Judah Halevi Quotes on God
Judah Halevi (c.1075–1141) — the Andalusian Jewish poet and philosopher whose Kuzari (The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion) is one of the principal medieval Jewish philosophical works — gave classical Sephardi religious thought its most influential alternative to the dominant Aristotelian theology of the period. The dialogue, framed as the Khazar king’s investigation of the rival religious and philosophical claims that culminates in his conversion to Judaism, develops the central thesis that the God of Israel is known not through the abstract demonstrations of philosophical theology but through the historical revelation transmitted to a particular community through prophetic experience — the personal God of Abraham as against the impersonal God of Aristotle. The framework, with its corresponding exaltation of the Land of Israel and the prophetic vocation of the Jewish people, shaped subsequent Jewish religious thought through Crescas, the kabbalistic tradition, and modern thinkers such as Rosenzweig.
Quotes
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Attributed to Judah Halevi:
“Religion is rooted in history, not in speculation.”
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Attributed to Judah Halevi:
“The God of Aristotle is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
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Attributed to Judah Halevi:
“Servants of God are free of the slavery to other men.”
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Attributed to Judah Halevi:
“Wisdom without piety is a body without a soul.”
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“Thou must not deem it improbable that exalted divine traces should be visible in this material world, when this matter is prepared to receive them. Here are to be found the roots of faith as well as of unbelief”
Part One -
“Divine Providence only gives man as much as he is prepared to receive; if his receptive capacity be small, he obtains little, and much if it be great.”
Part Two -
“According to our view a servant of God is not one who detaches himself from the world, lest he be a burden to it, and it to him; or hates life, which is one of God's bounties granted to him.”
Part Three -
“As regards the Sādōcaeans and Boēthosians, they are the sectarians who are anathemised in our prayer. The followers of Jesus are "the Baptists" who adopted the doctrine of baptism, being baptized in the Jordan.”
(Part Three, "the Baptists" refers to the word meshumadim in the jewish prayer, followed by the words "will have no hope", the hebrew word can be explained in other ways) -
“(Part Three, "the Baptists" refers to the word meshumadim in the jewish prayer, followed by the words "will have no hope", the hebrew word can be explained in other ways)”
As regards the Sādōcaeans and Boēthosians, they are the sectarians who are anathemised in our prayer. The followers of Jesus are "the Baptists" who adopted the doctrine of baptism, being baptized in the Jordan.