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The Art of Ambiguity: The Karaites as Portrayed in Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2021

Marzena Zawanowska
Marzena Zawanowska*
Affiliation:
University of Warsaw Jewish Historical Institute Warsaw, Poland
*
mzawanowska@wp.pl

Abstract

On the basis of a letter preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Judah Halevi is assumed to have originally composed his influential book of religious thought, the Kuzari, as a polemical response to a Karaite convert. However, he neither perceived nor described the Karaites as heretics. In fact, his depiction of the adherents of this alternative to Rabbanite Judaism and their origins so appealed to the Karaites that some of them believed that the author had been a (crypto-)Karaite himself, and his reconstructions of the movement's history became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism. This paper attempts to discern Halevi's attitude toward the Karaites, and his perception of their main fault. It also addresses the fundamental question of his purpose in writing the Kuzari.

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Research Article
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AJS Review , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , April 2021 , pp. 143 - 166
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Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2021

Anyone who has read Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari and maintains to have understood it probably has not read it carefully. In many respects, it is one of the most difficult and ambiguous texts written in the Middle Ages and beyond.Footnote 2 Even its full original title is uncertain and debated, as it has been preserved in different variants in the extant manuscripts.Footnote 3 Little wonder, therefore, that for many years researchers have intensely disputed the very purpose of its writing.Footnote 4

On the basis of a letter penned by Halevi (addressed to Ḥalfon b. Netanel), preserved in the Cairo Geniza, the Kuzari is now widely assumed to have originally been composed as a polemical response to a Karaite “convert.”Footnote 5 Yet, surprisingly, Halevi neither perceived, nor overtly described Karaism as heresy.Footnote 6 In fact, his depiction of the adherents of this alternative to Rabbanite Judaism and their origins so appealed to the Karaites that some of them believed that he had been a (crypto-)Karaite himself, while his reconstructions of the movement's history became appropriated as the founding myth of Karaism.Footnote 7

Given these ambiguities, Halevi's purpose in writing this text should be reexamined. If it was indeed to polemicize against the Karaites, what were his main objections to this movement? More generally, what was his attitude toward its adherents? Aside from Fred Astren's and Golda Akhiezer's treatments of the Karaites’ appropriation of Halevi's historical reconstruction of the origins of Karaism (conducted as part of their more extensive investigations of Karaite historical consciousness and understanding), so far only one published study, by Daniel J. Lasker, has been devoted to the issue of the author's approach to the Karaites.Footnote 8

Heresy: The Karaites’ Ontological Status and Their Position within, or vis-À-vis, the Jewish Community

At face value, Halevi neatly dissociates Karaism from heresy. In Kuzari 3:65, when reconstructing the chain of Jewish tradition, he states:

Now the Sadducees and the Boethusians {are simply heretics [Ar. zanādiq] who refuse to acknowledge the hereafter}. They are also the heretics [Heb. minim] against whom He is invoked in the “Prayer.” The companions of Jesus are apostates [Heb. meshumadim], who enter into the religion of baptism, who are baptized in the Jordan. As for the Karaites, they exercise independent judgment concerning the roots [of the Law] [Ar. mujtahidūn fī al-uṣūl] [and] engage in intellectual speculation with regard to the branches [Ar. mutaḥakkamūn fī al-furr‘a]. Sometimes, the corruption even crosses over the roots [of the Law],Footnote 9 but out of ignorance on their part, not intentionally.Footnote 10

Thus, according to Halevi, Zadok and Boethus were the first dissidents who gave rise to religious disintegration in Judaism. Consequently, they—not the Karaites—are accused of heresy and identified as the “the original dissenters” (or “the source of heresy”; Ar. aṣlan li-’l-khawārij),Footnote 11 as well as overtly called heretics. As a result, the words of the twelfth “blessing” (and de facto curse), the so-called “blessing of the heretics” (Birkat Ha-minim) that is part of the Eighteen Blessings (better known as the Amidah prayer), are, in the author's view, directed against the Sadducees and the Boethusians, not the Karaites.Footnote 12

Hence, it appears that Halevi separates the Karaites from the Sadducees, and both these groups from the Christians, introducing the famous tripartite division of the major (heterodox) offshoots of Judaism.Footnote 13 According to him, the Sadducees are heretics (Ar. zanādiq; Heb. minim), the Christians are apostates (Heb. meshumadim), while the Karaites are described as well-meaning ignoramuses and individualistic freethinkers who exhibit hubris by “exercising independent judgment” (Ar. mujtahidūn) and “engaging in intellectual speculation” (Ar. mutaḥakkamūn) in matters of religion, instead of relying on attested tradition. Interestingly, however, earlier in the same passage, Halevi admits that when [Alexander] Yannai expelled “the sages,” that is, the Pharisees, “a root had already been established for the Karaites among people opposing the Oral Law,”Footnote 14 presumably alluding in this way to the Sadducees, who were known for their rejection of the Oral Law. Accordingly, and notwithstanding his theoretical statements to the contrary, Halevi—probably as the first Jewish author in history—made an implicit connection between the ancient sectarians and the Karaites.Footnote 15

To make the picture even more complex, in several places in the Kuzari, Halevi mentions heresy in connection with Karaism and overtly admits that the rebellious attitude and individualism of its adherents inevitably leads to heresy. In Kuzari 3:49, he asserts:

The sage said: … They [= the Karaites] have ended up exercising arbitrary judgment out of their ignorance of those things changing the revealed Law [Ar. mughayyarīn fī al-sharʻa] and bringing about heresy [Ar. musabbabīn li-’l-mīnūt]. By this I mean, the proliferation of religious creeds [Ar. madhāhib], which is the root cause of the religious community's corruption [Ar. aṣl fisad al-milla] and its departure from the principle of one Torah and one law [Numbers 15:16]. For, in fact, everything about which we are lenient when it comes to instances of contact—even if it is loathsome—is insignificant compared to heresy that their view causes [Ar. yusabbabu rā’ihum min al-mīnūt]. It goes so far that in a house of ten people, there will be ten religious creeds! … Therefore, do not follow your individual taste and your reasoning regarding the branches of the Law, for they will plunge you into doubts that invite to heresy [Ar. tad‘uū ilā ’l-mīnūt]. You will never agree with your fellow on anything pertaining to them, for each person has his own individual taste and a way of reasoning [Ar. qiyās]. … If you relinquish the jurisprudential boundaries, which are a fence around the Law, and depend [exclusively] on independent judgment [Ar. ijtihād], it will be a cause for heresy [Ar. kāna sababan li-’l- mīnūt], and everything will be ruined.Footnote 16

The passage probably includes the most serious allegations ever formulated by Halevi against the Karaites. First, he reminds them again of their ignorance. Second, he accuses them of “changing the revealed Law” by providing mistaken interpretations. Third, he underscores the gravity of their error in highlighting that the unity of the Jewish community that the Karaites undermine with their individualistic intellectualism was ordered by God when He declared that there should be “one Torah and one law” (Numbers 15:16). Therefore, it constitutes not only a supreme value in its benefit to the earthly interests of the believers but also an explicit divine commandment that, according to the author, the Karaites violate. Last, but not least, it should be noted that the word “heresy” is repeated as many as four times in connection with Karaism in this short passage.

Parenthetically, it is interesting to observe that the Karaites considered the principle of one Torah and one law an encapsulation of their antitraditionalism, conveying their rejection of the Oral Law (one Torah and one law meaning only the Written Torah).Footnote 17 If Halevi was aware of their interpretation of this expression, the passage would testify to his subversive use of a well-known slogan of the Karaites, summarizing their ideological stance, to criticize them. Alternatively, it may be argued that Halevi's apparent critique of the Karaites as a disintegrating force within the Jewish community in fact serves him to undermine the legitimacy of the rabbinic tradition (the Oral Torah).

At any rate, although indeed nowhere in the Book of the Kuzari does Halevi expressly call the Karaites heretics, their attitude, in his view, ultimately contributes to the development of heresy and as such is most harmful. Exercising arbitrary judgment, he argues, inevitably brings about unbreachable disagreements between people, which causes “the proliferation of religious creeds,” and, as a result, leads to the disintegration of the Jewish religious community. Consequently, he perceives the Karaites as a destructive power from within, because their excessive intellectual individualism is an accessory to heresy, understood according to the etymological meaning of the Hebrew word minut as the breaking down of the original supposed (or presumed) unity of this community.

Incidentally, the idea of the paramount value of the unity of community also played an important role in Islam. Halevi's concern for the “proliferation of religious creeds” may therefore be seen as analogous to the Muslim fear of fiṭna (lit. “dissention,” or “sedition”).Footnote 18 The difference is that the existence of many schools (Ar. madhāhib) in Islam has never been perceived as a threat to the community's unity, while Halevi apparently endorses a much more radical view of unity, railing against proliferation of madhāhib as “the root cause of the religious community's corruption” (Ar. aṣl fisad al-milla).Footnote 19 Ironically, his position reflects a problem that Karaites themselves complained about and struggled with,Footnote 20 to which—as we will see—he offers a simple solution, namely return to tradition (“jurisprudential boundaries, which are a fence around the Law”), through submission to the religious authorities, not necessarily because they are right, but rather because it ensures the avoidance of the greater evil of the community's disintegration.

