The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, 2002, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp.

1–24

The Three Worlds of ibn Ezra’s

H ay ben Meqitz1
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Aaron Hughes
Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary,
2500 University Drive N.W. Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4

Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) has long occupied an ambiguous place in the his-
tory of Jewish philosophy owing to the nature of his exposition.2 Prone to sugges-
tive fragments (e.g., ha-maskil yavin) and other such secrets (sodot), ibn Ezra is
often unwilling, some would argue unable,3 to flesh out his philosophical ideas
in a systematic manner. Such would also appear to be the case with his treatise
entitled Hay ben Meqitz,4 written in rhyming prose and, on the surface, nothing
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more than a standard regurgitation of the Neoplatonic career of the soul.
Making this work seem even less original is the fact that ibn Ezra’s treatise follows

1
Research for this article was supported by the generosity of the Social Sciences and Research
Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Maurice Amado
Foundation for Sephardic Studies. I would like to thank Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, James G. Hart, John
Walbridge, Lisa A. Hughes and the anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting on earlier ver-
sions of this article. All remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.
2
To date the best biography of ibn Ezra is found in Israel Levin, Abraham ibn Ezra: His Life and
Poetry (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz ha-meuchad, 1969). For a discussion of the date of ibn Ezra’s
death, see J.L. Fleischer, ‘‘When did R. Abraham Ibn Ezra Die?’’ (in Hebrew) East and West 2 (1929),
pp. 245–256.
3
Perhaps, the most extreme expression of this is found in Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews. Vol. 3
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1894), p. 366: ‘‘...he was energetic, ingenious, full of wit, but lacking
in warmth of feeling...His, however, was not a symmetrically developed, strong personality, but was full of con-
tradictions, and given to frivolity.’’ For a somewhat less radical pronouncement, see Julius Guttmann,
Philosophies of Judaism: A History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig, trans.
David W. Silverman (New York: Schocken, 1964), pp. 134f.
4
In what follows, I have used the critical edition found in Iggeret Hay ben Meqitz, ed. I. Levin (Tel Aviv: Tel
_
Aviv University Press, 1983). This edition also includes an excellent expository essay by Levin, in addition to a
Hebrew translation of Avicenna’s Hayy ibn Yaqzân. Citations from ibn Ezra’s Torah commentaries are from his
_ _
Commentary to the Torah, 3 vols., ed. Asher Weiser (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1976). For his other com-
mentaries I have used the Miqraot Gedolot. As for Avicenna’s Hayy ibn Yaqzân, I have consulted Hayy ibn
Yaqzân li ibn sı̂nâ wa ibn tufayl wa al-suhrawardı̂, ed. Ahmad _Amı̂n (Cairo: Dâr
_
al-ma’arı̂f, 1959). All_ transla-
_
tions,_ unless noted, are my _ own.

ISSN 1053-699X print: ISSN 1477-285X online/02/010001-24 ß 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1053699022000038101
2 The Three Worlds of ibn Ezra

very closely a work of the same name, Hayy ibn Yaqzân,5 written by Avicenna
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(980–1037).6
Whereas treatments of ibn Ezra often note Hay ben Meqitz only in passing, if they
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even mention it at all,7 the goal of what follows is to establish a place for it as one of
the fullest expressions of his philosophical worldview. For in this treatise we witness
many of the major concepts and motifs that run throughout his philosophically sugges-
tive Biblical commentaries, his wide-ranging poetic dı̂wân, and his more scientific
works.8 Unlike the majority of these other works, however, ibn Ezra nowhere alludes
to ‘‘secrets’’ in Hay ; rather, it is one of the few places where he presents a full-scale
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narrative documenting in allegorical fashion the career and adventures of the human
soul and its relationship to the structure of the universe. Of the two studies that
take Hay ben Meqitz seriously, one chooses to regard it primarily as a form of
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‘‘gnostic-mystical’’ ascent,9 and the other is primarily concerned with its literary style
and motifs.10 Juxtaposed against these two approaches, I shall attempt to connect
Hay to a broader philosophical context, showing how it relates specifically to the
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Neoplatonic tradition.11
Hay ben Meqitz tells of the journey undertaken by an unnamed protagonist and the
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enigmatic Hay through the lower world, ha-olam ha-shafal (Sections 1–15), the
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intermediate world, ha-olam ha-emsa‘i (Sections 16–25), and the upper world,
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ha-olam ha-elyon (Sections 26–29).12 To each one of these worlds, or cosmological
levels, corresponds a group of sciences that allows access to its structures and secrets.

5
Both of which could be translated into English as ‘‘Living, Son of Awake.’’ Corbin translates the Arabic more
cryptically (as was his wont) as ‘‘Vivens, filius Vigilantis.’’ See Henry Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary
Recital, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 137.
6
Ibn Ezra’s reliance on Avicenna has been intimated at by many scholars; although, again owing to the nature
of ibn Ezra’s exposition, this relationship is notoriously difficult to map with any certainty. In addition to the
literature cited in the following note, see Warren Zev Harvey, ‘‘The First Commandment and the God of
History: ibn Ezra and Maimonides versus Halevi and Crescas,’’ (in Hebrew) Tarbiz 57 (1988), p. 208;
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Aviezer Ravitzky, ‘‘The Anthropological Doctrine of Miracles in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,’’ (in Hebrew)
Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2 (1982), pp. 32ff.; Moshe Idel, ‘‘Hitbodedut as Concentration in Jewish
Philosophy,’’ (in Hebrew) Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 7 (1988), esp. p. 44.
7
Most recently, see Elliot Wolfson, ‘‘God, the Demiurge, and the Intellect,’’ Revue des Études Juives 149
(1990), p. 91 n. 57; Howard Kreisel, ‘‘On the Term kol in Abraham Ibn Ezra: A Reappraisal,’’ Revue des
Études Juives 152 (1994), pp. 36–38. Essentially citing the same sources, these two individuals reach radically
different conclusions. Wolfson argues that by the term kol (all) ibn Ezra refers to (1) the hypostasis of the divine
or universal intellect and (2) the whole of the parts of the cosmos. Kreisel, however, contends that ibn Ezra uses
this term as an epithet for God. Since ibn Ezra does not employ the term kol in Hay, I, for the most part, stay out
_
of this debate.
8
Within this context, see the excellent analysis of the relationship between ibn Ezra’s poetry and his
philosophy in Israel Levin, ‘‘Hold to the Ladder of Wisdom,’’ (in Hebrew) Te’uda 8 (1992), pp. 41–86.
9
Hermann Greive, Studien zum jüdischen Neuplatonismus: Die Religionsphilosophie des Abraham Ibn
Ezra (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), esp. pp. 104ff.
10
Levin, Abraham ibn Ezra, pp. 11–45.
11
The term ‘‘Neoplatonism’’ is a nineteenth century construct and, as a result, ambiguous and potentially
misleading. Historically, by the close of the fifth century the study of Aristotle had become inseparable
from the exposition of Plato’s thought. Indeed, by the time we get to Philoponus, Aristotle’s philosophy had
been used as the standard introduction to Plato for at least two centuries. Moreover, the term also implies
that there exists such a phenomenon as a ‘‘Neoplatonic system’’ resulting in the tendency to subsume diverse
individuals under the common rubric ‘‘Neoplatonist.’’
12
It is worth mentioning, however, that in his Commentary to Psalm 148, ibn Ezra only mentions two worlds:
ha-olam ha-shafal and ha-olam ha-elyon. Within this context, see, Rosin, ‘‘Die Religionsphilosophie Abraham
Ibn Esra’s,’’ Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 42 (1898), pp. 202–204.