Customer Reviews

Kuzari: In Defense of the Despised Faith

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I found that Yehuda Halevi gives answers to questions that are very pertinent today. He makes Judaism such a LOGICAL religion. The device he uses of questions and answers between a rabbi and the king of the Kuzars, is ingenious as it keeps the reader's interest. That this book was written several hundred years ago and yet is so germain today, shows that the Jewish religion is immutable regardless of the changes in society around us. Morality and ethics do not change regardless of the passage of time. The translation by N. Daniel Korobkin is nothing short of brilliant. Anyone who knows Hebrew will recognize what a magnificent job he has done in converting the archaic style of Yehuda Halevi's day so that it is accessible to the modern reader. I strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking to know the basics of Judaism. You don't have to read anything else -- it's all there.

This book is not only logical and thought provoking, but inspiring. Ha-Levi wrote a highly philosophical book that touches on the issues of finding truth in the midst of religious controversy, esoteric searching and the emptiness left by western philosophy. It presents Judaism as not only logical but rational and intimate because of Israel's personal experience with the Divine. It makes it claim again Islam and Christianity, whom Ha-Levi says have divided the world amongst themselves in warfare, and calls people to live by morality and a peaceful nature. It demands people to find the usefulness of religion, but not fall into ascentism that leads to contention. This text is not just a translation; it has great commentary on the text and contains the full Hebrew text to reference.

This is easily the best Kuzari translation available.

The Feldheim translation has no commentary and only a few footnotes (enough to count on your hands), while the Hartwig Hirschfeld translation (Schocken Books, Sefer ve'Sefel, and other publishers) has a decent number of footnotes with Talmudic sources. The Korobkin version, on the other hand, has extensive annotations explaining Greek philosophical subjects and summarizing the major Jewish commentaries on the Kuzari. Plus appendices with detailed explanations of Greek philosophy and other matters make this Korobkin version unmatched. (It is therefore a shame that it is out of print and almost $100 at the time of the writing of this review.)

This book provides great insight into the heart of the Jewish and Christian religions.

A great read for any religion lover.

I haven't read this edition, but note that the translator did not read the book in the original Arabic but rather paraphrased the medieval Hebrew translation.
A proper translation of any work has to be done from the original. Such a new translation of Kuzari is, to the best of my knowledge , in progress.
In the meantime there is no satisfactory English Kuzari available. Therefore, this book might offer the best way to become aquainted with one of the classics (probably the second most important work - after Maimonides) of medieval Jewish philosophy

The reader from Jerusalem who said that the translation must be from the original Arabic is right. Amazingly, this translator finds the currently available translation (there is only one, not two)"unacceptable." However, it was done by a very great scholar and is from the original Arabic text. The problem now is that there is a new critical edition of that text, so that a new or updated translation might be worthwhile. In any case, this book is not that.