At any event, the author implicitly suggests that—in contrast with his formal explicit statements—the Karaites are somehow tarnished or linked with heresy, as they are its direct root cause (Ar. aṣl). Similar statements express Halevi's deep ambivalence toward the Karaites, whom he apparently regarded as representatives of a nonheretical branch of Judaism, but nonetheless dangerous religious troublemakers, who destabilize the entire community, and, ultimately, lead to heresy. It bears noting, however, that the main problem intimated here is not the Karaites themselves—neither their specific creeds nor practices—but rather the direct outcomes of their actions.

To better understand Halevi's complex attitude toward the Karaites, which stemmed from distinct ideological stances, it behooves us to examine specific allegations he voiced against Karaism in the Kuzari and expressed in a number of artfully crafted and ambiguous parables.

Halevi's Main Anti-Karaite Allegations

  1. 1. Eschatology: Religious Practice

At the core of Halevi's treatise lies chapter 3, a large part of which is devoted to Karaism, its nature, and the circumstances of its emergence. It opens with a description of a “superior person,” or “perfect man” (Ar. al-khayr; Kuzari 3:1). According to the author, such an individual should not detach himself from this world, “lest he become a burden to it and it become a burden to him,” but rather he should “love this world and long life, too, because they enable him to earn the hereafter.”Footnote 21 Therefore, isolation and ascetic practices are generally not recommended. Neither are studies carried out in seclusion, as knowledge is something that should be shared and profits from the company of students, which, in Halevi's view, “urges on {to} investigation and recollection.”Footnote 22 All these might be—and, in fact, have been argued to be—an allusion to and a hidden critique of the Karaite practices of the Mourners of Zion.Footnote 23

Be that as it may, the passage implies that a “superior person” should be deeply rooted in this world and contribute to the well-being of his fellow men. Halevi supports his arguments with a parable that presents two alternative models, presumably reflecting the Rabbanite and Karaite positions, in a discussion over the proper way of life within a religious framework—in other words, how to be a perfect believer, and a truly pious man (Ar. al-khayr). In Kuzari 3:21, he expounds:

The sage said: I will add to your understanding of this with a parable. A certain man [= a Rabbanite Jew] came into the presence of a sultan [= God]. Then, the sultan made him a close companion and allowed him to come into his presence whenever he wished. But now he would behave so boldly with the sultan that he would impose on him to stay at his house with him and attend his receptions, too; and so, he would attend. Moreover, he would also send his most distinguished ministers [= angels] to him and would do with him what he would not do with anyone else. Now when this man became neglectful or made some mistake, the sultan kept away from him. But then he would certainly appeal and ask for a return to the [prior] custom so that he might stay with him again and not forbid his ministers from visiting him.

Now all of the other inhabitants of that country [= the Karaites] would only appeal to the sultan when they went on a journey [= afterlife] and ask that he provide them with companions along the way who would protect them from robbers, snakes, and other hazards of the road. Moreover, they were sure that the sultan would assist them in this regard and would be concerned about them during their stay at home. Some of them would even boast to each other that the sultan was more concerned about him than about the others, reasoning that he was in the habit of revering the sultan more than the others.

Still, this strange man [= a Rabbanite Jew] would seldom mention the journey, and he would not appeal for anyone to escort him. Therefore, when the man's time to depart came, the people of that country said to him, “You are surely going to perish on this deluded path because you do not have anyone to escort you.” So, he said to them, “And who is going to escort you?” They said to him, “The sultan, to whom we have made our appeals and whom we have asked to accompany us ever since our arrival in this city. But we do not see you appealing for anything like this—ever!” Then, he said to them, “Fools! Is it not more appropriate for someone who appeals to him in a time of safety to hope for his help in a time of danger, even if he does not actually voice that hope? And is it not true that he who answers him in a time of ease and comfort will answer him even more readily in a time of need? Furthermore, if you claim that his providential concern for you is due to your reverence for him, is there anyone among you who has held fast to him as I have? Revered him as I have? Borne the hardships that I have in order to hold fast to his ordinances? Been as mindful of impurity when mentioning him as I have? And undertaken to honor both his name and his book as I have? Everything that I have done has been on his order and his instructions, while you have revered him based on reasoning and conjecturing [Ar. qiyāsan wa-takharrusan]. But he will never be neglectful toward you. How then could he let me go alone on my journey when I have spoken up about it, as you have, because I placed my confidence in his justice?

This parable is applicable only to someone who has erred and not accepted the sages [Ar. lam yaqbal min al-akhbār].Footnote 24

The most common interpretation of this parable is that it refers to Jews in exile compared to the majority cultures, namely Christians and Muslims. Nonetheless, the last sentence (“This parable is applicable only to someone who has erred and not accepted the sages”) seems to suggest that the author's intention was to juxtapose the Rabbanite and Karaite Jews and their respective models of life. According to this interpretation, the Rabbanites, who enjoy a special position with God and have an intimate relationship with Him, focus on this world and try to comply with divine will by fulfilling His commandments, which are conceived of as a purpose in itself. In contrast, the Karaites concentrate on the hereafter, serving the Creator and revering Him in an interested fashion in order to achieve this ultimate eschatological goal.Footnote 25 Thus, Halevi criticizes the Karaites for focusing on the goal (the world to come)—possibly understood not as an individual outcome (in the sense of the destiny of soul after death and final judgement), but as the collective eschaton of Israel (in the sense of millennial messianism of the pre-Crusader period, borne out, inter alia, in the Karaites’ emphasis on return to the Jewish homeland in Zion)—instead of on the means to achieve it (life in this world). It is the first major critique formulated by Halevi against the representatives of this alternative form of Judaism.

However, the whole parable, presumably intended to disparage the Karaites, appears ambiguous, and as such is quite susceptible to opposite interpretations. First, there is nothing wrong with the Karaites’ humility. On the contrary, Halevi seems to appreciate it, along with their more moderate self-confidence and greater piety compared to their Rabbanite brethren (“in the habit of revering the sultan [= God] more than the others”), as attested by the fact that they devote their lives to fervent prayers, no matter how interestedly or disinterestedly. Second, and most importantly, the image of the Rabbanites reflected in the parable is not a particularly positive one. They are depicted as “bold,” occasionally “neglectful” and prone to “making mistakes,” not to mention that they are arrogantly confident about their special position with God and His care for them. (“Is it not more appropriate for someone who appeals to him in a time of safety to hope for his help in a time of danger, even if he does not actually voice that hope? And is it not true that he who answers him in a time of ease and comfort will answer him even more readily in a time of need?”) It is worth mentioning that lack of humility—which, nota bene, leads, according to the author, to assimilation—is one of the two “weak spots” of Rabbanite Judaism expressly identified by Halevi elsewhere in his treatise (Kuzari 1:115). Hence, it appears that the parable ostensibly aimed at expressing an overt critique of the Karaites conveys a carefully coded critique of the Rabbanites as well.

  1. 2. Epistemology: Theoretical Foundations

Detachment from this world, together with calculated devotional piety and eschatologically oriented overzeal, is not the only objection to Karaism Halevi voices in the passage cited above. Another critique is found in the concluding remark of one of the parable's heroes (representing the Rabbanites): “Everything that I have done has been on his order and his instructions, while you have revered him based on reasoning and conjecturing.”

This comment leads us to the second major objection Halevi raises against the Karaites, the issue that lies at the heart of the Karaite-Rabbanite controversy and that was the bone of contention between the two competing camps, namely, the epistemological question of the reliable sources of knowledge. In his view, explicitly expressed in several places, the purpose of human life is to come close to God, which leads to Him “being pleased” (Ar. riḍa Allāh), and the only way to achieve this overriding goal is to keep the divine commandments. The problem is that His revealed Scripture, the Written Torah, is insufficient for this purpose. It leaves many things unclear and unexplained, which makes another complementary “source of knowledge” indispensable. In rabbinic Judaism, therefore, it is supplemented by tradition (Ar. taqlīd; naql; riwāya), namely, the Oral Torah. The Karaites, however, undermined the authoritative, binding status of this tradition as an “authentic divine revelation,” relying on human reason (Ar. ‘aql) instead. Accordingly, they tried to establish the meaning of Scripture through diligent individual effort (Ar. ijtihād), by means of intellectual speculation (Ar. qiyās) and independent reasoning (Ar. ra'y). Halevi harshly criticizes such an approach, stating (in Kuzari 3:23):

The sage said: Have we not said before that arbitrary judgment [Ar. taḥakkum], intellectual speculation [Ar. taʻaqqul], and conjecturing [Ar. takharrus] with regard to the Law do not lead to God being pleased [Ar. riḍa Allāh]. If this were not so, then the dualists, the materialists, those who associate with spiritual beings, those who live as recluses in the mountains, and those who burn their children in fire would all be exerting themselves properly for the sake of coming close to God. But we have already said that one comes close to God only through God's ordinances themselves, because He alone, exalted be He, knows their precise determination, their proper divisions, their times, their places, and all that follows from these requirements through the fulfillments of which [God's] being pleased and attachment to the divine order [Ar. amr Allāh] come about, as was the case with the making of the Tabernacle. With regard to every craft employed in it, it is said, Bezalel made the ark; and he made an ark cover; and he made cloths of goat hair [Exodus 37:1, 6; 36:14], and in each one of those cases it was done as YHVH commanded Moses [Exodus 39:1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31, 32, 42; 40:19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32], meaning without addition and without diminution.

