CHAPTER X

JUDAH HALEVI

In Judah Halevi the poet got the better of the rationalist. Not that

Judah Halevi was not familiar with philosophical thinking and did not

absorb the current philosophical terminology as well as the ideas

contained therein. Quite the contrary. He shows a better knowledge of

Aristotelian ideas than his predecessors, and is well versed in

Neo-Platonism. While he attacks all those views of philosophers which

are inconsistent to his mind with the religion of Judaism, he speaks in

other respects the philosophic language, and even makes concessions to

the philosophers. If the reason should really demand it, he tells us,

one might adopt the doctrine of the eternity of matter without doing any

harm to the essence of Judaism.[178] As for the claims of reason to rule

our beliefs, he similarly admits that that which is really proved in the

same absolute manner as the propositions in mathematics and logic cannot

be controverted. But this opinion need cause one no difficulty as there

is nothing in the Bible which opposes the unequivocal demands of the

reason.[179] He cannot consistently oppose all philosophy and science,

for he maintains that the sciences were originally in the hands of the

Jews, and that it was from them that the Chaldeans borrowed them and

handed them over to the Persians, who in turn transferred them to Greece

and Rome, their origin being forgotten.[180] At the same time he insists

that philosophy and reason are not adequate means for the solution of

all problems, and that the actual solutions as found in the writings of

the Aristotelians of his day are in many cases devoid of all

demonstrative value. Then there are certain matters in theory as well as

in practice which do not at all come within the domain of reason, and

the philosophers are bound to be wrong because they apply the wrong

method. Revelation alone can make us wise as to certain aspects of God's

nature and as to certain details in human conduct; and in these

philosophy must fail because as philosophy it has no revelation. With

all due respect therefore to the philosophers, who are the most reliable

guides in matters not conflicting with revelation, we must leave them if

we wish to learn the truth concerning those matters in which they are

incompetent to judge.

This characterization of Judah Halevi's attitude is brief and

inadequate. But before proceeding to elaborate it with more detail and

greater concreteness, it will be well to sketch very briefly the little

we know of his life.[181]

Judah Halevi was born in Toledo in the last quarter of the eleventh

century. This is about the time when the city was taken from the

Mohammedans by the emperor Alphonso VI, king of Leon, Castile, Galicia

and Navarre. At the same time Toledo remained Arabic in culture and

language for a long while after this, and even exerted a great influence

upon the civilization of Christendom. The Jews were equally well treated

in Toledo by Mohammedan emir and Christian king. The youth of Halevi was

therefore not embittered or saddened by Jewish persecutions. It seems

that he was sent to Lucena, a Jewish centre, where he studied the Talmud

with the famous Alfasi, and made friends with Joseph ibn Migash,

Alfasi's successor, and Baruh Albalia, the philosopher. A poet by

nature, he began to write Hebrew verses early, and soon became famous as

a poet of the first order in no manner inferior to Gabirol. His living

he made not from his verses, but like many others of his day by

practicing the art of medicine. Later in life he visited Cordova,

already in its decline through the illiberal government of the Almoravid

dynasty. The rulers were strict religionists, implicit followers of the

"fukaha," the men devoted to the study of Mohammedan religion and law;

and scientific learning and philosophy were proscribed in their domains.

Men of another faith were not in favor, and the Jews who, unlike the

Christians, had no powerful emperor anywhere to take their part, had to

buy their lives and comparative freedom with their hard earned wealth.

Here Halevi spent some time as a physician. He was admitted in court

circles, but his personal good fortune could not reconcile him to the

sufferings of his brethren, and his letters give expression to his

dissatisfaction. He wrote a variety of poems on subjects secular and

religious; but what made him famous above all else was his strong

nationalism, and those of his poems will live longest which give

expression to his intense love for his people and the land which was

once their own. That it was not mere sentiment with Judah Halevi he

proved late in life when he decided to leave his many friends and his

birthplace and go to Palestine to end his life on the soil of his

ancestors. It was after 1140 that he left Spain for the East.

Unfavorable winds drove him out of course to Egypt, and he landed at

Alexandria. From there he went to Cairo at the invitation of his

admirers and friends. Everywhere he was received with great honor, his

fame preceding him, and he was urged to remain in Egypt. But no

dissuasion could keep him from his pious resolve. We find him later in

Damietta; we follow him to Tyre and Damascus, but beyond the last city

all trace of him is lost. We know not whether he reached Jerusalem or

not. Legend picks up the thread where history drops it, and tells of

Judah Halevi meeting his death at the gates of the holy city as with

tears he was singing his famous ode to Zion. An Arab horseman, the story

goes, pierced him through with his spear.

This sketch of Halevi's life and character, brief and inadequate as it

is, will prepare us to understand better his attitude to philosophy and

to Judaism. His was not a critical intellect whose curiosity is not

satisfied until the matter in dispute is proved in logical form. Reason

is good enough in mathematics and physics where the objects of our

investigation are accessible to us and the knowledge of their nature

exhausts their significance. It is not so with the truths of Judaism and

the nature of God. These cannot be known adequately by the reason alone,

and mere knowledge is not enough. God and the Jewish religion are not

simply facts to be known and understood like the laws of science. They

are living entities to be acquainted with, to be devoted to, to love.

Hence quite a different way of approach is necessary. And not everyone

has access to this way. The method of acquaintance is open only to those

who by birth and tradition belong to the family of the prophets, who had

a personal knowledge of God, and to the land of Palestine where God

revealed himself.[182]

We see here the nationalist speaking, the lover of his people and of

their land and language and institutions. David Kaufmann has shown that

Judah Halevi's anti-philosophical attitude has much in common with that

of the great Arab writer Al Gazali, from whom there is no doubt that he

borrowed his inspiration.[183] Gazali began as a philosopher, then lost

confidence in the logical method of proof, pointed to the contradictions

of the philosophers, to their disagreements among themselves, and went

over to the Sufis, the pietists and mystics of the Mohammedan faith.

There are a number of resemblances between Gazali and Halevi as Kaufmann

has shown, and there is no doubt that skepticism in respect of the

powers of the human reason on the one hand, and a deep religious sense

on the other are responsible for the point of view of Gazali as well as

Halevi. But there is this additional motive in Halevi that he was

defending a persecuted race and a despised faith against not merely the

philosophers but against the more powerful and more fortunate professors

of other religions. He is the loyal son of his race and his religion,

and he will show that they are above all criticism, that they are the

best and the truest there are. Maimonides, too, found it necessary to

defend Judaism against the attacks of philosophy. But in his case it was

the Jew in him who had to be defended against the philosopher in him. It

was no external enemy but an internal who must be made harmless, and the

method was one of reconciliation and harmonization. It is still truer to

say that with Maimonides both Judaism and philosophy were his friends,

neither was an enemy. He was attached to one quite as much as to the

other. And it was his privilege to reconcile their differences, to the

great gain, as he thought, of both. Judah Halevi takes the stand of one

who fights for his hearth and home against the attacks of foreign foes.

He will not yield an inch to the adversary. He will maintain his own.

The enemy cannot approach.

Thus Halevi begins his famous work "Kusari": "I was asked what I have to

say in answer to the arguments of philosophers, unbelievers and

professors of other religions against our own." Instead of working out

his ideas systematically, he wanted to give his subject dramatic

interest by clothing it in dialogue form. And he was fortunate in

finding a historical event which suited his purpose admirably.

Some three or four centuries before his time, the king of the Chazars, a

people of Turkish origin living in the Caucasus, together with his

courtiers and many of his subjects embraced Judaism. Hasdai ibn Shaprut,

the Jewish minister and patron of learning of Cordova, in the tenth

century corresponded with the then king of the Chazars, and received an

account of the circumstances of the conversion. In brief it was that the

king wishing to know which was the true religion invited representatives

of the three dominant creeds, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism,

and questioned them concerning the tenets of their respective faiths.

Seeing that the Christian as well as the Mohammedan appealed in their

arguments to the truth of the Hebrew Bible, the king concluded that

Judaism must be the true religion, which he accordingly adopted. This

story gave Halevi the background and framework for his composition. He

works out his own ideas in the form of a dialogue between the Jewish

Rabbi and the king of the Chazars, in which the former explains to the

king the essentials of the Jewish religion, and answers the king's

questions and criticisms, taking occasion to discuss a variety of

topics, religious, philosophical and scientific, all tending to show the

truth of Judaism and its superiority to other religions, to philosophy,

Kalam, and also to Karaism.

