אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ב כ״הAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book II 25
א׳
1[99] “Biting the horse’s heel.” It is quite in keeping that the character which upsets the stability of created and perishable life attacks the heel. The passions are likened to a horse. For passion, like a horse, is a four-legged creature, impulsive, full of wilfulness, and naturally restive. But the principle of self-mastery loves to bite and wound and destroy passion. When passion with its heel bitten has stumbled “the horseman shall fall backwards.” We must understand by “the horseman” the mind that is mounted on the passions, which falls off the passions when they are brought to a reckoning and overthrown.
ב׳
2[100] ’Tis well that the soul does not fall forwards: let him not get in advance of the passions, but be behind them, and he shall learn self-control. And there is sound principle in what is said here. For if the mind, after starting out to do wrong, drops behind and falls backwards, it will not do the wrong deed; and if, after experiencing an impulse to an irrational passion, it does not follow it up, but stays behind, it will reap the fairest reward, even exemption from passion.
ג׳
3[101] That is why the prophet, understanding the falling backwards to be escape from the passions, adds the words, “waiting for the salvation of the Lord”: for he is indeed saved by God who falls away from the passions and comes short of realizing them in act. May my soul have such a fall, and never mount the beast of passion, wild like a bounding capering horse, that, having waited for God’s salvation, it may attain to bliss.
ד׳
4[102] This explains why Moses in the Song praises God, that “He cast horse and rider into the sea” (Exod. 15:1). He means that God cast to utter ruin and the bottomless abyss the four passions and the wretched mind mounted on them. This is indeed practically the chief point of the whole Song, to which all else is subsidiary. And it is true; for if the soul be won by exemption from passion, it will have perfect bliss.