“Religion, Philosophy and Morality: How Leo Strauss Read Judah Halevi’s Kuzari”

Kenneth Hart Green, “Religion, Philosophy and Morality: How Leo Strauss Read Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 2 (1993), pp. 225-273.  

Excerpt:

“IT IS A CURIOUS thing about reading Leo Strauss’s monograph “The

Law of Reason in the Kuzari” that one may be misled not only by its
method and apparatus but also by the topic and discussion, and believe
it to be just another, though undoubtedly brilliant, work of historical
scholarship. This however may be precisely what Strauss was not
attempting to write. To all appearances, he seems simply to be dealing
with Judah Halevi’s conception of the nature of morality and to be argu-
ing for a slight correction of the conventional notion of Halevi as the
great medieval Jewish opponent of philosophy: Strauss brings to light
Halevi’s ability to mount a subtle and sophisticated philosophical cri-
tique of the philosophers’ moral teaching, and demonstrates how Halevi
turns their own arguments against them.”

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