The story is, Halevi tells us, in the introduction to his book, that the

king of the Chazars had repeated dreams in which an angel said to him,

"Your intentions are acceptable to God, but not your practice." His

endeavors to be faithful to his religion, and to take part in the

services and perform the sacrifices in the temple in person only led to

the repetition of the dream. He therefore consulted a philosopher about

his belief, and the latter said to him, "In God there is neither favor

nor hatred, for he is above all desire and purpose. Purpose and

intention argue defect and want, which the fulfilment of the intention

satisfies. But God is free from want. Hence there is no purpose or

intention in his nature.

"God does not know the particular or individual, for the individual

constantly changes, whereas God's knowledge never changes. Hence God

does not know the individual man and, needless to say, he does not hear

his prayer. When the philosophers say God created man, they use the word

created metaphorically, in the sense that God is the cause of all

causes, but not that he made man with purpose and intention.

"The world is eternal, and so is the existence of man. The character and

ability of a person depend upon the causes antecedent to him. If these

are of the right sort, we have a person who has the potentialities of a

philosopher. To realize them he must develop his intellect by study, and

his character through moral discipline. Then he will receive the

influence of the 'Active Intellect,' with which he becomes identified so

that his limbs and faculties do only what is right, and are wholly in

the service of the active Intellect.

"This union with the active Intellect is the highest goal of man; and he

becomes like one of the angels, and joins the ranks of Hermes,

Æsculapius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. This is the meaning of the

expression 'favor of God.' The important thing is to study the sciences

in order to know the truth, and to practice the ethical virtues. If one

does this, it matters not what religion he professes, or whether he

professes any religion at all. He can make his own religion in order to

discipline himself in humility, and to govern his relations to society

and country. Or he can choose one of the philosophical religions. Purity

of heart is the important thing, and knowledge of the sciences. Then the

desired result will come, namely, union with the active intellect, which

may also result in the power of prophecy through true dreams and

visions."

The king was not satisfied with the statement of the philosopher, which

seemed to him inadequate because he felt that he himself had the

necessary purity of heart, and yet he was told that his practice was not

satisfactory, proving that there is something in practice as such apart

from intention. Besides, the great conflict between Christianity and

Islam, who kill one another, is due to the difference in religious

practice, and not in purity of heart. Moreover, if the view of the

philosophers were true, there should be prophecy among them, whereas in

reality prophecy is found among those who did not study the sciences

rather than among those who did.

The king then said, I will ask the Christians and the Mohammedans. I

need not inquire of the Jews, for their low condition is sufficient

proof that the truth cannot be with them. So he sent for a Christian

sage, who explained to him the essentials of his belief, saying among

other things, We believe in the creation of the world in six days, in

the descent of all men from Adam, in revelation and Providence, in

short, in all that is found in the law of Moses and in the other

Israelitish Scriptures, which cannot be doubted because of the publicity

which was given to the events recorded therein. He also quoted the

words of the gospel, I did not come to destroy any of the commandments

of Israel and of Moses their teacher; I came to confirm them.

The king was not convinced by the Christian belief, and called a

Mohammedan doctor, who in describing the specific tenets of

Mohammedanism also mentioned the fact that in the Koran are quoted the

Pentateuch and Moses and the other leaders, and the wonderful things

they did. These, he said, cannot be denied; for they are well known.

Seeing that both Christian and Mohammedan referred to the law of Moses

as true, and as evidence that God spoke to man, the king determined to

call a Jewish sage also, and hear what he had to say.

The Jewish "Haber," as Judah Halevi calls him, began his discourse by

saying, We Jews believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who took

the children of Israel out of Egypt, supported them in the wilderness,

gave them the land of Canaan, and so on.

The king was disappointed and said, I had determined not to consult the

Jews in this matter at all, because their abject condition in the world

did not leave them any good quality. You should have said, he told the

Jew, that you believe in him who created the world and governs it; who

made man and provides for him. Every religionist defends his belief in

this way.

The Jew replied, The religion to which you refer is a rational religion,

established by speculation and argument, which are full of doubt, and

about which there is no agreement among philosophers, because not all

the arguments are valid or even plausible. This pleased the king, and he

expressed a wish to continue the discourse. The Rabbi then said, The

proper way to define one's religion is by reference to that which is

more certain, namely, actual experience. Jews have this actual

experience. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob spoke to Moses and

delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. This is well known. God gave

Israel the Torah. To be sure, all others not of Israel who accept the

Law will be rewarded, but they cannot be equal to Israel. There is a

peculiar relation between God and Israel in which the other peoples do

not share. As the plant is distinguished from the mineral, the animal

from the plant, and man from the irrational animal, so is the prophetic

individual distinguished above other men. He constitutes a higher

species. It is through him that the masses became aware of God's

existence and care for them. It was he who told them things unknown to

them; who gave them an account of the world's creation and its history.

We count now forty-five hundred years from the creation. This was handed

down from Adam through Seth and Enos to Noah, to Shem and Eber, to

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Moses, and finally to us. Moses came only

four hundred years after Abraham in a world which was full of knowledge

of heavenly and earthly things. It is impossible that he should have

given them a false account of the division of languages and the

relations of nations without being found out and exposed.

The philosophers, it is true, oppose us by maintaining that the world is

eternal. But the philosophers are Greeks, descended from Japheth, who

did not inherit either wisdom or Torah. Divine wisdom is found only in

the family of Shem. The Greeks had philosophy among them only during the

short time of their power. They borrowed it from the Persians, who had

it in turn from the Chaldeans. But neither before nor after did they

have any philosophers among them.

Aristotle, not having any inherited tradition concerning the origin of

the world, endeavored to reason it all out of his own head. Eternity was

just as hard to believe in as creation. But as he had no true and

reliable tradition, his arguments in favor of eternity seemed to him to

be the stronger. Had he lived among a people who had reliable traditions

on the other side, he would have found arguments in favor of creation,

which is more plausible than eternity. Real demonstration cannot be

controverted; and there is nothing in the Bible which opposes what the

reason unequivocally demands. But the matter of eternity or creation is

very difficult. The arguments on one side are as good as those on the

other. And tradition from Adam to Noah and Moses, which is better than

argument, lends its additional weight to the doctrine of creation. If

the believer in the Torah were obliged to hold that there is a primitive

eternal matter from which the world was made, and that there were many

worlds before this one, there would be no great harm, as long as he

believes that this world is of recent origin and Adam was the first

man.[184]

We see now the standpoint of Judah Halevi, for the "Haber" is of course

his spokesman. Philosophy and independent reasoning on such difficult

matters as God and creation are after all more or less guess work, and

cannot be made the bases of religion except for those who have nothing

better. The Jews fortunately have a surer foundation all their own. They

have a genuine and indisputable tradition. History is the only true

science and the source of truth; not speculation, which is subjective,

and can be employed with equal plausibility in favor of opposite

doctrines. True history and tradition in the case of the Jews goes back

ultimately to first hand knowledge from the very source of all truth.

The prophets of Israel constitute a higher species, as much superior to

the ordinary man as the ordinary man is to the lower animal, and these

prophets received their knowledge direct from God. In principle Judah

Halevi agrees with the other Jewish philosophers that true reason cannot

be controverted. He differs with them in the concrete application of

this abstract principle. He has not the same respect as Maimonides for

the actual achievements of the unaided human reason, and an infinitely

greater respect for the traditional beliefs of Judaism and the Biblical

expressions taken in their obvious meaning. Hence he does not feel the

same necessity as Maimonides to twist the meaning of Scriptural passages

to make them agree with philosophical theories.