There is nothing with respect to those actions that correlates with our intellects [Ar. ‘uqūlunā] and our ways of reasoning [Ar. qiyāsātunā]. It simply concluded them by saying, when Moses saw that they had performed all the tasks—just as YHVH had commanded, so they had done—Moses blessed them [Exodus 39:43].Footnote 26

Toward the end of the chapter (Kuzari 3:53), he recapitulates:

The sage said: …There is no way of coming close to God except by means of God's ordinances, exalted be He, and there is no way to the knowledge of God's ordinances, except by way of prophecy, certainly not by means of reasoning [Ar. taqā’īs] with one another and engaging in rational speculation [Ar. taʻaqqul]. There is no connection between us and those ordinances, except by means of reliable tradition [Ar. al-naql al-ṣaḥīḥ].Footnote 27

In contrast with Maimonides, who, in his responsa, delineates where Karaites and Rabbanites agree in fundamentals, Halevi does not discuss those epistemological foundations that the representatives of both branches of Judaism share (e.g., Torah as revelation, Moses as prophet, etc.), focusing instead on what separates them.Footnote 28 This distinction between the thinkers is illuminating, as it highlights how Halevi intentionally embraced ambiguity toward Karaism.

Like some Karaite authors (e.g., Jacob al-Kirkisani), when exploring the reasons for the split within the Jewish world into Rabbanites and Karaites, Halevi seems to bring its essence down to epistemological issues—especially the widely debated questions about the legitimate sources of (religious) knowledge—and the dichotomy between revelation and reason. Discussions on this subject have divided the world of Islam into supporters of tradition (Ar. ahl [or aṣḥāb] al-ḥadīth; i.e., those who relied on taqlīd) and advocates of individual intellectual inquiries (Ar. ahl [or aṣḥāb] al-ra'y; i.e., those who practiced ijtihād). It seems likely that similar debates also infiltrated into the Jewish world and that—at least to some extent—the Rabbanites and Karaites represent Jewish equivalents of the analogous Muslim positions, respectively.Footnote 29 The difference is that, in contrast with Judaism, Islam withstood these internal tensions, and, as a result, they did not cause a schism in Muslim society similar to the one that occurred in the Jewish world.

At any event, Halevi's reflections in the third treatise of the Kuzari oscillate between the poles of tradition and reason, as he unfolds his apologetics of the supporters of tradition (Rabbanites) on the one hand, and polemics against its rationalistic opponents (Karaites) on the other. In his view, the position of the antitraditionalistic supporters of reason is not only epistemologically wrong (it is impossible to attain truth by means of rational inquiry alone, and as a result, there are as many views as people)Footnote 30 and theologically inappropriate (the Oral Torah was revealed by God together with the Written Torah, so it goes against His will to reject it), but also doomed to failure and harmful to its very supporters (the uncertainty causes disagreements and lack of spiritual rest among the “rationalists”). To illustrate his arguments, Halevi once again takes recourse to a beautifully devised parable, in Kuzari 3:37:

The sage said: This relates to what I said to you about engaging in intellectual speculation and arbitrary judgment [Ar. ta‘aqqul wa-taḥakkum]. Those who engage in intellectual speculation about religious observance pertaining to the work of heaven [Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17] [= the Karaites] exert themselves far more [Ar. akthar ijtihādan] than he who does the work of YHVH [Jeremiah 48:10] that he is commended to do [= the Rabbanites]. For the latter have found rest in their acceptance of tradition [Ar. taqlīd] based on faith, and their souls have become calm and confident, like someone who goes about freely within the city, without having to be on the alert for any challenge. But the former are like someone who goes on foot in the desert, who does not know what he will meet up with. Therefore, he is armed and alert for battle, schooled in combat and accustomed to it. So, do not be surprised by what you see of these people being girded up, and do not be caught off guard by whatever laxity you see on the part of those who follow tradition based on faith, I mean, of course, the Rabbanites. The former have sought out a fortress in which they could be secure, while the latter are asleep lying quietly on their bedding in an old, fortified city.Footnote 31

In this parable, the Karaites are compared to “someone who goes on foot in the desert, who does not know what he will meet up with.” That is why they have to be constantly “alert for battle” and “girded up,” seeking out “a fortress in which they could be secure.” Despite exerting themselves in intellectual speculations to understand God's will as encapsulated in His Scripture, they have no certainty of ever achieving this goal, simply because human reason is not a proper, reliable means to gain knowledge of the divine. In religious matters, fervent piety and enthusiastic devotion do not suffice. Indeed, one of the major conventionalized allegations of the Rabbanites against the Karaites was that they practice ijtihād (i.e., exert themselves, not necessarily according to its narrow semantic meaning in jurisprudence, but in the wider sense of making diligent efforts), or, as Daniel Lasker puts it, “try too hard” in order to individually arrive at proper understanding of divine will, instead of accepting the sages’ authoritative interpretation.Footnote 32 In contrast, the Rabbanites, who instead of engaging in rational investigation of the Written Torah follow the traditional exposition provided by the Oral Torah, are “calm and confident, like someone who goes about freely within the city, without having to be on the alert for any challenge.” They need not be so eager and restless in their religious pursuits and inquiries, as they know for certain what God wants them to do. Hence, on the surface, the passage conveys a harsh critique of the Karaites.

And yet Halevi's description of the Karaites is by no means a decidedly negative one. On the contrary, it indicates his overall positive appraisal, if not admiration, of their fervent religiosity, as well as their intellectual zeal and relentless pursuit of truth. Moreover, once again the Rabbanites do not appear to be represented here in an unequivocally positive fashion. Rather, I would argue that this tantalizing parable articulates the author's hidden critique of their self-confident arrogance, intellectual and spiritual idleness (“laxity”), as well as indolence and perhaps even dilettantism, an impression imparted by the subtly formulated depiction of them as lost in lethargy (“asleep lying quietly on their bedding”). In addition, Halevi overtly admits elsewhere (Kuzari 3:73) that the Rabbanites, too, and more specifically the authors of the Talmud, practiced ijtihād, a claim that significantly reduces the impact of the conventional anti-Karaite argument by purporting that the difference between the two competing camps is, in reality, smaller and less significant than generally assumed.Footnote 33

  1. 3. Anarchy: Sociopolitical Repercussions

The city/desert parable conveys Halevi's major objection to the Karaites, already articulated in the previous parable, namely, that their mistaken epistemological assumptions make them rebel against tradition, exchanging it for reason, which causes them to act on their individual judgment instead of accepting the authority of the majority of the sages. This individualistic (anarchistic) aspect of Karaism seems to be the most problematic, forming the axis of Halevi's entire discussion. His emphasis on submission to religious authorities echoes with the jurisprudential concept of consensus (Ar. ijmā‘) important in three of the four orthodox Sunni schools of Muslim law, as well as in Karaism (Heb. ‘edah or kibbuẓ). It is tempting to think that Halevi is co-opting here a Karaite idea to subversively criticize Karaism.

Be that as it may, he conceives of a rebellion against tradition as tantamount to—or at least a direct corollary of—rebellion against God. Furthermore, he explicitly states in Kuzari 3:39 that obedience to the selected, divinely appointed community leaders was ordered by God Himself in His Scripture. Consequently, the antitraditionalistic individualism of the Karaites goes against His will and breaks an explicit divine commandment, the violation of which, Halevi emphasizes, deserves the most severe punishment. In Kuzari 3:39, he expounds:

The sage said: Truly, our Law is tied to the law given to Moses from Sinai or the place which YHVH shall choose [Deuteronomy 12:5; 17:10], for instructions shall come forth from Zion and the word of YHVH from Jerusalem [Isaiah 2:3] in the presence of judges, officials, priests, and the Sanhedrin. We are ordered to obey the authorized judge in every generation, just as it says, [… and appear] before the … judge in charge at that time, and present your problem. When they have announced to you the verdict in the case, you shall carry out the verdict that is announced to you from the place that YHVH chose, observing scrupulously all their instructions to you [Deuteronomy 17:9–10]. Then it adds, Should a man act presumptuously and disregard the priest, etc., … That man shall die. Thus, you will sweep out evil from Israel [Deuteronomy 17:12]. Scripture associated disobeying the priest and the judge with the very greatest of crimes when it says, Thus, you will sweep out evil from your midst [Deuteronomy 17:7]. Moreover, it followed this with the verse, All the people will hear and be afraid and will not act presumptuously again [Deuteronomy 17:13], [that is,] as long as the proper arrangement [of things], consisting of the sacrificial service, the Sanhedrin, and the other groups through which the proper arrangement was perfected, would remain intact.Footnote 34

