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.
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" (Shiʿur 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 Muʿtazilite 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 Œdipus. 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 (ὕλη) 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 στέρησις). 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