Page 27 - HaMizrachi #28 Pesach USA 2021

ZIONIST INFLUENCERS THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND

OUR SERIES ON LEADERS WHO HAVE SHAPED ZIONISM
CONTINUES WITH SOME OF ZIONISM’S EARLIEST INFLUENCERS
Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi

abbi Yehuda HaLevi, also known personality meshing with that of the A light thing would it seem to me to
by his acronym Rihal, was born greater Am Yisrael in his writings. leave all the good things of Spain,
Rin the early 11th century in Spain.
He was both a Torah scholar and well Although there is a fable that Rabbi Seeing how precious in mine eyes
versed in the sciences of his time, and Yehuda’s daughter was married to the to behold the dust of the desolate
was a prominent thinker in Spanish Jew- son of the renowned Torah commen- sanctuary.”
ry’s Golden Age. tator Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, there Naomi Shemer’s famous line ךִי ַ רי ׁ ִ ש ל ָ כ ְ ל
ְ
Living during the first Crusade, Rabbi is little historical proof for this. It is רֹוּנ ִּ כ יִנ ֲ א (“for all of your songs, [Yerusha-
Yehuda was influenced by the history known, however, that Rabbi Yehuda layim,] I am a violin”) from the song
unfolding around him. He challenged and the Ibn Ezra were well acquainted. ב ָ הָז ל ֶ ׁש םִי ַ ל ָ ׁשּורְי was inspired by a line in
the surrounding Christian and Muslim During his later years, Rabbi Yehuda’s one of Rabbi Yehuda’s poems, ר ֹוּנ ִּ כ יִנ ֲ א
philosophies in his magnum opus, the poetry and writings dealt extensively ךִי ַ רי ׁ ִ ש ל ָ כ ְ ל.
ְ
Kuzari, one of the most studied books with Eretz Yisrael and longing to return
on Jewish thought. In it, Rabbi Yehuda to the Land, a number of which begin Although Yerushalayim was then in
writes about the greatness of the Land with the word Tzion and speak to the hands of the Crusaders, he never
of Israel, explaining that a perfect Jewish lost faith in being able to make aliyah.
life can only be lived in Israel, where the personified Tzion directly, According to Rabbi Yehuda, the phys-
G-d’s presence is tangible and the mourning her destruction and ical return to Israel was a spiritual
Torah can be fulfilled completely. beseeching her to pray for imperative.
Israel is to all the other countries as her lost children. “Tzion, will
the heart is to the limbs of a body. you not ask if peace is with He left Spain and arrived in Alexandria
your captives?” begins on September 8th, 1140. He visited
Rabbi Yehuda’s poetic and lit- one of Rabbi Yehuda’s Cairo for a number of months, then
erary talent was discovered most celebrated piyut. returned to Alexandria and set sail to
early on. He wrote beau- Another one reads: Israel on May 14th, 1141. Many of the
tiful and complex poetry details and ordeals of his journey to
and prose in Arabic and “My heart is in the Israel have been preserved thanks to
in Hebrew from a young east, and I in the the famous Cairo Geniza.
age, including dozens of uttermost west--
rhyming riddles. Today he How can I find savor Rabbi Yehuda died mysteriously shortly
is considered one of the in food? How shall it after arriving in Israel. Some say he suc-
greatest Hebrew poets of all cumbed to disease, others say he was
time. Many of his piyutim be sweet to me? killed. It is believed that after his death,
are incorporated into our How shall I render his writings inspired others to move to
tefillah, in selichot, kinnot, my vows and my Israel and influenced writers of later
and zemirot Shabbat. Like bonds, while yet kabbalistic texts. Described with the epi-
David HaMelech in Tehillim, taph “Poet of Tzion,” Rabbi Yehuda was a
Rabbi Yehuda often connected Tzion lies beneath the major inspiration to the Chovevei Tzion
his own suffering with that fetter of Edom, and movement and a figure of reverence to
of the nation, his own I in Arab chains? modern Zionists and many others. 

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