding and interpretation of what took place, and, insofar as
this, too, is preserved in the Written and Oral Law, rejecting it would
be tantamount to rejecting the Law itself and with it the social
contract that it embodies. Thus, it is not surprising that the king
accepts all that has been said as persuasive for the purposes of
argument.


 

In the third and concluding part of the discussion, (K 1:90) the
sage acknowledges that he is not saying categorically that the matter
took place just as he described. He allows that it may have taken
place in an even more profound way than he can *imagine*. Here,
the sage's admission would seem to create some difficulty for
his earlier claim that uninterrupted tradition is as valid as direct
observation. (K 1: 25; 5: 14) However, it also invites his
interlocutor and the reader to fulfill the last of the king's
four requirements or criteria for overcoming his skepticism about
revelation, namely to study and test the evidence repeatedly, but now
it is in order to arrive at a more profound understanding of it.




Perhaps most unexpected of all is the sage's explicit reference to
role of imagination in relating events of the past. Despite his
efforts to dismiss philosophical accounts of the imagination's role in
dream prophecy and its mimetic function in intellectual prophecy, he
now accords it a role in representing decisive events from the
past. By the time imagination reappears in Halevi's discussion of the
"inner eye" of prophecy, (K 4:3) it also has a role in
understanding and interpreting events, states of affairs, and the
natures of created things in the present. The question that remains to
be answered is whether the inner eye had the same function and also
performed that function in connection with the events associated with
the theophany at Sinai. Halevi does not address the issue. The most
that he is prepared to say is that those who witnessed those events,
noting especially the events' unprecedented character, were convinced
that they came from the Creator without intermediary, as did the
creation of the world itself. That is why faith in the divine Law is
thereafter associated by the faithful with a matching faith that the
world, too, is God's entirely originated creation.