Bidspirit auction | YEHUDAH HALEVI. Sepher HaKuzari [philosophy].

YEHUDAH HALEVI. Sepher HaKuzari [philosophy]. Translated from Arabic into Hebrew by Yehudah ibn Tibbon. With commentary Kol Yehudah by Yehudah Moscato. Third edition, FIRST EDITION with commentary. ff. 299. Occasional wear, stained in places, title remargined, f.2 loose. Later mottled calf, rubbed, trace wormed. 4to. Vinograd, Venice 794. Venice, Giovanni di Gara, 1594. Completed in the Hebrew year 4900 (1139/40 CE), the Kuzari (full title:) “A Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion” is the likely most influential works of the Spanish Jewish philosopher, physician, and poet Judah Halevi. Originally written in Arabic and prompted by Halevi's contact with a Spanish Karaite, the work was subsequently translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon.  It has since come to be regarded as one of the most important apologetic works of Jewish philosophy. Divided into five parts, it takes the form of a dialogue between a rabbi and the king of the Khazars, who invited the former to instruct him in the tenets of Judaism, relative to the two Abrahamic religions: Christianity and Islam. In the past century, the study of the Kuzari was encouraged by figures as diverse as Rav Kook, R. Yechezkel Sarna of Chevron and R. Shraga Feivel Mendelowitz of Torah Voda’ath. They each valued the Kuzari’s experiential approach over and against the rationalism of Maimonides.