אליגוריות החוקים, ספר א י׳Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book I 10
א׳
1[24] “And all the grass of the field” he says, “before it sprang up,” that is to say, before the particular objects of sense sprang up, there existed by the Maker’s forethought the generic ‘sensibly-perceptible,’ and that it is that he again calls “all.” Natural enough is his comparison of the ‘sensibly-perceptible’ to grass. For as grass is the food of a creature devoid of reason, so has the ‘sensibly-perceptible’ been assigned to the unreasoning part of the soul. Else why, after saying before “green of the field,” does he go on to say, “and all grass,” as if it were impossible for green of the field to come up as grass? The fact is, “the green of the field” is the ‘intellectually-perceptible,’ an outgrowth of the mind, but the “grass” is the ‘sensibly-perceptible,’ it in turn being a growth of the unreasoning part of the soul.
ב׳
2[25] He goes on “for God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.” These words discover a deep knowledge of the laws of being. For if God does not shower upon the senses the means of apprehending objects presented to them, neither will the mind have anything to “work” or take in hand in the field of sense-perception. For the mind by itself is without employment when the Cause of all things does not pour down, like rain and moisture, colours on the sight, sounds on the hearing, savours on the taste, and that which is proper to them on the other senses.
ג׳
3[26] But as soon as God has begun to water sense with objects of sense, that moment the mind also is found to be a tiller of rich soil, so to speak. The original of ‘sense-perception’ has no need of nourishment; but the nourishment of ‘sense-perception,’ which he figuratively calls “rain,” is the particular objects of sense, which of course are bodies; whereas an original has nothing to do with bodies. Thus before the creation of particular concrete substances, God did not rain on the original idea of sense-perception, which Moses calls “earth,” and this means that He supplied it with no food: for indeed it was in absolutely no need whatever of a sensible object of perception.
ד׳
4[27] The meaning of the words, “and there was not a man to work the ground,” is this: the original idea of the mind did not work the original idea of sense-perception: for my mind like yours works the sense-perception through the objects of the senses, but the original idea of the mind, as there was of course no particular body in existence proper to it, does not work the original idea of ‘sense-perception’: for were it working, it would be working it by means of the objects of sense, but among original ideas there is no such thing as an object of sense.