Thus, it seems that Halevi accuses the Karaites of committing “the very greatest of crimes” that warrants capital punishment. Nevertheless, upon a careful reading of this passage, Halevi's condemnation of the Karaites once again appears not as clear-cut and unambiguous as it may have seemed at first glance. Although he evidently criticizes them for a lack of subordination (i.e., rejection of the authority of the sages) and disobedience to “the authorized judge in every generation,” his sentence is ingeniously relaxed by the stipulation that this “authorized judge” should pronounce his verdicts in the Land of Israel, as it is said, “you shall carry out the verdict that is announced to you from the place that YHVH chose, observing scrupulously all their instructions to you [Deuteronomy 17:9–10],” as he emphasizes, “for instructions shall come forth from Zion and the word of YHVH from Jerusalem [Isaiah 2:3].” It is as if the Holy Land were imparting legitimacy to the judicial rulings. We should bear in mind that, as opposed to the Karaite Mourners of Zion who moved to Jerusalem, devoted their lives to studying the Bible, and issued from there their new interpretations and legal decisions, the majority of world's Jewry of the time, including its most important religious leaders (such as the sages of the Babylonian Talmud, and later the Babylonian Geonim), remained outside of the Holy Land. In fact, this is the second “weak spot” of the Rabbanites Halevi expressly identifies in Kuzari 2:23. The aforementioned statement, therefore, may be construed as implicitly undermining the Rabbanite religious authorities active in the Diaspora in Halevi's own time and beyond. This supposition seems to be further corroborated by his pronouncement in Kuzari 2:22, where he openly equates the Diaspora way of life with idolatry:

There is also their [= the sages’] saying that a person should always live in the Land of Israel, even in a city that is predominantly gentile; and he should not live outside of the Land, even in a city that is predominantly Jewish, because whoever lives in the Land of Israel is like someone who has a God, while whoever lives outside of the Land is like someone who has no God. It says the same thing in the words of David, “For they have driven me out today so that I cannot share in YHVH's possession, saying ʻGo worship other gods’” [B. Ketubbot 110b. Cf. 1 Samuel 26:19; B. Sanhedrin 41a]. This means that everyone who lives outside the Land [of Israel] is like someone who practices idolatry [T. Avodah Zarah 5; B. Ketubbot 110b].Footnote 35

According to this passage, dwelling outside of the Land of Israel is tantamount to being an idolater. Ironically, to convey this idea, Halevi makes a subversive use of statements drawn from the hallmark product of the Diaspora, that is, the Babylonian Talmud, a work that enabled, promulgated, and consolidated Jewish life in the exile. Accordingly, the passage arguably reveals a most harsh, though brilliantly camouflaged, critique of the predominant rabbinic model for life that the author compares to idolatry. I would therefore argue that Abraham ibn Daud's response to Halevi in his Sefer ha-kabbalah was not solely aimed at defending the Andalusian way of life but rather at justifying more generally the legitimacy of Jewish existence and practice, as well as the expansion of religious legislation, anywhere outside of the Land of Israel.Footnote 36

At any rate, it appears that all the main allegations formulated by Halevi against the Karaites in fact convey—by no means to a lesser extent—an oblique, in-depth critique of the Rabbanites as well.

Conclusions: Halevi's Attitude toward “God-Fearing Karaites” and Their Religion

To sum up, although nowhere in his treatise does Halevi call them heretics, he reached, prima facie, bitter conclusions with regard to the Karaites. They serve God not disinterestedly, but with an eschatological purpose in mind; further, the underlying theoretical foundations of their approach are mistaken, as they are based on a wrong epistemological assumption (i.e., on reason in lieu of tradition). As a result, the Karaites exhibit excessive religious zeal and generally “try too hard,” making individual intellectual efforts in pursuit of truth, and practicing ijtihād instead of relying on the trustworthy corpus of traditional interpretations (Ar. taqlīd).Footnote 37 In addition, out of ignorance, they make mistakes and break divine commandments of both obedience to the authoritative sages and keeping the nation's unity. Consequently, they destabilize the entire Jewish community, eventually bringing about heresy in its disintegration.

For all that, however, the whole work resonates with respect, compassion, and occasionally even admiration for the Karaites, whose humble piety, fervent religious devotion, and good intentions Halevi emphasizes with pronounced appreciation.Footnote 38 Incidentally, according to a statement found in Kuzari 5:26 (put in the mouth of the Khazar king), good intentions in religious matters are not only of paramount importance, but—from the divine perspective—even sufficient (“the intention is surely sufficient for God”).Footnote 39

Furthermore, Halevi shared some of the Karaites’ theoretical views and put some of their ideals into practice. For example, it has been demonstrated that like the Karaites, but in contrast with the Rabbanites, he recognized the consensus of the sages with regard to specific halakhic solutions as equivalent to the revealed commandments of God;Footnote 40 he supported the view of the rationality of all, even the revealed, commandments (in the sense of their being not against reason), which was similar to the view of Jacob al-Kirkisani but in contrast with the opinion of Sa‘adiah Gaon;Footnote 41 he was generally appreciative of the Karaite method of Bible interpretation and adopted some of their exegetical solutions;Footnote 42 he followed the Karaite understanding of the concept of divine glory (Heb. kavod); he employed similar (polemical) arguments against the Islamic concept of the inimitability of the Qur'an (Ar. iʻjāz al-Qur’ān) to those advanced by Jacob al-Kirkisani;Footnote 43 and he did not follow the uniquely Andalusian understanding of the talmudic dictum “a sage is superior to a prophet” (B. Bava Batra 12a), evidently preferring the prophets over the sages.Footnote 44 To all these we may add that, apparently, like the Karaites, but in contrast with the Rabbanites, he supported the validity of other biblical books than the Torah as a legitimate source of religious legislation (Halakhah)Footnote 45 and that—as I tried to demonstrate in this paper—he questioned the legitimacy of halakhic rulings originating from outside of the Holy Land, which, in reality, meant that he might have undermined the binding status of the Babylonian Talmud.

Moreover, Halevi's biography seems to indicate that he shared some of the Karaites’ major ideals and implemented them in his own life. First, he concurred with them in unparalleled love and appreciation for the Hebrew Bible, not only as divine Scripture but also as the main repository of the holy language.Footnote 46 As a result, similarly to the early Karaites, he was conspicuously fascinated with the Hebrew language and dreamed of its revival, managing to realize this dream—at least to some extent—in his poetry. Second, he shared the Karaites’ Zionistic idea, which he manifested not only in a more-or-less conventional longing for the Holy Land and theoretical critique of the Diaspora way of life, as expressed in both the Kuzari and his numerous lyrical works (the so-called “Zionids”), but also in his rejection of this model in practice and his surprising decision to leave the comforts of al-Andalus and embark on a dangerous trip to the Land of Israel.Footnote 47 In addition, his “Palestinocentrism” made him object—just as the Karaites did—to the holiness of synagogues in the DiasporaFootnote 48 and perceive a return to Zion as a religious duty (or at least a necessary condition for the restoration of Israel's former glory and the gift of prophecy). Furthermore, as pointed out by Joseph Yahalom, his “intention to gather around him a group of chosen delegates” who would move with him to the Holy Land and practice religious rituals there was similar to the Karaite conviction that it is enough that each city and community sends on pilgrimage “at least five members of good standing.”Footnote 49 I can add to this that the whole idea of the chosen few (Ar. ṣafwa), probably inspired by Shiʻite concepts and so typical of Halevi, resembles the Karaite concept of the righteous remnant (Heb. she'erit).Footnote 50 The difference between the two is that ṣafwa is an inherited—or, to use the modern nomenclature, genetic—quality, which, according to Halevi, characterized all of Jacob's offspring (i.e., the children of Israel), while she'erit is not biologically dependent. Rather, it refers to a small group or community within Israel (out of the entire nation) that remained loyal to the true Torah and occupied itself with its study and teaching.Footnote 51

From the external sources, moreover, we learn that Halevi must have been in relatively good contact with the Karaites, given that he occasionally participated in their festivities.Footnote 52 The sympathy he harbored for them was most patently expressed in one of his poems, written on the occasion of a Karaite wedding and tellingly addressed to the “God-fearing sons of Scripture.” There, he praises their devotion to God, comparing it to the fidelity of Abraham,Footnote 53 speaks highly of their affection for the forefathers, and expresses a wish that they may become strong, as “there is no one like them among the nations.”Footnote 54

Therefore, if we were to generalize, we should conclude that the main feature of the author's distinctive approach to the Karaite question is not criticism but rather ambivalence, which is—in my view—equally visible in his attitude toward the Rabbanites, too.Footnote 55 As I tried to demonstrate in this paper, Halevi's work concurrently conveys a sustained in-depth critique of mainstream Judaism and its representatives (in terms of Sephardic courtier society in al-Andalus, and also beyond).Footnote 56 All the citations examined above do not criticize Karaism in a straightforward fashion; further, they are replete with ambivalence toward the Rabbanite Jews, whom the author depicts as self-confidently arrogant, lacking humility, bold and occasionally neglectful, as well as idle dilettantes, prone to laxity and dwelling in intellectual lethargy. In addition, some of them are also said to have practiced ijtihād—otherwise a conventional Rabbanite allegation against the Karaites—and depicted as ideological hypocrites, because they live in the Diaspora, and therefore are, in the author's view, “like someone who has no God,” and “like someone who practices idolatry,” which may implicitly suggest their—and not the Karaites’—penchant to heresy. Two of these allegations (namely, the lack of humility and the decision to remain in the exile), Halevi explicitly identifies as “weak spots” of Rabbanite Jews, in which presumably the Karaites have no (equal) share. Therefore, it is by no means evident, in my view, toward whom the main thrust of Halevi's criticism was directed.