According to this view Judah Halevi does not find it necessary with the

philosophers and the Mutakallimun painfully to prove the existence of

God. The existence of the Jewish people and the facts of their wonderful

history are more eloquent demonstrations than any that logic or

metaphysics can muster. But more than this. The philosophical view of

God is inadequate in more ways than one. It is inaccurate in content and

incorrect in motive. In the first place, they lay a great deal of stress

on nature as the principle by which objects move. If a stone naturally

moves to the centre of the world, they say this is due to a cause called

nature. And the tendency is to attribute intelligence and creative power

to this new entity as an associate of God. This is misleading. The real

Intelligence is God alone. It is true that the elements, and the sun and

moon, and the stars exert certain influences, producing heat and cold,

and various other effects in things material, by virtue of which these

latter are prepared for the reception of higher forms. And there is no

harm in calling these agencies Nature. But we must regard these as

devoid of intelligence, and as mere effects of God's wisdom and

purpose.[185]

The philosopher denies will in God on the ground that this would argue

defect and want. This reduces God to an impersonal force. We Jews

believe God has will. The word we use does not matter. I ask the

philosopher what is it that makes the heavens revolve continually, and

the outer sphere carry everything in uniform motion, the earth standing

immovable in the centre? Call it what you please, will or command; it is

the same thing that made the air shape itself to produce the sounds of

the ten commandments which were heard, and that caused the characters to

form on the Tables of Stone.[186]

The motive of the philosopher is also different from that of the

believer. The philosopher seeks knowledge only. He desires to know God

as he desires to know the exact position and form of the earth.

Ignorance in respect to God is no more harmful in his mind than

ignorance respecting a fact in nature. His main object is to have true

knowledge in order to become like unto the Active Intellect and to be

identified with it. As long as he is a philosopher it makes no

difference to him what he believes in other respects and whether he

observes the practices of religion or not.[187]

The true belief in God is different in scope and aim. What God is must

be understood not by means of rational proofs, but by prophetic and

spiritual insight. Rational proofs are misleading, and the heretics and

unbelievers also use rational proofs--those for example who believe in

two original causes, in the eternity of the world, or in the divinity of

the sun and fire. The most subtle proofs are those used by the

philosophers, and they maintain that God is not concerned about us, and

pays no attention to our prayers and sacrifices; that the world is

eternal. It is different with us, who heard his words, his commands and

prohibitions, and felt his reward and his punishment. We have a proper

name of God, Jhvh, representative of the communications he made to us,

and we have a conviction that he created the world. The first was Adam,

who knew God through actual communication and the creation of Eve from

one of his ribs. Cain and Abel came next, then Noah and Abraham, Isaac

and Jacob, and so on to Moses and the Prophets, who came after him. All

these called him Jhvh by reason of their insight. The people who

received the teaching of the Prophets, in whom they believed, also

called him Jhvh, because he was in communication with men; and the

select among them saw him through an intermediate agency, called

variously, Form, Image, Cloud, Fire, Kingdom, Shekinah, Glory, Rainbow,

and so on, proving that he spoke to them.[188]

As the sun's light penetrates different objects in varying degrees, for

example, ruby and crystal receive the sun's light in the highest degree;

clear air and water come next, then bright stones and polished surfaces,

and last of all opaque substances like wood and earth, which the light

does not penetrate at all; so we may conceive of different minds varying

in the degree to which they attain a knowledge of God. Some arrive only

as far as the knowledge of "Elohim," while others attain to a knowledge

of Jhvh, which may be compared to the reception of the sun's light in

ruby and crystal. These are the prophets in the land of Israel. The

conception involved in the name "Elohim" no intelligent man denies;

whereas many deny the conception of Jhvh, because prophecy is an unusual

occurrence even among individuals, not to speak of a nation. That is why

Pharaoh said (Exod. 5, 2), "I know not Jhvh." He knew "Elohim," but not

Jhvh, that is a God who reveals himself to man. "Elohim" may be arrived

at by reasoning; for the reason tells us that the world has a ruler;

though the various classes of men differ as to details, the most

plausible view being that of the philosophers. But the conception of

Jhvh cannot be arrived at by reason. It requires that prophetic vision

by which a person almost becomes a member of a new species, akin to

angels. Then the doubts he formerly had about "Elohim" fall away, and he

laughs at the arguments which led him to the conception of God and of

unity. Now he becomes a devotee, who loves the object of his devotion,

and is ready to give his life in his love for him, because of the great

happiness he feels in being near to him, and the misery of being away

from him. This is different from the philosopher, who sees in the

worship of God only good ethics and truth, because he is greater than

all other existing things; and in unbelief nothing more than the fault

of choosing the untrue.[189]

Here there is clearly a touch of religious poetry and mysticism, which

reveals to us Halevi's real attitude, and we have no difficulty in

understanding his lack of sympathy with what seemed to him the shallow

rationalism of the contemporaneous Aristotelian, who fancied in his

conceit that with a few logical formulæ he could penetrate the

mysteries of the divine, when in reality he was barely enabled to skim

the surface; into the sanctuary he could never enter.

Though, as we have just seen, Halevi has a conception of God as a

personal being, acting with purpose and will and, as we shall see more

clearly later, standing in close personal relation to Israel and the

land of Palestine, still he is very far from thinking of him

anthropomorphically. In his discussion of the divine attributes he

yields to none in removing from God any positive quality of those

ascribed to him in the Bible. The various names or appellatives applied

to God in Scripture, except the tetragrammaton, he divides, according to

their signification, into three classes, _actional_, _relative_,

_negative_. Such expressions as "making high," "making low," "making

poor," almighty, strong, jealous, revengeful, gracious, merciful, and so

on, do not denote, he says, feeling or emotion in God. They are ascribed

to him because of his visible acts or effects in the world, which we

judge on the analogy of our own acts. As a human being is prompted to

remove the misery of a fellowman because he feels pity, we ascribe all

instances of divine removal of misery from mankind to a similar feeling

in God, and call him merciful. But this is only a figure of speech. God

does remove misery, but the feeling of pity is foreign to him. We call

therefore the attribute merciful and others like it actional, meaning

that it is God's acts which suggest to us these appellations.

Another class of attributes found in the Bible embraces such expressions

as blessed, exalted, holy, praised, and so on. These are called

relative, because they are derived from the attitude of man to God. God

is blessed because men bless him, and so with the rest. They do not

denote any essential quality in God. And hence their number does not

necessitate plurality in God. Finally we have such terms as living, one,

first, last, and so on. These too do not denote God's positive essence,

for in reality God cannot be said to be either living or dead. Life as

we understand it denotes sensation and motion, which are not in God. If

we do apply to God the term living, we do so in order to exclude its

negative, dead. Living means not dead; one means not many; first means

not having any cause antecedent to him; last means never ceasing to be.

Hence we call these attributes negative.[190]

We see that Judah Halevi is at one with Bahya and Joseph ibn Zaddik in

his understanding of the divine attributes. The slight difference in the

mode of classification is not essential.

This God chose Israel and gave them the ten commandments in order to

convince them that the Law originated from God and not from Moses. For

they might have had a doubt in their minds, seeing that speech is a

material thing, and believe that the origin of a law or religion is in

the mind of a human being, which afterwards comes to be believed in as

divine. For this reason God commanded the people to purify themselves

and be ready for the third day, when they _all_ heard the word of God,

and were convinced that prophecy is not what the philosophers say it

is--a natural result of man's reason identifying itself with the Active

Intellect through the help of the imagination, which presents true

visions in a dream--but a real communication from God. Not only did they

hear the word of God, but they saw the writing of God on the Tables of

Stone.

This does not mean that we believe in the corporeality of God; Heaven

forbid, we do not even think of the soul of man as corporeal. But we

cannot deny the things recorded, which are well known. Just as God

created heaven and earth, not by means of material tools as a man does,

but by his will, so he might have willed that the air should convey

articulate sounds to the ear of Moses, and that letters should be formed

on the Tables of Stone to convey to the people the ideas which he wanted

them to know. They might have happened in a still more wonderful way

than I have been able to conceive.

