to the Holy Land, they were apparently either pietists or those searching for a refuge, which Palestine could not always offer.
Why was it that, in spite of the love for Zion, when the opportunity arose to settle in the Land, the vast majority, including those that preached and taught and composed poetry to express this love, remained in the land of their birth?
Yehudah Halevi (Rihal, 1075-1141), was probably the most celebrated philosopher and poet of Zion in medieval times. Yet, in his Book of the Kuzars, he gives voice to this eternal ambivalence between love for the Holy Land and the inability or unwillingness to requite this love.
In the dialogue between the King of the Kuzars and the rabbi (Haver), the latter describes in detail the many verses of the Bible and the rulings of the rabbis regarding the supreme importance of the Holy Land.
The Kuzari replies:“If this be so, you fall short of the duty laid down in your own Torah , by not endeavoring to reach that place to make it your abode in life and death. Although you pray daily,‘Have mercy on Zion for it is the house of our life,’ and believe that the Shekhinah[God ’s presence on earth] will return there,.. is it not‘the gate of heaven’? All nations agree on this point. Christians believe that the souls are gathered there and then lifted to heaven. Islam teaches that it is the place of ascent of the prophets... Your fathers had no other desire than to settle in the Holy Land. They did not leave it in times of dearth and famine except by God ’s permission.”
What could the rabbi respond to this castigation of the Gentile ruler, who clearly saw the contradiction between what was taught and
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