How can we account for this ambivalence and the resulting eminently ambiguous references to Karaism ubiquitous in the Kuzari? We should note that Halevi was often accused of essentialist (or, in modern terms, “racist”) views, which found an emphatic expression in the belief that a convert to Judaism, or even his or her offspring, would never reach the same spiritual level or status as those followers born to Judaism.Footnote 57 It seems likely that his conviction regarding the particular position of the entire Jewish community—understood in the genetic and not religious sense—holds the key to understanding Halevi's attitude toward Karaism and its adherents. It is helpful to understand the sympathy that he exhibited for the Karaites, whom he perceived as an integral part of this community, Jews who might have gone astray but were still its legitimate members. As David Hartwig (Zvi) Baneth asserts, Halevi's “theory of the special religious faculty granted to Israel … places the entire Jewish people on essentially the same level. The religious acts he stresses serve to unite the nation; intellectual differences remain insignificant.”Footnote 58 In light of the above, it is evident why Joseph Yahalom concludes that “Halevi believed that there was no real difference in terms of the historical choice of the Jews …, between the Karaites and Rabbanites.”Footnote 59

Hence, in Halevi's view, heresy would mean—according to its etymological sense—the disintegration of the Jewish community, whereas its unity would be the ultimate ideal of supreme value. This unity was lost as a result of a deep historical crisis that occurred sometime in the Second Temple period, but it is possible to restore it through obedient, submissive subordination to the majority, not necessarily because it is right, but rather to avoid a much greater evil of disagreements and divisions. (“For, in fact, everything about which we are lenient when it comes to instances of contact—even if it is loathsome—is insignificant compared to heresy that their view causes [Ar. yusabbabu rā’ihum min al-mīnūt].”) The same idea is echoed in Kuzari 3:19, where the author asserts, “Therefore, it behooves the individual to endure hardship and even death [when these are] compared with the interests of the whole.”Footnote 60 This would explain Halevi's continued commitment to Rabbanism and to rabbinic Halakhah and tradition as a uniting force of the nation.

According to this interpretation, the purpose of Halevi's treatise was to counter this disintegration and bring about reunification by making both sides realize their respective mistakes, as well as see the huge benefit of restoring the lost union.Footnote 61 If it were so, the Kuzari would have been written as a kind of visionary, but still practical, manual for helping the nation realize the need for reform and enabling its representatives to carry it out and thus restore the lost unity. Incidentally, the author shared the very dream of unification with the Karaites.Footnote 62

In this sense, Halevi's work is by no means an anti-Karaite polemic but rather a kind of critical assessment—meant for internal use and for the sake of improvement—of the entire Jewish religious world, in which his praise for certain principal concepts or values of widely understood Judaism, such as the Holy Scriptures, the chosen people, the Land of Israel, and the Hebrew language, goes in tandem with a critical appraisal of various attitudes represented by—it should be emphasized—all its representatives.Footnote 63 Thus, I agree with Michael S. Berger's contention that “it was Halevi's devotion to his people that motivated him to write the Kuzari,”Footnote 64 provided that we assume that the term “his people” embraces the Karaites too, as its fully legitimate members. Accordingly, the author's aim would have been to repair and restore to its former glory the religion of all Jews—both Rabbanite and Karaite—by bringing about their unification. To this end, he presents a constructive critique, indicating weak points on both sides, even if not always expressly doing so.

In all likelihood, this constructive critique—no matter if overt or covert—resulted from Halevi's sincere concern for the future of all of the “chosen people,” remaining not only in geographic but also ideological dispersion (in the sense of religious disintegration). Little wonder, therefore, that first he attempted to formulate his critiques in a most polite and veiled manner, and that second, he attempted to downplay differences between the groups and highlight what they have in common (as noted above, not so much in terms of ideology, but in terms of existential status as chosen people).Footnote 65 The very fact that he inscribed the origins of Karaism into the chain of rabbinic tradition indicates his effort to emphasize historical ties between the two communities,Footnote 66 while his invention of a new and apparently positive myth of the Karaites’ origin—at least at face value dissociated from the Sadducean heresy—testifies to his intention not to attack them but rather to improve their image among his Rabbanite brethren.

Following this line of thinking, I would argue that Halevi was deliberately ambiguous—namely, that he consciously employed ambiguity as a purposeful technique that allowed him to convey a deeper meaning, as well as more meanings; it enabled him to appeal simultaneously to different audiences and express critical views without offending anyone.Footnote 67 This technique proved extremely effective, as evidenced by the fact that both Rabbanites and Karaites read and were inspired by his work (e.g., the story of the origins of Karaism), and both claimed him as a member of their respective confessional communities. Another benefit of his artful ambiguity was that it better reflected the sinuously complex reality, as well as Halevi's own intrinsically complicated feelings and internal debates. In other words, purposeful ambiguity served him as a vehicle to convey additional meanings, embrace the abiding complexity of multifaceted reality in a more truthful fashion, and sincerely express his genuine dilemmas.

It is conceivable that Halevi saw a unique historical momentum for the Rabbanite-Karaite rapprochement that he proposed. During his time, the Karaites were rethinking their scripturalism, and in the process, creating their own version of tradition,Footnote 68 while some of the Rabbanites—at least in al-Andalus—were willing to admit that the Oral Law was not entirely revealed at Sinai but rather included human expansions.Footnote 69 Tellingly, Maimonides did not mention the Oral Torah in his principles of faith and presumably intended to have the Talmud replaced with his own work, the Mishneh Torah, which would not be the case had he believed it was of a revealed nature. If it were so, Halevi would be the first Jewish thinker—long before Ibn Kammunah (d. 1284)—to propose such a rapprochement.Footnote 70

Alternatively, if Halevi shared some positions with Karaites and was intentionally ambiguous toward them, this may attest to a Jewish socioreligious world in which the boundaries between Rabbanite and Karaite branches of Judaism were not as well defined as they appear to be in literary polemics, and as we imagine them today. He may have lived in a less bifurcated Jewish society than we thought, perhaps comparable to Fatimid Egypt.Footnote 71 In this society, the author of the Kuzari would have occupied an “intermediate” position that dissolves a neat Karaite-Rabbanite divide, demonstrating that the differences between the two versions of Judaism are smaller than they seem at first glance.Footnote 72

Finally, in light of the above, I would like to refer to another question much debated in research in connection with the Kuzari—that is, the identity of the king of the Khazars—and conjecture that perhaps the king represents a hesitant, doubtful side of the author.Footnote 73 It would explain why he often expresses views that can be attributed to Halevi.Footnote 74 Thus, the whole dialogue would be a kind of soliloquy—a reflection of inner thoughts of a man genuinely seeking the truth, without prejudices and preconceptions—while its overriding purpose would be to forge out of the existing variants of Judaism its ideal version that would be viable for all the Jews, whether Rabbanite or Karaite.

Footnotes

יְרֵאֵי אֵל בְּנֵי מִקְרָא בְנֵיכֶם / שְׁמָעוּנִי וְשִׂימוּ לִי לְבַבְכֶם …

חִזְקוּ וְאַל יִרפּוּ יְדֵיכֶם / בְּיַעַן אֵין בְּכָל עַמִּים כְּמֹוכֶם1

References

1. See Ratzhabi, Jehudah, “New Poems of R. Yehudah Halevi” [in Hebrew], Sinai 113 (1993): 1–13Google Scholar. This article was prepared within the framework of the research project “The Karaites and Karaism as Portrayed in Medieval Rabbanite Sources: A Comparative Study and Translation of Judah Halevi's Kuzari,” sponsored by National Science Centre (NCN; grant Opus 10; no. 2015/19/B/HS2/01284; PI: Marzena Zawanowska). I presented its drafts at a research seminar at the Stockholm School of Theology (April 4, 2018), the 50th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (Boston, December 16–18, 2018), and the 19th International Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies (University of Antwerp, July 1–4, 2019). Throughout the paper, all the citations from the Book of the Kuzari follow Barry S. Kogan and Lawrence V. Berman's translation, with slight modifications when necessary. I am very grateful to Prof. Kogan for sharing his work with me prior to its publication. I would also like to express my gratitude to Prof. Daniel Lasker for reading the final draft of this paper, suggesting certain improvements, and directing my attention to additional works.