This may seem like an unwarranted magnifying of the virtues of our

people. But in reality it is true that the chain of individuals from

Adam to Moses and thereafter was a remarkable one of godly men. Adam was

surely a godlike man since he was made by the hand of God and was not

dependent on the inherited constitution of his parents, and on the food

and climate he enjoyed in the years of his growth. He was made perfect

as in the time of mature youth when a person is at his best, and was

endowed with the best possible soul for man. Abel was his successor in

excellence, also a godly man, and so down the line through Seth and

Noah, and so on. There were many who were unworthy and they were

excluded. But there was always one in every generation who inherited the

distinguished qualities of the Adam line. And even when, as in the case

of Terah, the individual was unworthy in himself, he was important as

being destined to give birth to a worthy son, who would carry on the

tradition, like Abraham. Among Noah's sons, Shem was the select one, and

he occupied the temperate regions of Palestine, whereas Japheth went

north and Ham went south--regions not so favorable to the development of

wisdom.[191]

The laws were all given directly to Moses with all their details so that

there is no doubt about any of them. This was absolutely necessary, for

had there been any detail left out, a doubt might arise respecting it

which would destroy the whole spiritual structure of Judaism. This is

not a matter which philosophical reasoning can think out for itself. As

in the natural generation of plant and animal the complexity of elements

and conditions is so great that a slight tilting of the balance in the

wrong direction produces disease and death, so in the spiritual creation

of Israel the ceremonies and the laws are all absolutely essential to

the whole, whether we understand it or not, and none could be left to

speculation. All were given to Moses.

Moses addressed himself to his own people only. You say it would have

been better to call all mankind to the true religion. It would be better

also perhaps that all animals should be rational. You have forgotten

what I said about the select few that worthily succeeded Adam as the

heart of the family to the exclusion of the other members, who are as

the peel, until in the sons of Jacob all twelve were worthy, and from

them Israel is descended. These remarkable men had divine qualities

which made them a different species from ordinary men. They were aiming

at the degree of the prophet, and many of them reached it by reason of

their purity, holiness and proximity to the Prophets. For a prophet has

a great influence on the one who associates with him. He converts the

latter by awakening in him spirituality and a desire to attain that high

degree which brings visible greatness and reward in the world to come,

when the soul is separated from the senses and enjoys the heavenly

light. We do not exclude anyone from the reward due him for his good

works, but we give preference to those who are near to God, and we

measure their reward in the next world by this standard. Our religion

consists not merely in saying certain words, but in difficult practices

and a line of conduct which bring us near to God. Outsiders too may

attain to the grade of wise and pious men, but they cannot become equal

to us and be prophets.[192]

Not only is Israel a select nation to whom alone prophecy is given as a

gift, but Palestine is the most suitable place in the world for

communion with God, as a certain spot may be best for planting certain

things and for producing people of a particular character and

temperament. All those who prophesied outside of Palestine did so with

reference to Palestine. Abraham was not worthy of the divine covenant

until he was in this land. Palestine was intended to be a guide for the

whole world. The reason the second Temple did not last longer than it

did is because the Babylonian exiles did not sufficiently love their

fatherland and did not all return when the decree of Cyrus permitted

them to do so.[193]

Israel is the heart among the nations. The heart is more sensitive than

the rest of the body in disease as in health. It feels both more

intensely. It is more liable to disease than the other organs, and on

the other hand it becomes aware sooner of agencies dangerous to its

health and endeavors to reject them or ward them off. So Israel is among

the nations. Their responsibility is greater than that of other nations

and they are sooner punished. "Only you have I loved out of all the

families of the earth," says Amos (3, 2), "therefore will I visit upon

you all your iniquities." On the other hand, God does not allow our sins

to accumulate as he does with the other nations until they deserve

destruction. "He pardons the iniquities of his people by causing them to

pass away in due order." As the heart is affected by the other organs,

so Israel suffers on account of their assimilation to the other nations.

Israel suffers while the other nations are in peace. As the elements are

for the sake of the minerals, the minerals for the sake of the plants,

the plants for the sake of the animals, the animals for the sake of man,

so is man for the sake of Israel, and Israel for the sake of the

Prophets and the pious men. With the purification of Israel the world

will be improved and brought nearer to God.[194]

Associated with Israel and Palestine as a third privilege and

distinction is the Hebrew language. This is the original language which

God spoke to Adam. The etymologies of Biblical names prove it. It was

richer formerly, and has become impoverished in the course of time like

the people using it. Nevertheless it still shows evidence of

superiority to other languages in its system of accents which shows the

proper expression in reading, and in its wonderful system of vowel

changes producing euphony in expression and variation in meaning.[195]

The highest type of man, we have seen, is the Prophet, for whose sake

Israel and the whole of humanity exists. He is the highest type because

he alone has an immediate knowledge of Jhvh as distinguished from

"Elohim," the concept of universal cause and power, which the

philosopher also is able to attain. Jhvh signifies, as we have seen, the

personal God who performs miracles and reveals himself to mankind

through the prophet. We wish to know therefore how Judah Halevi

conceives of the essence and process of prophetic inspiration. We are

already aware that he is opposed to the philosophers who regard the

power of prophecy as a natural gift possessed by the man of pure

intellect and perfect power of imagination. To these Aristotelians, as

we shall have occasion to see more clearly later, the human intellect is

nothing more than an individualized reflection, if we may so term it, of

the one universal intellect, which is--not God, but an intellectual

substance wholly immaterial, some nine or ten degrees removed from the

Godhead. It is called the Active Intellect, and its business is to

govern the sublunar world of generation and decay. As pure thought the

Active Intellect embraces as its content the entire sublunar world in

essence. In fact it bestows the forms (in the Aristotelian sense) upon

the things of this world, and hence has a timeless knowledge of all the

world and its happenings. The individualized reflection of it in the

human soul is held there so long as the person is alive, somewhat as a

drop of water may hold the moon until it evaporates, and the reflection

is reabsorbed in the one real moon. So it is the Active Intellect which

is the cause of all conceptual knowledge in man through its

individualizations, and into it every human intellect is reabsorbed when

the individual dies. Some men share more, some less in the Active

Intellect; and it is in everyone's power, within limits, to increase and

purify his participation in the influence of the Active Intellect by

study and rigorous ethical discipline. The prophet differs from the

ordinary man and the philosopher in degree only, not in kind. His

knowledge comes from the influence of the Active Intellect as does the

knowledge of the philosopher. The difference is that in the prophet's

case the imagination plays an important rôle and presents concrete

visions instead of universal propositions, and the identification with

the Active Intellect is much closer.

This conception of prophecy, which in its essentials, we shall see, was

adopted by Abraham ibn Daud, Maimonides and Gersonides, naturally would

not appeal to Judah Halevi. Prophecy is the prerogative of Israel and of

Palestine. The philosophers have nothing to do with it. A mere

philosopher has no more chance of entering the kingdom of prophecy than

a camel of passing through the eye of a needle.[B] Have the philosophers

ever produced prophets? And yet, if their explanation is correct, their

ranks should abound in them. Prophecy is a supernatural power, and the

influence comes from God. The prophet is a higher species of mortal. He

is endowed with an internal eye, a hidden sense, which sees certain

immaterial objects, as the external sense sees the physical objects. No

one else sees those forms, but they are none the less real, for the

whole species of prophetic persons testify to their existence. In

ordinary perception we tell a real object from an illusion by appealing

to the testimony of others. What appears to a single individual only may

be an illusion. If all persons agree that the object is there, we

conclude it is real. The same test holds of the prophetic visions. All

prophets see them. Then the intellect of the prophet interprets the

vision, as our intellect interprets the data of our senses. The latter

give us not the essence of the sensible object, but the superficial

accidents, such as color, shape, and so on. It is the work of the reason

to refer these qualities to the essence of the object, as king, sun. The

same holds true of the prophet. He sees a figure in the form of a king

or a judge in the act of giving orders; and he knows that he has before

him a being that is served and obeyed. Or he sees the form in the act of

carrying baggage or girded for work; and he infers that he is dealing

with a being that is meant for a servant. What these visions really were

it is not in all cases possible to know with certainty. There is no

doubt that the Prophets actually saw the hosts of heaven, the spirits of

the spheres, in the form of man. The word angel in the Bible (Heb.

Mal`ak) means messenger. What these messengers or angels were we cannot

tell with certainty. They may have been specially created from the fine

elementary bodies, or they belonged to the eternal angels, who may be

the same as the spiritual beings of whom the philosophers speak. We can

neither reject their view nor definitely accept it. Similarly the

expression, "The Glory of Jhvh," may denote a fine body following the

will of God and formed every time it has to appear to a prophet, or it

may denote all the angels and spiritual beings, Throne and Chariot and

Firmament, and Ofannim and Galgalim, and other eternal beings

constituting, so to speak, the suite of God.

