Judah Halevi - Journey To Israel

Journey To Israel

We cannot reconstruct the Halevi's various residences in Spain; he seems to have lived at times in Christian Toledo, at others in Islamic Spain. He occupied an honored position as a physician, intellectual, and communal leader. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the development of his religious thought, he decided to abandon his home in order to end his days in the Land of Israel. His motivations were complex. His personal piety intensified as he aged, leading him to desire to devote himself entirely to religious life. The uncertainties of Jewish communal status in the period of the Reconquista led him to doubt the future security of the Jewish position in the diaspora. The failure of messianic movements weighed on him. His earlier commitment to philosophy as a guide to truth gave way to a renewed commitment to faith in revelation. He came to the conviction, elaborated in his treatise known as the Kuzari, that true religious fulfillment is possible only in the presence of the God of Israel, which, he believed, was most palpable in the Land of Israel. Contrary to a prevalent theory, his poetry shows beyond doubt that his pilgrimage was a completely individual act and that he had no intention of setting off a mass pilgrimage.

Halevi sailed for Alexandria. Arriving on September 8, 1140, he was enthusiastically greeted by friends and admirers. He then went to Cairo, where he visited several dignitaries, including the Nagid of Egypt, Samuel ben Hanania, and his friend Halfon ben Nethaniel Halevi. He did not permit himself to be persuaded to remain in Egypt, but returned to Alexandria and sailed for Palestine on May 14, 1141. Little is known of his travels after. He died during the summer, presumably after having reached Palestine. Legend, however has it that Halevi was killed after being run over by an Arab horseman as he arrived in Jerusalem.

Halevi dealt with his pilgrimage extensively in the poetry written during his last year, which includes panegyric to his various hosts in Egypt, explorations of his religious motivations, description of storms at sea, and expressions of his anxieties and doubts. We are well informed about the details of his pilgrimage thanks to letters that were preserved in the Cairo geniza. Poems and letters bearing on Halevi's pilgrimage are translated and explicated in Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove (Oxford University Press, 2007).