2. According to Michael S. Berger, Halevi's “apparently free-flowing style has … allowed interpretations of the Kuzari to proliferate.” See Berger, Michael S., “Toward a New Understanding of Judah Halevi's Kuzari,” Journal of Religion 72, no. 2 (1992): 210CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a standard critical edition of the Kuzari, see Yehudah Halevi, The Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith (The Book of the Khazars) [in Arabic and Hebrew], ed. David Tzvi Baneth (David Hartwig) and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977). For a thorough study of the Jewish reception of Halevi's work, see Shear, Adam, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

3. For the title al-Kitab al-Khazari, see Halevi's letter preserved in the Geniza (referred to below). For the title Kitab al-Radd wa-al-Dalil fi al-Din al-Dhalil, see MS Cambridge T.-S. Arabic N.S. 308.86; for the title Kitab al-Hujja wa-al-Dalil fi Nasrat al-Din al-Dhalil, see MS Oxford, Bodleiana, Poc. 284. On the reconstruction of the title and its variants, see Halevi, The Book of Refutation, יב–יא. Cf. Nehemya Allony, “The Kuzari: A Jewish Polemical Response to the ‘Arabiyya’” [in Hebrew], ’Eshel Beer Sheva 2 (1980): 119–44; Jacob Levinger, “The Kuzari and Its Significance” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 40, no. 4 (1971): 472–82. For an early printed edition of Halevi's text under a shortened Hebrew title (Kuzar instead of Kuzari), see Yehudah Halevi, Sefer ha-Kuzar (Fano: Gerszom Soncino, 1506). Cf. Magdalena Bendowska, “Printed Editions of The Book of the Kuzari from the 16th to 18th Century” [in Polish], Jewish History Quarterly 271, no. 3 (2019): 548–54; Shear, The Kuzari, 48.

4. For a view that it was chiefly an antiphilosophic or antirationalistic treatise, see, e.g., Isaac Husik, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1946). Leo Strauss argues that it was intended as an apologetic defense of faith against reason. See Leo Strauss, “The Law of Reason in the Kuzari,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 13 (1943): 47–96. For a suggestion that it was, after all, a theological treatise on divine attributes, see David Neumark, Essays in Jewish Philosophy (Cincinnati, OH: Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1929). For an opinion that the work conveyed an apologetic defense of Judaism, see e.g., Levinger, “The Kuzari and Its Significance”; Eliezer Schweid, “Criticism of Aristotelianism in the Middle Ages” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1962), 1:17–96; and Schweid, History of Jewish Philosophy [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1968), 122–77. For an argument that it was a critique of bourgeois society in al-Andalus, see Abraham ibn Daud, A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah), ed. and trans. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1967), 293–302, esp. 300. For an opinion that it was an eschatological, messianic text, see Ben-Zion Dinaburg (Dinur), “Rabbi Yehudah Halevi's Aliyah to the Land of Israel and the Messianic Ferment of His Age,” in Offering to David: A Collection of Papers in Jewish Studies Presented to R. David Yellin on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Simha Assaf, Ben-Zion Dinaburg, and Samuel Klein (Jerusalem: Va‘ad Ha-yuval, 1935); repr. in Ben-Zion Dinur, Historical Writings [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1975), 2:232–36. For a study emphasizing the mystical aspects of this text, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Merkavah Traditions in Philosophical Garb: Judah Halevi Reconsidered,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 57 (1990–1991): 179–242. For an argument that the Kuzari was a polemical response to Baḥya ibn Pakuda's opus magnum, Kitab Dara'ib al-Qulub (The book of the duties of the hearts), see Ehud Krinis, Baḥya Ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi: Radical Judeo-Andalusian Thinkers in Conflict (forthcoming). I am grateful to the author for having permitted me to read this insightful and inspiring text prior to its publication.

5. See Shelomo Dov Goitein, “Autographs of Yehuda Halevi” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 25, no. 4 (1956): 409; Mordechai A. Friedman, “Judah Ha-Levi on Writing the Kuzari: Responding to a Heretic,” in “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif, ed. Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 159. Cf. David H. Baneth, “Some Remarks on the Autograph of Yehudah Halevi and the Genesis of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 26, no. 3 (1957): 297–303; Shelomo Dov Goitein, “The Biography of Rabbi Judah Ha-Levi in Light of the Cairo Genizah Documents” [in Hebrew], Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 28 (1959): 41–56. Cf. also Fred Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 198, where Astren argues that “all of part 3 can be read as an anti-Karaite argument.” Salo W. Baron claims that “the very forces of religious Jewry were divided by the increasing onslaught of Karaism, which constituted a problem of sufficient gravity for Halevi to spend a substantial portion of his philosophic work in combating its doctrines.” See Salo W. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi: An Answer to an Historic Challenge,” Jewish Social Studies 3 (1941): 253. Joseph Yahalom, in Yehuda Halevi: Poetry and Pilgrimage (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), 94, maintains that “it is possible to see the king of the Khazars as the convert representative of the Karaites.” (On pp. 95–97, he offers an analysis of the Geniza letter and proposes that the Kuzari was written in response to a Karaite convert.) A similar hypothesis was put forward few decades earlier by Howard L. Apothaker in his inspiring (but hardly accessible) master's thesis. See Howard L. Apothaker, “Khazars and Karaites in Halevi's Kuzari” (master's thesis, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, 1980). I am grateful to Dr. Marc Herman for bringing it to my attention and kindly sharing a copy of this work with me (unfortunately, only after the completion of this paper). According to Shelomo Goitein, David Baneth, and Mordechai Friedman, as well as Eliezer Schweid, only the third chapter was directed against the Karaites. Developing this thesis, Yochanan Silman claimed that this chapter was written first. See Yochanan Silman, Philosopher and Prophet: Judah Halevi, the Kuzari and the Evolution of His Thought [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1985); trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995). However, according to Berger, “Toward a New Understanding,” 213, Goitein, Baneth, Schweid, and Silman “all reject the notion that the revised Kuzari retained its original and exclusive anti-Karaite aim.”

6. For an argument that the Jewish heretics (Ar. khawārij; lit. “dissenters,” “rebels”) mentioned at the beginning of the book were the Karaites, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989), 112n4; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” in From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 141n3.

7. See Astren, Karaite Judaism; Golda Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness, Haskalah and Nationalism of Eastern European Karaites [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2016), trans. David B. Greenberg (Leiden: Brill, 2018). Cf. Samuel Poznański, introduction to Zekher Ẓadikim: A Historical Chronicle of Mordekhai (ben Josef) Sułtański [in Polish] (Warsaw: Ha-ẓefirah, 1920), 5–69.

8. See Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness; Astren, Karaite Judaism, 192–201; Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism.” For an important unpublished study, see Apothaker, Khazars and Karaites.

9. For an explanation of the term “branches” (Ar. furū‘) in this context as “details and particulars derived from more general pronouncements of the Torah,” and “roots” (Ar. uṣūl) as “elemental toraitic halakha,” see Astren, Karaite Judaism, 199. Marc Herman argues that this word (Ar. furū‘) was specifically used in al-Andalus to denote the rabbinic derivation of new laws as opposed to prophetically reveled ones (Ar. uṣūl). See Marc Herman, “Situating Maimonides’ Approach to the Oral Torah in Its Andalusian Context,” Jewish History 31 (2017): 39–41.

10. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 139. Cf. Piotr Muchowski, “Essenes and Karaites: The Problem of the Genesis of Karaism in the Pronouncements of the Polish Karaites” [in Polish], Scripta Biblica et Orientalia 4 (2012): 201.

11. In Kuzari 3:65, Halevi reports: “The sage said: … After that came the era of Simon the Just, a High Priest, and the students and companions who followed him. After him came Antigonos of Sokho, a well-known figure. Among his disciples were Zadok and Boethus, who were the original dissenters (Ar. aṣlan li-’l-khawārij). The Sadducees and Boethusians were named after them.” Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 138.

12. The term minim appears also in Kuzari 3:19, but with no reference to Karaism.

13. On this division, see Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 113; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 142. For an assessment that “this portion of the Kuzari functions as heresiography, succinctly contextualizing the Sadducees, Boethusians, Christians, and Karaites into rabbinic history and clearly establishing distinct origins for each,” see Astren, Karaite Judaism, 198.

14. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 138.

15. Until Halevi's times, Jewish authors had treated the Sadducees and the Karaites as different manifestations of heresy in the history of Israel. Although some of them had claimed—evidently for polemical purposes—that ‘Anan (the alleged founding father of Karaism) recruited his followers from among the remnants of ancient sectarians, this does not mean that they had assumed any continuity, or direct connection, between the two temporally distant religious phenomena. It is only since the second half of the twelfth century (viz., more or less, after the appearance of Halevi's work, dated c. 1140), that the word “Sadducee” began to serve as a synonym for the term “Karaite.” So it was used inter alios by Abraham ibn Ezra (1089/1090–1164?) and Naḥmanides (1194–1270). See Marzena Zawanowska, “From Yūsuf al-Baṣīr to Judah Halevi: The Sadduccean Myth of the Origins of Karaism in Medieval Rabbanite Sources Revisited,” Medieval History Journal (forthcoming).

16. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 130.

