  We have extracted here the main points from one of the longest excursuses in Ibn Ezra’s biblical commentary. It does not require any great stretch of the imagination to suppose that the dry and concise resumé that Ibn Ezra chose to include in his gloss summarizes what must have been a lengthy debate, perhaps even a series of encounters, between the two poets. In fact, in his commentary to Daniel 9:2, Ibn Ezra describes more fully an exchange with Halevi over an issue of biblical chronology, recording several barbs and retorts until, in the end, Halevi fell silent. Perhaps, then, Ibn Ezra chose to abridge the conversation over the first commandment because that encounter did not exactly leave Halevi speechless. Quite the contrary: Halevi expanded upon his theme of Jewish particularism in his Kuzari, one of the most resonant works of Jewish thought  ever.