Yehuda HaLevi and the Kuzari
The greatest Hebrew poet of the Middle Ages writes a dialogue on the Khazar king's choice of faith — and at the end of his life leaves Spain for Jerusalem.
Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, physician and poet of Toledo, was famous while still young: his verses were sung at weddings from Granada to Kairouan. He wrote hundreds of liturgical poems still found in prayer books, and the cycle Shirei Tzion, among them the celebrated 'My heart is in the East, and I am at the edge of the West.'
His great book, in Arabic 'The Book of Argument and Proof in Defence of the Despised Faith,' is known as the Kuzari. It is a conversation: the Khazar king seeks the true religion and summons in turn a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim and, reluctantly, a Jew — and is gradually convinced. HaLevi argues unlike Maimonides: he does not derive faith from logic but from experience — an entire people stood at Sinai and heard, and that testimony outweighs any syllogism. He speaks at length of the Land of Israel as the place where prophecy is possible, and of Israel as 'the heart among the organs,' more sensitive than the rest and therefore more often ill.
Having written it, he acted on it. At about sixty he left his home, daughter, grandson, wealth and fame, and sailed east. He reached Egypt, where he was begged to stay, and went on. Whether he reached Jerusalem is unknown; his last poems were written on the road.