אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג י״חAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 18
א׳
1[55] Nevertheless Adam is not naked now: “they made for themselves girdles” are the words that occur a little further back. Even by this it is the prophet’s wish to teach thee, that he understands by nakedness not that of the body, but that by which the mind is found unprovided and unclothed with virtue.
ב׳
2[56] “The woman,” he says, “whom Thou gavest with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). It is well his not saying, “the woman whom Thou gavest to me,” but “with me”; for Thou gavest not sense to me as a possession, but it too Thou didst leave free and at large, in some respects not subservient to the behests of my understanding. For instance, should the mind choose to bid the sight not to see, the sight will none the less see what lies before it. The hearing again, when a sound has reached it, will assuredly give it entrance, even if the mind resolutely command it not to hear. And the sense of smell, when odours have found their way in to it, will smell them, even though the mind forbid it to welcome them.
ג׳
3[57] Owing to this God did not give sense-perception to the living being, but with the living being. What “giving with” means is this. Sense becomes aware of all things with our mind and simultaneously with it. For instance, the visible object arrests simultaneously the attention of the sight and of the mind; for the eye caught sight of the material substance, and at once the mind took in the thing that had been seen, took in that it was black or white or yellow or red or triangular or square or round, or some other colour or shape. Again the hearing received the impression of the sound and the mind with it: in proof that it did, it immediately judged of the sound, pronouncing it weak or loud, tuneful and rhythmical, and on the other hand whether it is out of tune and a discord. We find the same thing in the case of the other senses.
ד׳
4[58] Quite excellent is the addition of the words “she gave me of the tree.” For no one, except sense-perception, ever gives to the mind the tree with its sensibly-discerned bulk. For who gave to the mind the possibility of recognizing the body or whiteness? Did not sight? Who gave it the sound? Did not the hearing? Who the odour? Did not the sense of smell? Who the savour? Did not the taste? Who the rough and the soft? Did not the touch? Rightly and with perfect truth was it said by the mind ‘sense-perception alone gives me opportunities of apprehending bodies.’