17. See Muhammad Hawary, The Differences between the Karaites and the Rabbanites in the Light of Genizah MSS [in Arabic] (Cairo: Dar el Zahraa, 1994), 94–95. We read there, “My aversion to the Rabbanites, however, was only due to what I saw in their books, the diversity of interpretations, the controversies and the disputes. But I really sank into the mire because of a group quite small in number, but with the most violent disputes, abominable interpretations, disgraceful ignorance, and the most vile separateness. For they adhere to a position which can be summarized by their statement [Ar. kalimatuhum] One Torah and one law [Num 15:16]. They repudiate any book written according to the traditional interpretation [Ar. sunna] and not [according to] the Written Torah [Ar. al-Torah al-maktūba]. They, however, produce a variety of books, differing explanations, and mutually contradictory interpretations. [This began] with ʿAnan and [continued] with Benjamin [al-Nahawandi] and Malik [al-Ramli], one after the other, until Abu Hatim al-Dhahabi, and until this Ramlite, Isra'il ben Daniel.”

18. According to Muslim political theory, the unity of God is reflected in the caliph (in Sunnism) or the imam (in Shi‘ism) as head of the community (Ar. umma), whose unity is threated by civil wars and dissention, or sedition (Ar. fiṭna).

19. Halevi's choice of vocabulary (i.e., the fact that he calls Karaism a madhab) is revealing, given that in Sunni Islam the term is used to denote one of the four equally orthodox and acceptable schools of law. Yet, it ought to be noted that he was not the first to do so, as Sa‘adiah had already done so. See Yudah Seewald, Kitab al-Radd ‘ala ‘Anan (Rav Sa‘adiah Gaon's Book of Polemics against ‘Anan), in Koveẓ ḥiẓe giborim (New York: Mekhon Plitat Sofrim, 2016), 9:36–37 [Arabic], 52–54 [Hebrew].

20. See Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani, Kitab al-Anwar wa-’l-Maraqib: Code of Karaite Law, ed. Leon Nemoy (New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, 1939–1943), 1:14 (2:21); Bruno Chiesa and Wilfrid Lockwood, Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani on Jewish Sects and Christianity: A Translation of “Kitab al-anwar,” book I, with Two Introductory Essays (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984), 104; Leon Nemoy, “Al-Qirqisānī's Account of the Jewish Sects and Christianity,” Hebrew Union College Annual 7 (1930): 330. Cf. Astren, Karaite Judaism, 94, 96, 170.

21. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 90. Dov Schwartz argues that the novelty of Halevi's approach was in the fact that he was the first to suggest the possibility of gaining the hereafter in this world and that his thought, combining eschatological elements typical of Sa‘adiah's approach with the idea of individual redemption promulgated by Maimonides, constitutes a missing link in the historical development of the messianic idea in Judaism. See Dov Schwartz, “The Messianic Idea in the Doctrine of Yehudah Halevi and Its Reception by the Commentators of the [Book] of the Kuzari in Provence” [in Hebrew], Sefunot 21 (1993): 11–39. For more on Halevi's views on eschatology, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Judah Halevi on Eschatology and Messianism,” in Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo-Arabic Culture, ed. Benjamin H. Hary and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 85–106.

22. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 90.

23. See Eliezer Schweid, Feeling and Speculation [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1970), 37–79 (esp. 48–54), 90–112. For an argument that Halevi's critique was directed against Jewish Sufis rather than the Karaites, see Ehud Krinis, “The Arabic Background of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Pe‘amim 132 (2016): 171–236; Krinis, “The Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 21, no. 1 (2013): 14. Max Wiener, in “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” Hebrew Union College Annual 23 (1950–1951): 679, claims that “the Karaites against whom Judah Halevi polemicized evoked issues that were purely theoretical.”

24. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 110–11.

25. For an interpretation of this parable according to which its aim is to convey the message that “what is distinctive in the Jewish idea of the aim of life, sharply distinguishing it from other monotheistic ideals, is its rootedness in this world,” see Lenn E. Goodman, “Judah Halevi,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 1997), 205–6.

26. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 112–13.

27. Ibid., 135.

28. Joshua Blau, ed., The Responsa of Maimonides [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1989), 2:729–32. Cf. also Daniel L. Lasker, “Maimonides and the Karaites: From Critic to Cultural Hero,” in Maímónides y su época, ed. Carlos del Valle Rodriguez, Santiago García-Jalón de la Lama, and Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, 2007), 311–25.

29. For a study of Sa‘adiah Gaon's position in these debates (as a precursor of Halevi), see Moshe Zucker, “Fragments from Rav Saadya Gaon's Commentary to the Pentateuch” [in Hebrew], Sura 2 (1955–1956): 330–31, 347; Zucker, “Fragments from Kitab Taḥṣil al-Shara‘i al-Sama‘iyah to Sa‘adiah Gaon” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 41, no. 4 (1971–1972): 383–86. Cf. Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi's Kuzari (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000), 56–63. Cf. also Marzena Zawanowska, “Reconstructing the Past and Conceptualizing the Jewish “Other”: How the Babylonian Geonim Contributed to the Creation of the Founding Myth of Karaism,” History of Religions (forthcoming).

30. On Halevi's epistemological skepticism, which did not mean that “he wished to abandon the rational approach to life,” but rather that “notwithstanding his sharp critique of the prevalent rationalist trends in Arabian thought … [he] remained basically a rationalist to the end of his life,” and that as a rationalist “he argued that human cognition is wholly inadequate for the task of penetrating the deep mysteries of existence,” see Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 259.

31. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 120.

32. The investigation of the extent to which Halevi's position was informed by Muslim jurisprudence goes beyond the scope of this paper. It appears that the accusation of practicing ijtihād is purely rhetorical, given that when the Kuzari was written, it ceased to be a reality among the Karaites. For an argument that “the allusion to Karaite anarchy was already anachronistic by Halevi's time,” since the use of ijtihād, which had led to this anarchy, was discontinued by the Karaites who also adopted the concept of tradition, see Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 119, 121; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147–48, 150. For a discussion of Halevi's ambiguous use of an analogous term, qiyās, not only in terms of its negative, but also its positive aspects, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Arabic Philosophical Terms in Judah Halevi's Kuzari” [in Hebrew], in Heritage and Innovation in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, ed. Joshua Blau and David Doron (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2000), 161–66.

33. He states there (Kuzari 3:73): “Now I do not deny, O king of the Khazars, that there are things in the Talmud about which I cannot convince you, nor can I even prove that they belong to a [single] domain. They are the things which the Talmud simply brought together because of the diligent effort [Ar. ijtihād] of the disciples [of the sages], since they held to the view that even the ordinary conversation of the sages requires study [B. Avodah Zarah 19b; B. Sukkah 21b]. Their sole intent was to state only what they had heard from their masters, while at the same time making a diligent effort [Ar. ijtihād] to pass on everything that they had heard from their masters. In that regard they were also intent on [reporting] their exact words. Now sometimes they did {not} understand what they meant, and so they said, ‘Thus, we were told, and [thus,] we have heard.’ But sometimes, the master had certain aims with regard to that subject, which were concealed from his students. And so, the matter [in question] reached us, and we attached no importance to it because we did not know his aim. However, all of this pertains to what is neither permitted nor forbidden. Therefore, [practically speaking,] we need not be concerned with it. Nor will it harm the work [if we adopt this stance], notwithstanding the different viewpoints that we have mentioned.” Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 146.

34. Ibid., 121–22.

35. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 55–56.

36. For an argument that it was mainly intended to defend the Andalusian Jewish way of life, see Cohen, Book of Tradition, 300.

37. Daniel Lasker writes that “according to Halevi, the fact that Karaites try harder (i.e., they use idjtihād) is a sign of their ultimate weakness.” See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 119; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147–48.

38. In Kuzari 3:65, Halevi states: “As for the Karaites, they exercise independent judgment concerning the roots [of the Law and] engage in intellectual speculation with regard to the branches. Sometimes, the corruption even crosses over into the roots, but out of ignorance on their part, not intentionally [Ar. lā qaṣadan].” For a view that “the Kuzari is written with more than a hint of respect toward them [= Karaites]. … The Kuzari stresses repeatedly the good intentions and zeal of the Karaites, and so, too, their method of biblical interpretation, which was close to the plain (literal) approach, was praised (The Kuzari, 3, 22),” see Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 94.

39. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 229.

40. See Silman, Philosopher and Prophet, 283–85. Cf. Krinis, “Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” 50.

41. See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism.” Cf. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 261: “These historical truths [= the Sinaitic revelation amplified in many details by direct divine communications to individual men from Adam to Moses before it and to the Israelite prophets thereafter], to be sure, must not conflict with human reason.”

42. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 94.

43. See Krinis, “Arabic Background of the Kuzari,” 39.

44. For a study of the uniquely Andalusian understanding of this adage, see Herman, “Maimonides’ Approach.”

45. See Marzena Zawanowska, “David in Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari: A Reconciliation Project,” in Warrior, Poet, Prophet and King: The Character of David in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Marzena Zawanowska and Mateusz Wilk (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

46. Interestingly, the first chapter of the Kuzari, as pointed out by Daniel Lasker, “is based solely on the biblical text, without recourse to rabbinic literature.” See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 115; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 144. Cf. Astren, Karaite Judaism, 199n64.

