Rabbi Yehuda ben Shmuel HaLevi (1075 - 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Toledo, Spain, in 1075, and died shortly after arriving in the Land of Israel in 1141. Rabbi Yehuda Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was The Kuzari. As a youth, he went to Granada, the main center of Jewish literary and intellectual life at the time, where he found a mentor in Moses Ibn Ezra. He studied in the yeshiva at Lucena. He composed a short elegy on the death of Isaac Alfasi, the head of the yeshiva. His aptitude as a poet was recognized early. He was educated in traditional Jewish scholarship, in Arabic literature, and in the Greek sciences and philosophy that were available in Arabic. As an adult he was a physician of renown, and an active participant in Jewish communal affairs.

For at least part of his life he lived in Toledo and may have been connected with the court there as a physician. In Toledo he complains of being too busy with medicine to devote himself to scholarship. At other times he lived in various Muslim cities in the south. Like all Jewish intellectuals of Muslim Spain, Halevi wrote prose in Arabic and poetry in Hebrew. He was in fact the most prolific of the Hebrew poets of the Hebrew Golden Age and was regarded by some of his contemporaries, and by modern critics as well, as the greatest of all the medieval Hebrew poets. He was also a prolific author of religious verse.

As a consequence of the development of his religious thought, he decided to abandon his home in order to end his days in the Land of Israel. His motivations were complex. His personal piety intensified as he aged, leading him to desire to devote himself entirely to religious life. The uncertainties of Jewish communal status in the period of the Reconquista led him to doubt the future security of the Jewish position in the diaspora. The failure of messianic movements weighed on him. His earlier commitment to philosophy as a guide to truth gave way to a renewed commitment to faith in revelation. He came to the conviction, elaborated in his treatise known as the Kuzari, that true religious fulfillment is possible only in the presence of the G-d of Israel, which, he believed, was most palpable in the Land of Israel.

Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi sailed for Alexandria, arriving on September 8, 1140. He then went to Cairo, where he visited several dignitaries, including the Nagid of Egypt, Samuel ben Hanania, and his friend Halfon ben Nethaniel Halevi. He did not permit himself to be persuaded to remain in Egypt, and sailed for Israel on May 14, 1141. He died during the summer after having reached Israel. Legend has it that Halevi was killed by an Arab as he arrived in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi dealt with his pilgrimage extensively in the poetry written during his last year, which includes explorations of his religious motivations. Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi expounded his views upon the teachings of Judaism, which he defended against the attacks of non-Jewish philosophers, against the Karaites, and against those he viewed as "heretics".

Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, also known as Abenezra, (1089 — 1164) was born at Tudela, Spain in 1089, and died 1164, in Calahorra . He was one of the most distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the Middle Ages. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra excelled in philosophy, astronomy, astrology, poetry, linguistics, and exegesis. He was called The Great and The Admirable Doctor. He was born at Tudela, current day province of Navarre, when the town was under the Muslim rule of the emirs of Zaragoza. Later he lived in Cordoba. In Granada, it is said, he met his future friend, and perhaps his father-in-law, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. He left Spain before 1140 to escape persecution of the Jews by the new fanatical regime of the Almohads. He led a life of restless wandering, which took him to North Africa, Egypt in 1109, maybe in the company of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, the Land of Israel, Italy, Rome in 1140-1143, Lucca, Mantua, Verona, Southern France, Rodez, Narbonne, Beziers, Northern France, Dreux, England, London, and Oxford in 1158, and back again to Narbonne in 1161, until his death on January 23 or 28, 1167, at Calahorra.

At several of the above named places, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra remained for some time and developed a rich literary activity. In his native land, he had already gained the reputation of a distinguished poet and thinker but apart from his poems, his works, which were all in the Hebrew language, were written in the second period of his life. With these works, which cover in the first instance the field of Hebrew philology and Biblical exegesis, he fulfilled the great mission of making accessible to the Jews of Europe the treasures of knowledge enshrined in the works written in Arabic which he had brought with him from Spain.

His grammatical writings, among which Moznayim ("Scales", 1140) and Tzahot ("Dazzlings", 1141) are the most valuable, were the first expositions of Hebrew grammar in the Hebrew language, in which the system of Judah Hayyuj and his school prevailed. He also translated into Hebrew the two writings of Hayyuj in which the foundations of the system were laid down. Of greater original value than the grammatical works of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra are his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, of which, however, the Books of Chronicles have been lost. His reputation as an intelligent and acute expounder of the Bible was founded on his commentary on the Pentateuch, of which the great popularity is evidenced by the numerous commentaries which were written upon it.

The commentary on the Book of Exodus is replaced by a second, more complete commentary of Ibn Ezra, while the first and shorter commentary on Exodus was not printed until 1840. The great editions of the Hebrew Bible with rabbinical commentaries contained also commentaries of Ibn Ezra's on the following books of the Bible: Isaiah, Minor Prophets, Psalms, Job, Pentateuch, and Daniel. The commentaries on Proverbs, Ezra and Nehemiah which bear his name are really those of Moses Kimhi. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra wrote a second commentary on Genesis as he had done on Exodus, but this was never finished. There are second commentaries also by him on the Song of Songs, Esther and Daniel. His chief work is the commentary on the Torah, which has done more than any other work to establish his reputation. His commentary on Exodus was finished in 1153 in southern France. He wrote Yesod Mora ("Foundation of Awe"), on the division and the reasons for the Biblical commandments in 1158. The complete commentary on the Pentateuch, which was finished by Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra shortly before his death, was called Sefer ha-Yashar ("Book of the Straight").

In contrast his other works, the most important of which include The Book of the Secrets of the Law, The Mystery of the Form of the Letters, The Enigma of the Quiescent Letters, The Book of the Name, The Book of the Balance of the Sacred Language and The Book of Purity of the Language, demonstrate a more Kabbalistic viewpoint. They were written during his life of travel. The wandering life of an exile, such as Ibn Ezra led for nearly three decades, gave him the opportunity to carry out a mission which was to an eminent degree historical. He became a propagator among the Jews of Europe, who were unacquainted with Arabic, of the study of Judaism, a science which had been founded long before with that language as its literary medium. He was fitted for this mission, as no one else, through the versatility of his learning and through his clear and charming Hebrew style.

Rabbeinu Tam (1100 - 1171), born Yaacov ben Meir, was one of the most renowned French Tosafists and a foremost halachic authority of his generation. Known as "Rabbeinu" (our teacher), he acquired the Hebrew suffix "Tam" due to its implication of a straightforward and truthful character, originally used in the Bible to describe his biblical namesake, Jacob. A grandson of Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam was the greatest sage of his time, and Jews flocked to his academy in France to hear his Talmudic discourses. These lectures served as the basis for the Tosfot commentary, which was compiled by his students and today is printed on every standard page of the Talmud. Rabbeinu Tam was an extremely successful wine merchant and financier. His father was Rabbi Meir ben Shmuel (1060 - 1135), also known as the Ram for Rabbi Meir, a French rabbi and Tosafist. His mother was Yocheved, daughter of Rashi. His primary teachers were his father and his brother, Shmuel ben Meir (1085 - 1158), known as the Rashbam, a leading French Tosafist. His other brother was Isaac ben Meir (1090 - 1130), known as the Ribam, a French rabbi and one of the Baalei Tosafos.