[B] This simile represents Halevi's thought. He does not use this

expression.

Even such phrases as, "They saw the God of Israel" (Exod. 24, 10), "He

saw the form of Jhvh" (Num. 12, 8), the Rabbinic expression "Maase

Merkaba" (work of the divine chariot, _cf._ above, p. xvi), and the

later discussions concerning the "Measure of the divine stature" (Shi`ur

Komah), must not be rejected. These visual images representative of God

are calculated to inspire fear in the human soul, which the bare

conception of the One, Omnipotent, and so on, cannot produce.[196]

As Judah Halevi is unwilling to yield to the philosophers and explain

away the supernaturalism of prophecy, maintaining rather on the contrary

that the supernatural character of the prophetic vision is an evidence

of the superior nature of Israel as well as of their land and their

language, so he insists on the inherent value of the ceremonial law,

including sacrifices. To Saadia, and especially to Bahya and Maimonides,

the test of value is rationality. The important laws of the Bible are

those known as the rational commandments. The other class, the so-called

traditional commandments, would also turn out to be rational if we knew

the reason why they were commanded. And in default of exact knowledge it

is the business of the philosopher to suggest reasons. Bahya lays the

greatest stress upon the commandments of the heart, _i. e._, upon the

purity of motive and intention, upon those laws which concern feeling

and belief rather than outward practice. Judah Halevi's attitude is

different. If the only thing of importance in religion were intention

and motive and moral sense, why should Christianity and Islam fight to

the death, shedding untold human blood in defence of their religion. As

far as ethical theory and practice are concerned there is no difference

between them. Ceremonial practice is the only thing that separates them.

And the king of the Chazars was told repeatedly in his dreams that his

intentions were good but not his practice, his religious practice. To be

sure the ethical law is important in any religion, but it is not

peculiar to religion as such. It is a necessary condition of social

life, without which no association is possible, not even that of a

robber band. There is honesty even among thieves. Religion has its

peculiar practices, and it is not sufficient for an Israelite to observe

the rational commandments alone. When the Prophets inveigh against

sacrifices; when Micah says (6, 8), "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is

good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to

love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," they mean that the

ceremonies alone are not sufficient; but surely a man is not fully an

Israelite if he neglects the ceremonial laws and observes only the

rational commandments. We may not understand the value of the ceremonial

laws, the meaning of the institution of sacrifices. But neither do we

understand why the rational soul does not attach itself to a body except

when the parts are arranged in a certain manner and the elements are

mixed in a certain proportion, though the reason needs not food and

drink for itself. God has arranged it so, that only under certain

conditions shall a body receive the light of reason. So in the matter of

sacrifices God has ordained that only when the details of the

sacrificial and other ceremonies are minutely observed shall the nation

enjoy his presence and care. In some cases the significance of certain

observances is clearer than in others. Thus the various festivals are

also symbolic of certain truths of history and the divine government of

the world. The Sabbath leads to the belief in the exodus from Egypt and

the creation of the world; and hence inculcates belief in God.[197]

In his views of ethics Judah Halevi is more human than Bahya, being

opposed to all manner of asceticism. The law, he says, does not demand

excess in any direction. Every power and faculty must be given its due.

Our law commends fear, love and joy as means of worshipping God; so that

fasting on a fast day does not bring a man nearer to God than eating and

drinking and rejoicing on a feast day, provided all is done with a view

to honoring God. A Jewish devotee is not one who separates himself from

the world. On the contrary, he loves the world and a long life because

thereby he wins a share in the world to come. Still his desire is to

attain the degree of Enoch or Elijah, and to be fit for the association

of angels. A man like this feels more at home when alone than in

company of other people; for the higher beings are his company, and he

misses them when people are around him. Philosophers also enjoy solitude

in order to clarify their thoughts, and they are eager to meet disciples

to discuss their problems with them. In our days it is difficult to

reach the position of these rare men. In former times when the Shekinah

rested in the Holy Land, and the nation was fit for prophecy, there were

people who separated themselves from their neighbors and studied the law

in purity and holiness in the company of men like them. These were the

Sons of the Prophets. Nowadays when there is neither prophecy nor

wisdom, a person who attempted to do this, though he be a pious man,

would come to grief; for he would find neither prophets nor philosophers

to keep him company; nor enough to keep his mind in that high state of

exaltation needed for communion with God. Prayer alone is not

sufficient, and soon becomes a habit without any influence on the soul.

He would soon find that the natural powers and desires of the soul begin

to assert themselves and he will regret his separation from mankind,

thus getting farther away from God instead of coming nearer to him.

The right practice of the pious man at the present day is to give all

the parts of the body their due and no more, without neglecting any of

them; and to bring the lower powers and desires under the dominion of

the higher; feeding the soul with things spiritual as the body with

things material. He must keep himself constantly under guard and

control, making special use of the times of prayer for self-examination,

and striving to retain the influence of one prayer until the time comes

for the next. He must also utilize the Sabbaths and the festivals and

the Great Fast to keep himself in good spiritual trim. In addition he

must observe all the commandments, traditional, rational, and those of

the heart, and reflect on their meaning and on God's goodness and

care.[198]

Judah Halevi has no doubt of the immortality of the soul and of reward

and punishment after death, though the Bible does not dwell upon these

matters with any degree of emphasis. Other religions, he admits, make

greater promises of reward after death, whereas Judaism offers divine

nearness through miracles and prophecy. Instead of saying, If you do

thus and so, I will put you in gardens after death and give you

pleasures, our Law says, I will be your God and you will be my people.

Some of you will stand before me and will go up to heaven, walking among

the angels; and my angels will walk among you, protecting you in your

land, which is the holy land, not like the other nations, which are

governed by nature. Surely, he exclaims, we who can boast of such things

during life are more certain of the future world than those whose sole

reliance is on promises of the hereafter. It would not be correct, the

Rabbi says to the king of the Chazars, who was tempted to despise the

Jews as well as their religion because of their material and political

weakness, to judge of our destiny after death by our condition during

life, in which we are inferior to all other people. For these very

people, like the Christians and Mohammedans, glory in their founders,

who were persecuted and despised, and not in the present power and

luxury of the great kings. The Christians in particular worship the man

who said, "Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the

other also. And if a man ... take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak

also" (Matth. 5, 39). Accordingly our worth is greater in the sight of

God than if we were prosperous. It is true that not all of us accept our

miserable condition with becoming humility. If we did, God would not

keep us so long in misery. But after all there is reward awaiting our

people for bearing the yoke of the exile voluntarily, when it would be

an easy matter for any one of us to become a brother to our oppressors

by the saying of one word.

Our wise men, too, have said a great deal about the pleasures and

sufferings awaiting us in the next world, and in this also they surpass

the wise men of other religions. The Bible, it is true, does not lay

stress on this aspect of our belief; but so much is clear from the Bible

also, that the spirit returns to God. There are also allusions to the

immortality of the soul in the disappearance of Elijah, who did not die,

and in the belief of his second coming. This appears also from the

prayer of Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my

last end be like his" (Num. 23, 10), and from the calling of Samuel from

the dead. The idea of paradise (Gan Eden) is taken from the Torah, and

Gehenna is a Hebrew word, the name of a valley near Jerusalem, where

fire always burned, consuming unclean bones, carcases, and so on. There

is nothing new in the later religions which is not already found in

ours.[199]

An important ethical problem which Judah Halevi discusses more

thoroughly than any of his predecessors is that of free will, which he

defends against fatalistic determinism, and endeavors to reconcile with

divine causality and foreknowledge. We have already seen (p. xxi) that

this was one of the important theses of the Mu`tazilite Kalam. And there

is no doubt that fatalism is opposed to Judaism. A fatalistic

determinist denies the category of the contingent or possible. He says

not merely that an event is determined by its proximate cause, he goes

further and maintains that it is determined long in advance of any of

its secondary causes by the will of God. It would follow then that there

is no way of preventing an event thus predetermined. If we take pains to

avoid a misfortune fated to come upon us, our very efforts may carry us

toward it and land us in its clutches. Literature is full of stories

illustrating this belief, as for example the story of OEdipus. Against

this form of belief Judah Halevi vindicates the reality of the

contingent or possible as opposed to the necessary. No one except the

obstinate and perverse denies the possible or contingent. His

preparations to meet and avoid that which he hopes and fears prove that

he believes the thing amenable to pains and precautions. If he had not

this belief, he would fold his hands in resignation, never taking the

trouble to supply himself with arms to meet his enemy, or with water to

quench his thirst. To be sure, we may argue that whether one prepare

himself or omit to do so, the preparation or neglect is itself

determined. But this is no longer the same position as that maintained

at the outset. For we now admit that secondary causes do play a part in

determining the result, whereas we denied it at first. The will is one

of these secondary causes. Accordingly Judah Halevi divides all acts or

events into four classes, divine, natural, accidental and voluntary.