47. According to the traditional account, first cited in the sixteenth century by Rabbi Gedalyah in his Shalshelet ha-kabbalah (Chain of tradition), this trip led to his death. On the centrality of the Jewish people, the Hebrew language, and the Land of Israel in Halevi's thought, see, e.g., Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 263. On the importance of other categories, such as the Jewish rituals and way of life, the history of Israel and its wisdom, God, His revelation (the Torah), and His Temple, see Wiener, “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” 674–75, 678.

48. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 93–94.

49. Ibid., 130.

50. On the idea of ṣafwa and its reception in Halevi's treatise, see Ehud Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi's al-Kitāb al-Khazari and Its Origins in the Shī‘ī Imām Doctrine” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008); Krinis, God's Chosen People: Judah Halevi’s Kuzari and the Shī‘ī Imām Doctrine, trans. Ann Brener and Tamar Liza Cohen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014); Krinis, “The Legitimist Inheritance Question and the Formation of the Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi's Kuzari” [in Hebrew], in Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought, ed. Haim Kreisel, Boaz Huss, and Uri Ehrlich (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2009). On the Karaite Mourners of Zion's self-description as the righteous remnant (Heb. she'erit), see, e.g., Salomon ben Yeruḥam's (or Yeroḥim's) commentary on Psalms 69:1 in Lawrence Marwick, The Arabic Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham the Karaite on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42–72 (Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1956), 97–98. Cf. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1957), 5:232; Yoram Erder, The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls; On the History of an Alternative to Rabbanite Judaism [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uḥad, 2004), trans. Yaffah Murciano (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 37–38; Simḥa Pinsker, Lickute Kadmoniot. Zur Geschichte des Karaismus und der karäischen Literatur [in Hebrew] (Vienna: Della Torre, 1860), 1:21.

51. I am grateful to Daniel Lasker for bringing this distinction to my attention. On the Karaites’ self-perception as a community that was forced in the past to remain in hiding, see Yefet ben ‘Eli's comment on Zechariah 5:9–11, where he declares: “The supporters of truth [Ar. ahl al-ḥaqq] had been subdued and [made] invisible [presumably, by the majority who embraced the Oral Torah] until the time of the appearance of the little horn [= Muhammad; Daniel 7:8], who … enabled [selected] individuals from [the children of] Israel to disclose something of the truth in the kingdom of the little horn [= Muslim empire].” I am grateful to Kees de Vreugd for having permitted me to read his edition of Yefet's commentary on Zechariah prior to its publication.

52. On the Karaites’ presence on the Iberian Peninsula, see Cohen, Book of Tradition, XLVI–L; Daniel J. Lasker, “Karaism in Twelfth-Century Spain,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 1 (1992): 179–95; Judah Rosenthal, “Karaites and Karaism in Western Europe” [in Hebrew], in Studies and Texts in Jewish History, Literature and Religion, ed. Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1967), 1:241. Cf. also Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 118n32 and further references there; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 147n33 and further references there.

53. See Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 66.

54. Ratzhabi, “New Poems.” Cf. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 65.

55. Halevi's ambivalent attitude toward the Karaites has already been suggested by Daniel Lasker, who indicates many parallels between Karaites and philosophers, especially in terms of the use of logic instead of tradition, and points out that both “held a certain attraction for Halevi,” which resulted in his ambiguous attitude toward both these groups. See Lasker, Judah Halevi and Karaism, 125; Lasker, “Judah Halevi and Karaism,” 154.

56. Gerson D. Cohen claimed that in the Kuzari, Halevi attacked Jewish (bourgeois) society in al-Andalus. See Cohen, Book of Tradition, 300. For an argument that the king of the Khazars stands for a representative of courtier society in al-Andalus, see Daniel J. Lasker, “What Did the King of the Khazars Know and When Did He Know It?” [in Hebrew], in A Tribute to Hannah: Jubilee Book in Honor of Hannah Kasher, ed. Avi Elqayam and Ariel Malachi (Tel Aviv: Idra, 2018), 119–28.

57. On Halevi's alleged racism or nationalism, see, e.g., Cedric Dover, “The Racial Philosophy of Jehuda Halevi,” Phylon 13, no. 4 (1952): 312–22; Yair Schiffman, “More on the Subject of Yehudah Halevi's Racism” [in Hebrew], Ba-mikhlalah 9 (1998): 65–82. Cf. Stanley F. Chyet, “Yehuda Halevi: The Consolations of Utopia,” in Bits of Honey: Essays for Samson H. Levey, ed. Stanley F. Chyet and David H. Ellenson (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), 155–56. On the Muslim sources of Halevi's racial ideas, see Krinis, “Idea of the Chosen People”; Krinis, God's Chosen People; Krinis, “Legitimist Inheritance Question,” 47–70. Cf. Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 263–66, 273 (“extreme racialism of Halevi”; “[his] extreme racialist contentions”; “his racism”); Wiener, “Judah Halevi's Concept of Religion,” 673–74 (“of all Jewish thinkers, Judah Halevi was the most ardently nationalistic”). For an argument that, according to Halevi, a convert cannot reach the same level as a genetic Jew, see Daniel Lasker, “Proselyte Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Thought of Judah Halevi,” Jewish Quarterly Review 81, nos. 1–2 (1990): 75–91.

58. David Hartwig (Zvi) Baneth, “Judah Halevi and al-Ghazali,” in Studies in Jewish Thought: An Anthology of German Jewish Scholarship, ed. Alfred Jospe (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1981), 198.

59. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 65.

60. Halevi, The Book of Refutation, 108.

61. For more on Halevi's dream of reunification, see Apothaker, “Khazars and Karaites.”

62. For such a dream expressed by Salomon ben Yeruḥam (or Yeroḥim), see Israel Davidson, ed., Book of the Wars of the Lord: Containing the Polemics of the Karaite Salmon ben Yeruḥam against Saadia Gaon [in Hebrew] (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1934), 131.

63. For an assessment that “more than anyone else Halevi was sensitive to the inner and external forces of disintegration,” and that “the Al-Khazari undertook to redefine Judaism to both the outside world and its own adherents with due cognizance of the contemporary crisis,” see Baron, “Yehudah Halevi,” 253, 257.

64. Berger, “Toward a New Understanding,” 220.

65. See a passage from Kuzari 3:53 cited above. Cf. Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 64.

66. Cf. Ibid.

67. On Halevi's literary artistry, see Eliezer Schweid, “The Literary Structure of the First Book of the Kuzari” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 30, no. 3 (1961): 257–62; Schweid, Feeling and Speculation. On the use of irony, subversion, and other rhetorical strategies, see also Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy, 162–64.

68. It should be noted that Karaite scripturalism remained both an epistemological premise and a declared precept even after Karaites developed their own idea of tradition. In addition, the emergence of Karaite tradition is marked first in the middle of the eleventh century by Tobiah ben Moses, and it is difficult to demonstrate that concept of tradition was present among the Karaites before 1141 (the date of Halevi's death) and/or that it held sway among Karaites in Spain. See Akhiezer, Historical Consciousness, 34–39; Astren, Karaite Judaism, 175–78.

69. See Herman, “Maimonides’ Approach.”

70. On Ibn Kammunah and his treatise, see Nemoy, Leon, “Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites,” Jewish Quarterly Review 63 (1972–1973): 97–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 222–46 [English translation]; Nemoy, , “Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 36 (1968): 107–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar [Arabic original]; Nemoy, , “Notes on Ibn Kammunah's Treatise on the Differences between the Rabbanites and the Karaites” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 24, no. 3 (1955): 343–53Google Scholar. The first edition of this work (including numerous errors) was prepared by Hartwig Hirschfeld, see Arabic Chrestomathy in Hebrew Characters with a Glossary [in Arabic and Hebrew] (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1892), 69–103. On the role of Ibn Kammunah's work in establishing the correct reading of the Judeo-Arabic original of Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari, see ibid., 343.

71. See Rustow, Marina, Heresy and Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

72. Although the correspondence between early twelfth-century Spain and Fatimid Egypt may illuminate sociohistorical setting of Halevi's ambiguity toward the Karaites, its study goes beyond the scope of the paper devoted to the Kuzari.

73. It is not possible to simply identify the sage's view with those of Halevi; see Strauss, “Law of Reason,” 53 and n. 17 there. For an identification of the king of Khazars with an Andalusian Jew, see Lasker, “What Did the King of the Khazars Know?,” 128.

74. For example, Halevi puts into the mouth of the Khazar king words of criticism against Jewish (Rabbanite) hypocrisy and life in the Diaspora (see, e.g., Kuzari 2:22–24) to which we know from his poetry he himself subscribed. See, e.g., his poem “Devareikha be-mor ʿover rekuḥim” (Your words are compounded of myrrh). Cf. Schirmann, Hayyim (Jefim), The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Edited, Supplemented and Annotated by Ezra Fleischer [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1995–1996), 463Google Scholar. For more on this poem in the context of Halevi's ideological debates with the Karaites, see Yahalom, Poetry and Pilgrimage, 92–97.