Judah Halevi is often considered the most exalted
of all post-biblical Hebrew poets. His secular, religious,
and national poetry have served as models
for Jewish poets in various languages ever since.
Halevi was born in Toledo, the chief city of
Christian Spain.He studied in Lucena and returned
to Toledo to practice medicine. He later moved
with his wife and daughter to Córdoba, then under
Muslim rule. Overcome with longings for Zion, he
left his family when he was in his 50s to go on a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land. After visiting Cairo,
Tyre, and Damascus, he disappeared; legend has it
that he died a martyr at the gates of Jerusalem.
Halevi’s secular poems, written mostly during
his youth and early manhood, are linguistically
rich and complex. They have a bright, harmonious,
musical quality and a primarily optimistic
tone. They vary in subject matter, from friendship,
love, wine, and beauty to the vicissitudes of life.
For most of his life, however,Halevi focused his
poetry on religious themes. Like most of his fellow
Hebrew poets of the Andalusian school, he often
expressed an intense longing for God.His God was
a stern, distant ruler but also the ever-present
source of love in nature and human affairs. In
“Lord,Where Shall I Find You,” he writes: “Lord,
where shall I find You? Your place is lofty and secret.
And where shall I not find you? The whole
earth is full of Your glory.”
It is Halevi’s “national religious” poems that
have endeared him to generations of pious and secular
Jews. He lived in a more troubled era than the
earlier poets of the Spanish Jewish Golden Age.His
lifetime was marked by intermittent religious persecution
in Spain from both Christian and Muslim
rulers. In his poems, he frequently questions God’s
justice in allowing the Jewish people to suffer in
exile. As the years pass, his sense of exile and longing
for Zion grow stronger, as vividly recorded in
his work. In perhaps his most famous poem,“My
Heart Is in the East,” he cries out:“My heart is in the
East and I am at the edge of the West. / Then how
can I taste what I eat, how can I enjoy it?”
Halevi’s later poems chronicle his departure
from Spain, his sea voyage, and his visit in Cairo on
the way to the Land of Israel. Whether he ever
reached Jerusalem, and what poetry he wrote there
if he did, will probably never be known.
English Versions of Works by Judah Halevi
Book of Kuzari. Translated by Harwig Hirschfeld.
Whitefish,Mont.: Kessinger, 2003.
In Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse. Edited by T. Carmi.
New York: Viking, 1981.
In Hebrew Poems from Spain. Translated by David
Goldstein. New York: Schocken, 1966.
A Work about Judah Halevi
Silman, Yochanan. Philosopher and Prophet: Judah
Halevi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of His
Thought. Translated by Lenn J. Shramm. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995.