Strictly divine events are the direct results of the divine will without

any intermediate cause. There is no way of preparing for or avoiding

these; not, that is, physically; but it is possible to prepare oneself

mentally and morally, namely, through the secrets of the Torah to him

who knows them.

Natural events are produced by secondary causes, which bring the objects

of nature to their perfection. These produce their effects regularly and

uniformly, provided there is no hindrance on the part of the other

three causes. An example of natural events would be the growth of a

plant or animal under favorable conditions. Accidental events are also

produced by secondary causes, but they happen by chance, not regularly

and not as a result of purpose. Their causes are not intended for the

purpose of bringing perfection to their chance effects. These too may be

hindered by any one of the other three causes. An example of a chance

event might be death in war. The secondary cause is the battle, but its

purpose was not that this given person might meet his death there, and

not all men die in war.

Finally, voluntary acts are those caused by the will of man. It is these

that concern us most. We have already intimated that the human will is

itself a secondary cause and has a rôle in determining its effect. It is

true that the will itself is caused by other higher causes until we get

to the first cause, but this does not form a _necessary_ chain of

causation. Despite the continuous chain of causes antecedent to a given

volition the soul finding itself in front of a given plan is free to

choose either of the two alternatives. To say that a man's speech is as

necessary as the beating of his pulse contradicts experience. We feel

that we are masters of our speech and our silence. The fact that we

praise and blame and love and hate a person according to his deliberate

conduct is another proof of freedom. We do not blame a natural or

accidental cause. We do not blame a child or a person asleep when they

cause damage, because they did not do the damage deliberately and with

intention. If those who deny freedom are consistent, they must either

refrain from being angry with a person who injures them deliberately, or

they must say that anger and praise and blame and love and hate are

delusive powers put in our souls in vain. Besides there would be no

difference between the pious and the disobedient, because both are doing

that which they are by necessity bound to do.

But there are certain strong objections to the doctrine of freedom. If

man is absolutely free to do or forbear, it follows that the effects of

his conduct are removed from God's control. The answer to this is that

they are not absolutely removed from his control. They are still related

to him by a chain of causes.

Another argument against free will is that it is irreconcilable with

God's knowledge. If man alone is the master of his choice, God cannot

know beforehand what he will choose. And if God does know, the man

cannot but choose as God foreknew he would choose, and what becomes of

his freedom? This may be answered by saying that the knowledge of a

thing is not the cause of its being. We do not determine a past event by

the fact that we know it. Knowledge is simply evidence that the thing

is. So man chooses by his own determination, and yet God knows

beforehand which way he is going to choose, simply because he sees into

the future as we remember the past.[200]

Judah Halevi's discussion of the problem of freedom is fuller than any

we have met so far in our investigation. But it is not satisfactory.

Apart from his fourfold classification of events which is open to

criticism, there is a weak spot in the very centre of his argument,

which scarcely could have escaped him. He admits that the will is caused

by higher causes ending ultimately in the will of God, and yet maintains

in the same breath that the will is not determined. As free the will is

removed from God's control, and yet it is not completely removed, being

related to him by a chain of causes. This is a plain contradiction,

unless we are told how far it is determined and how far it is not.

Surely the aspect in which it is not determined is absolutely removed

from God's control and altogether uncaused. But Judah Halevi is

unwilling to grant this. He just leaves us with the juxtaposition of two

incompatibles. We shall see that Hasdai Crescas was more consistent, and

admitted determinism.

We have now considered Judah Halevi's teachings, and have seen that he

has no sympathy with the point of view of those people who were called

in his day philosophers, _i. e._, those who adopted the teachings

ascribed to Aristotle. At the same time he was interested in maintaining

that all science really came originally from the Jews; and in order to

prove this he undertakes a brief interpretation of the "Sefer Yezirah"

(Book of Creation), an early mystic work of unknown authorship and date,

which Judah Halevi in common with the uncritical opinion of his day

attributed to Abraham.[201] Not to lay himself open to the charge of

inconsistency, he throws out the suggestion that the Sefer Yezirah

represented Abraham's own speculations before he had the privilege of a

prophetic communication from God. When that came he was ready to abandon

all his former rationalistic lucubrations and abide by the certainty of

revealed truth.[202] We may therefore legitimately infer that Judah

Halevi's idea was that the Jews were the originators of philosophy, but

that they had long discarded it in favor of something much more valid

and certain; whereas the Greeks and their descendants, having nothing

better, caught it up and are now parading it as their own discovery and

even setting it up as superior to direct revelation.

Natural science in so far as it had to do with more or less verifiable

data could not be considered harmful, and so we find Judah Halevi taking

pains to show that the sages of Rabbinical literature cultivated the

sciences, astronomy in connection with the Jewish calendar; anatomy,

biology and physiology in relation to the laws of slaughter and the

examination of animal meat (laws of "Terefa").[203]

But so great was the fascination philosophy exerted upon the men of his

generation that even Judah Halevi, despite his efforts to shake its

authority and point out its inadequacy and evident inferiority to

revelation, was not able wholly to escape it. And we find accordingly

that he deems it necessary to devote a large part of the fifth book of

the Kusari to the presentation of a bird's eye view of the current

philosophy of the day. To be sure, he does not give all of it the stamp

of his approval; he repeatedly attacks its foundations and lays bare

their weakness. At the same time he admits that not every man has faith

by nature and is proof against the erroneous arguments of heretics,

astrologers, philosophers and others. The ordinary mortal is affected by

them, and may even be misled for a time until he comes to see the truth.

It is therefore well to know the principles of religion according to

those who defend it by reason, and this involves a knowledge of science

and theology. But we must not, he says, in the manner of the Karaites,

advance all at once to the higher study of theology. One must first

understand the fundamental principles of physics, psychology, and so on,

such as matter and form, the elements, nature, Soul, Intellect, Divine

Wisdom. Then we can proceed to the more properly theological matters,

like the future world, Providence, and so on.

Accordingly Judah Halevi gives us in the sequel a brief account such as

he has just outlined. It will not be worth our while to reproduce it all

here, as in the first place Judah Halevi does not give it as the result

of his own investigation and conviction, and secondly a good deal of it

is not new; and we have already met it in more or less similar form

before in Joseph ibn Zaddik, Abraham bar Hiyyah, and others. We must

point out, however, the new features which we did not meet before,

explain their origin and in particular indicate Judah Halevi's

criticisms.

In general we may say that Judah Halevi has a better knowledge of

Aristotelian doctrines than any of his predecessors. Thus to take one

example, which we used before (p. 138), Aristotle's famous definition of

the soul is quoted by Isaac Israeli, Saadia, Joseph ibn Zaddik as well

as by Judah Halevi. Israeli does not discuss the definition in

detail.[204] Saadia and Ibn Zaddik show clearly that they did not

understand the precise meaning of the definition. Judah Halevi is the

first who understands correctly all the elements of the definition. And

yet it would be decidedly mistaken to infer from this that Judah Halevi

studied the Aristotelian works directly. By a fortunate discovery of S.

