  The most interesting and truly philosophical chapters in his writings have nothing to do with recycling and restyling doctrines of the soul, but rather with frank discussions concerning fundamental questions of Jewish identity. In a lengthy gloss to the first of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:1), Ibn Ezra records a conversation he held with his close friend and fellow poet Judah Halevi. Why, Halevi wants to know, did God choose to reveal himself on Mount Sinai as the God Who took the Jews out of Egypt? Why didn’t He instead reveal Himself as the God Who created heaven and earth, and created man as well? Why did He identify Himself with an event important to Israel alone, rather than with an event of universal significance? The implied criticism of the standard philosophical viewpoint, to which Ibn Ezra adheres consistently throughout his oeuvre, is transparent. If Creation is the most manifest and convincing indication for the existence of the deity, as the philosophers aver; if God reveals Himself to us through His works—why, then, does He choose to reveal Himself at Sinai as the God of history, the God of the Exodus?