The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion, better known as The Kuzari, is one of the last and most popular works of medieval Judaism's premier poet, Judah Halevi (c. 1075-1141). While originally undertaken to respond to the queries of a Karaite scholar, it was reworked and expanded over nearly two decades into the artful and multifaceted dialogue we now possess. Halevi crafted it to address a broad array of religious, philosophical, and cultural issues that concerned him and his contemporaries in the wake of bloody conflicts generated by the Reconquista and the First Crusade. These reflected ongoing quarrels between belief and unbelief and between belief and belief, both within and among the cultures and communities of Andalusia, which continue in important ways to this day. While the work is generally regarded as apologetic in character, it is no mere polemic. Rather, its theological defense of Judaism is deeply informed by philosophy and respectful of both its integrity and methods. In what follows, my goal is to analyze and explain a number of Halevi’s key ideas and arguments, to show how he uses them and also revises them, to raise a number of salient questions about them, and to identify the trajectory of their reappearance later in the dialogue.