Landauer[205] we are enabled to follow Judah Halevi's source with the

certainty of eyewitnesses. The sketch which he gives of the Aristotelian

psychology is taken bodily not from Aristotle's De Anima, but from a

youthful work of Ibn Sina. Judah Halevi did not even take the trouble to

present the subject in his own words. He simply took his model and

abridged it, by throwing out all argumentative, illustrative and

amplificatory material. Apart from this abridgment he follows his

authority almost word for word, not to speak of reproducing the ideas in

the original form and order. This is a typical and extremely instructive

instance; and it shows how careful we must be before we decide that a

mediæval writer read a certain author with whose ideas he is familiar

and whom he quotes.

In the sketch of philosophical theory Judah Halevi first speaks of the

hyle ([Greek: hylê]) or formless matter, which according to the

philosophers was in the beginning of things contained within the lunar

sphere. The "water" in the second verse of Genesis ("and the spirit of

God moved upon the face of the water") is supposed by them to denote

this primitive matter, as the "darkness" in the same verse and the

"chaos" ("Tohu") in the first verse signify the absence of form and

composition in the matter (the Aristotelian [Greek: sterêsis]). God then

willed the revolution of the outermost sphere, known as the diurnal

sphere, which caused all the other spheres to revolve with it, thereby

producing changes in the hyle in accordance with the motions of the

sphere. The first change was the heating of that which was next to the

lunar sphere and making it into pure fire, known among the philosophers

as "natural fire," a pure, fine and light substance, without color or

burning quality. This became the sphere of fire. The part that was

further away changed as a result of the same revolution into the sphere

of air, then came the sphere of water, and finally the terrestrial globe

in the centre, heavy and thick by reason of its distance from the place

of motion. From these four elements come the physical objects by

composition. The forms (in the Aristotelian sense) of things are imposed

upon their matters by a divine power, the "Intellect, and Giver of

Forms"; whereas the matters come from the hyle, and the accidental

proximity of different parts to the revolving lunar sphere explains why

some parts became fire, some air, and so on.

To this mechanical explanation of the formation of the elements Judah

Halevi objects. As long as the original motion of the diurnal sphere is

admittedly due not to chance but to the will of God, what is gained by

referring the formation of the elements to their accidental proximity to

the moving sphere, and accounting for the production of mineral, plant

and animal in the same mechanical way by the accidental composition of

the four elements in proportions varying according to the different

revolutions and positions of the heavenly bodies? Besides if the latter

explanation were true, the number of species of plants and animals

should be infinite like the various positions and formations of the

heavenly bodies, whereas they are finite and constant. The argument from

the design and purpose that is clearly visible in the majority of plants

and animals further refutes such mechanical explanation as is attempted

by the philosophers. Design is also visible in the violation of the

natural law by which water should always be above and around earth;

whereas in reality we see a great part of the earth's surface above

water. This is clearly a beneficent provision in order that animal life

may sustain itself, and this is the significance of the words of the

Psalmist (136, 6), "To him that stretched out the earth above the

waters."

The entire theory of the four elements and the alleged composition of

all things out of them is a pure assumption. Take the idea of the world

of fire, the upper fire as they call it, which is colorless, so as not

to obstruct the color of the heavens and the stars. Whoever saw such a

fire? The only fire we know is an extremely hot object in the shape of

coal, or as a flame in the air, or as boiling water. And whoever saw a

fiery or aëry body enter the matter of plant and animal so as to warrant

us in saying that the latter are composed of the four elements? True, we

know that water and earth do enter the matter of plants, and that they

are assisted by the air and the heat of the sun in causing the plant to

grow and develop, but we never see a fiery or aëry body. Or whoever saw

plants resolved into the four elements? If a part changes into earth, it

is not real earth, but ashes; and the part changed to water is not real

water, but a kind of moisture, poisonous or nutritious, but not water

fit for drinking. Similarly no part of the plant changes to real air fit

for breathing, but to vapor or mist. Granted that we have to admit the

warm and the cold, and the moist and the dry as the primary qualities

without which no body can exist; and that the reason resolves the

composite objects into these primary qualities, and posits substances as

bearers of these qualities, which it calls fire, air, water and

earth--this is true conceptually and theoretically only. It cannot be

that the primary qualities really existed in the simple state _extra

animam_, and then all existing things were made out of them. How can the

philosophers maintain such a thing, since they believe in the eternity

of the world, that it always existed as it does now?

These are the criticisms of their theory of the elements. According to

the Torah God created the world just as it is, with its animals and

plants already formed. There is no need of assuming intermediate powers

or compositions. The moment we admit that the world was created out of

nothing by the will of God in the manner in which he desired, all

difficulties vanish about the origin of bodies and their association

with souls. And there is no reason why we should not accept the

firmament, and the waters above the heaven, and the demons mentioned by

the Rabbis, and the account of the days of the Messiah and the

resurrection and the world to come.[206]

Another theory he criticizes is that developed by Alfarabi and Avicenna,

the chief Aristotelians of the Arabs before Averroes. It is a

combination of Aristotelianism with the Neo-Platonic doctrine of

emanation, though it was credited as a whole to Aristotle in the middle

ages. We have already seen in the Introduction (p. xxxiv) that Aristotle

conceived the world as a series of concentric spheres with the earth in

the centre. The principal spheres are eight in number, and they carry in

order, beginning with the external sphere, (1) the fixed stars, (2)

Saturn, (3) Jupiter, (4) Mars, (5) Mercury, (6) Venus, (7) Sun, (8)

Moon. To account for the various motions of the sun and the planets

additional spheres had to be introduced amounting in all to fifty-six.

But the principal spheres remained those mentioned. Each sphere or group

of spheres with the star it carries is moved by an incorporeal mover, a

spirit or Intelligence, and over them all is the first unmoved mover,

God. He sets in motion the outer sphere of the fixed stars, and so the

whole world moves. There is nothing said in this of the origin of these

spheres and their intelligible movers. On the other hand, in the

Neo-Platonic system of Plotinus all existence and particularly that of

the intelligible or spiritual world issues or emanates from the One or

the Good. Intellect is the first emanation, Soul the second, Nature the

third and Matter the last.

On account of the confusion which arose in the middle ages, as a result

of which Neo-Platonic writings and doctrines were attributed to

Aristotle, Alfarabi and Avicenna worked out a scheme which combined the

motion theory of Aristotle with the doctrine of emanation of Plotinus.

The theory is based upon a principle alleged to be Aristotle's that from

a unitary cause nothing but a unitary effect can follow. Hence, said

Avicenna, God cannot have produced directly all the world we see in its

complexity. He is the direct cause of the first Intelligence only, or

first angel as Judah Halevi calls him. This Intelligence contemplates

itself and it contemplates its cause. The effect of the latter act is

the emanation of a second intelligence or angel; the effect of the

former is a sphere--that of the fixed stars, of which the first

Intelligence is the mover. The second Intelligence again produces a

third Intelligence by its contemplation of the First Cause, and by its

self-contemplation it creates the second sphere, the sphere of Saturn,

which is moved by it. So the process continues until we reach the sphere

of the moon, which is the last of the celestial spheres, and the Active

Intellect, the last of the Intelligences, having in charge the sublunar

world.

This fanciful and purely mythological scheme arouses the antagonism of

Judah Halevi. It is all pure conjecture, he says, and there is not an

iota of proof in it. People believe it and think it is convincing,

simply because it bears the name of a Greek philosopher. As a matter of

fact this theory is less plausible than those of the "Sefer Yezirah";

and there is no agreement even among the philosophers themselves except

for those who are the followers of the same Greek authority, Empedocles,

or Pythagoras, or Aristotle, or Plato. These agree not because the

proofs are convincing, but simply because they are members of a given

sect or school. The objections to the theory just outlined are manifold.

In the first place why should the series of emanations stop with the

moon? Is it because the power of the First Cause has given out? Besides

why should self-contemplation result in a sphere and contemplation of

the First Cause in an Intelligence or angel? It should follow that when

Aristotle contemplates himself he produces a sphere, and when he

contemplates the First Cause he gives rise to an angel. Granting the

truth of the process, one does not see why the mover of Saturn should

not produce two more emanations, one by contemplating the Intelligence

immediately above it, and the other by contemplating the first

Intelligence, thus making four emanations instead of two.[207]

In his outline of the philosophers' psychology, which as we have seen

(p. 175) is borrowed verbally from Avicenna, what is new to us is the

exposition of the inner senses and the account of the rational faculty.

