ALIYAH: CONFLICT AND AMBIVALENCE

what was accomplished? Were there any excuses he could offer? Was there a justification for not fulfilling the biblical precepts and rabbinic injunctions. Yehudah Halevi makes no attempt to excuse of justify this sin of omission. Rather, his rabbi candidly retorts:

You have uncovered the Achilles’ tendon of my disgrace, O King of the Kuzars!®

After years of planning and vacillation, in 1140 Yehudah finally left for the Holy Land. The famous legend relates that the Rihal arrived in Eretz Yisrael and Jerusalem , where he kissed its ruins and recited his famous elegy,“Zion, will you not ask about the welfare of your prisoners?” While in this act, a Moslem horseman trampled him to death.’ In reality, Jerusalem was under Crusader rule at this time, so this story can be only legendary.

Reality in contrast to myth was not so romantic. Yehudah Halevi arrived in Alexandria on September 8, 1140, and was received by a crowd of admirers. He sojourned for quite a while in the port city and then in Cairo . His close friends and disciples tried to influence him to remain longer in Egypt . At one point he went to the port of Alexandria to take a boat to the Holy Land, but a storm prevented its sailing. Genizah letters and eulogies indicate that about six months after his arrival he died and was buried in Egypt. *’

This tragic, ironic finale to the life of this great savant of Zion indicates that even on the verge of realizing his ultimate desire, he failed to take the ultimate step and ended his life in exile.

AFTERWORD