רבי יהודה הלוי

Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi is the poet whose whole heart was in Jerusalem while his body was still in Spain. The greatest of the poets of the Golden Age, a physician and philosopher, he wrote hundreds of poems, among them the eternal songs of longing for Zion: 'my heart is in the East and I am at the edge of the West' (from 'Tziyon Halo Tishali'). Not a longing of an idea, but of a man who rose and ascended.

In his book 'The Kuzari' he built a complete defense of the Jewish faith, in the form of a debate between the king of the Khazars and sages. He did not try to fit Judaism to the reigning philosophy but showed its uniqueness: the God of Israel is not a conclusion of logic but 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' who brought His people out of Egypt, a truth of living historical experience.

And in the end he did what he had written. In his old age he abandoned the honor and comfort of Spain and set out on the dangerous road to the Land of Israel. Tradition tells that he reached the gates of Jerusalem and there, as he knelt and kissed its dust, an Arab horseman trampled him. The poem became life, and the life was sealed upon the soil of the Land he loved.

What do we learn from him? That love of Zion is not words but a deed, and that the greatest poet is the one who lives his poem. Yehuda HaLevi teaches that the Jewish faith rests on living historical memory and not on logic alone, and that there is a moment when longing must rise from the page and set out on the road, 'my heart is in the East' to the very end.