We must therefore reproduce it here in outline together with Judah

Halevi's criticism.

The three kinds of soul, vegetative, animal and rational, we have

already met before. We have also referred to the fact that Judah Halevi

analyzes correctly the well-known Aristotelian definition of the soul.

We must now give a brief account of the inner senses as Judah Halevi

took it from Avicenna. The five external senses, seeing, hearing,

touching, smelling and tasting, give us merely colors, sounds, touch

sensations, odors and tastes. These are combined into an object by the

_common sense_, known also as the _forming power_. Thus when we see

honey we associate with its yellow color a sweet taste. This could not

be done unless we had a power which combines in it all the five senses.

For the sense of sight cannot perceive taste, nor can color be

apprehended by the gustatory sense. There is need therefore of a common

sense which comprehends all the five external senses. This is the first

internal sense. This retains the forms of sensible objects just as the

external senses present them. Then comes the _composing power_ or power

of imagination. This composes and divides the material of the common

sense. It may be true or false, whereas the common sense is always true.

Both of these give us merely forms; they do not exercise any judgment.

The latter function belongs to the third internal sense, the _power of

judgment_. Through this an animal is enabled to decide that a given

object is to be sought or avoided. It also serves to rectify the errors

of reproduction that may be found in the preceding faculty of

imagination. Love, injury, belief, denial, belong likewise to the

judging faculty together with such judgments as that the wolf is an

enemy, the child a friend. The last of the internal senses is that of

_factual memory_, the power which retains the judgments made by the

faculty preceding.

In addition to these sensory powers the animal possesses motor

faculties. These are two, the _power of desire_, which moves the animal

to seek the agreeable; and the _power of anger_, which causes it to

reject or avoid the disagreeable. All these powers are dependent upon

the corporeal organs and disappear with the destruction of the latter.

The highest power of the soul and the exclusive possession of man (the

faculties mentioned before are found also in animals) is the rational

soul. This is at first simply a potentiality. Actually it is a _tabula

rasa_, an empty slate, a blank paper. But it has the power (or is the

power) of acquiring general ideas. Hence it is called hylic or material

intellect, because it is like matter which in itself is nothing actual

but is potentially everything, being capable of receiving any form and

becoming any real object. As matter receives sensible forms, so the

material intellect acquires intelligible forms, _i. e._, thoughts,

ideas, concepts. When it has these ideas it is an _actual intellect_. It

is then identical with the ideas it has, _i. e._, thinker and thought

are the same, and hence the statement that the actual intellect is

"intelligent" and "intelligible" at the same time. As matter is the

principle of generation and destruction the rational soul, which is thus

shown to be an immaterial substance, is indestructible, hence immortal.

And it is the ideas it acquires which make it so. When the rational soul

is concerned with pure knowledge it is called the _speculative_ or

_theoretical intellect_. When it is engaged in controlling the animal

powers, its function is conduct, and is called the _practical

intellect_. The rational soul, _i. e._, the speculative intellect, is

separable from the body and needs it not, though it uses it at first to

acquire some of its knowledge. This is proved by the fact that whereas

the corporeal powers, like the senses, are weakened by strong stimuli,

the reason is strengthened by hard subjects of thought. Old age weakens

the body, but strengthens the mind. The activities of the body are

finite; of the mind, infinite.

We must also show that while the rational soul makes use of the data of

sense perception, which are corporeal, as the occasions for the

formation of its general ideas, it is not wholly dependent upon them,

and the sense data alone are inadequate to give the soul its

intellectual truths. Empirical knowledge is inductive, and no induction

can be more general and more certain than the particular facts from

which it is derived. As all experience, however rich, is necessarily

finite, empirical knowledge is never universally certain. But the soul

does possess universally certain knowledge, as for example the truths of

mathematics and logic; hence the origin of these truths can not be

empirical. How does the soul come to have such knowledge? We must assume

that there is a divine emanation cleaving to the soul, which stands to

it in the relation of light to the sense of sight. It is to the

illumination of this intellectual substance and not to the data of sense

perception that the soul owes the universal certainty of its knowledge.

This divine substance is the _Active Intellect_. As long as the soul is

united with the body, perfect union with the Active Intellect is

impossible. But as the soul becomes more and more perfect through the

acquisition of knowledge, it cleaves more and more to the Active

Intellect, and this union becomes complete after death. Thus the

immortality of the soul is proved by reason. It is based upon the

conviction that the soul is an immaterial substance and that its

perfection lies in its acquisition of intellectual ideas.[208]

Judah Halevi cannot help admitting the fascination such speculation

exercises upon the mind of the student. But he must warn him against

being misled by the fame of such names as Plato and Aristotle, and

supposing that because in logic and mathematics the philosophers give us

real proofs, they are equally trustworthy in metaphysical speculation.

If the soul is, as they say, an intellectual substance not limited in

place and for this reason not subject to genesis and decay, there is no

way to distinguish one soul from another, since it is matter which

constitutes individual existence. How then can my soul be distinguished

from yours, or from the Active Intellect and the other Intelligences, or

from the First Cause itself? The souls of Plato and Aristotle should

become one so that the one should know the secret thoughts of the other.

If the soul gets its ideas through divine illumination from the Active

Intellect, how is it that philosophers do not intuit their ideas at once

like God and the Active Intellect, and how is it they forget?

Then as to their ideas about immortality. If immortality is a necessary

phenomenon due to the intellectual nature of the soul and dependent upon

the degree of intellectual knowledge it possesses, how much knowledge

must a man have to be immortal? If any amount is sufficient, then every

rational soul is immortal, for everybody knows at least the axioms of

logic and mathematics, such as that things equal to the same thing are

equal to each other, that a thing cannot both be and not be, and so on.

If a knowledge of the ten categories is necessary, and of the other

universal principles which embrace existence conceptually, though not

practically, this knowledge can be gotten in a day, and it is not likely

that a man can become an angel in a day. If on the other hand one must

know everything not merely conceptually but in detail, no one can ever

acquire universal knowledge and no one is immortal The philosophers may

be excused because this is the best they can do with the help of pure

reason. We may commend them for their mode of life in accordance with

the moral law and in freedom from the world, since they were not bound

to accept our traditions. But it is different with us. Why should we

seek peculiar proofs and explanations for the immortality of the soul,

since we have promises to that effect whether the soul be corporeal or

spiritual? If we depend upon logical proof, our life will pass away

without our coming to any conclusion.[209]

Judah Halevi takes issue also with the Mutakallimun. These, as we know,

were Mohammedan theologians who, unlike the philosophers, were not

indifferent to religion. On the contrary their sole motive in

philosophizing was to prove the dogmas of their faith. They had no

interest in pure speculation as such. Judah Halevi has no more sympathy

with them than with the philosophers. Owing to the fact that the

Karaites were implicit followers of the Kalam and for other reasons, no

doubt, more objective, he thinks less of them than he does of the

philosophers. The only possible use, he tells us, of their methods is to

afford exercise in dialectics so as to be able to answer the arguments

of unbelievers. To the superficial observer the Mutakallim may seem to

be superior to the prophet, because he argues, whereas the latter

affirms without proving. In reality, however, this is not so. The aim of

the Mutakallim is to acquire the belief which the prophet has by nature.

But his Kalam may injure his belief instead of confirming it, by reason

of the many difficulties and doubts it introduces. The prophet, who has

natural belief, teaches not by means of dialectic discussion. If one has

a spark of the true belief in his nature, the prophet by his personality

will benefit him by a slight hint. Only he who has nothing of true

belief in his nature must have recourse to Kalam, which may benefit him

or injure.

Judah Halevi follows up this general comment by a brief sketch of the

system of the Kalam, but we need not enter into this matter as there is

little there that we do not already know, and there is no detailed

criticism on the part of Judah Halevi.[210]

The Rabbi concludes his discourse with the king of the Chazars by

declaring his intention to leave the land in order to go to Jerusalem.

Although the visible Shekinah is no longer in Palestine, the invisible

and spiritual presence is with every born Israelite of pure heart and

deed; and Palestine is the fittest land for this communion, being

conducive to purity of heart and mind.[211]