אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג ד׳Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 4
א׳
1[11] Through three seasons, then, O soul, that is throughout the whole of time with its threefold divisions, make thyself ever manifest to God, not dragging after thee the weak feminine passion of sense-perception, but giving forth as incense the manly reasoning schooled in fortitude. For the sacred word (Deut. 16:16) enjoins that at three seasons of the year every male is to show himself before the Lord the God of Israel.
ב׳
2[12] For this reason Moses also, when he is being established as one standing open before God, avoids Pharaoh, the symbol of dispersion, for he boasts saying that he knows not the Lord (Exod. 5:2). “Moses,” we read, “withdrew from Pharaoh’s presence and settled in the land of Midian” (Exod. 2:15), or in the examination of the things of nature, “and sat on the well,” waiting to see what draught God would send to quench the thirst of his soul in its longing for that which is good.
ג׳
3[13] So he withdraws from the godless opinion of Pharaoh, which the passions follow as their leader, and withdraws into Midian, the sifting-place, to inquire whether he is to be still or to dispute again with the evil man for his destruction; he considers whether, if he attack him, he shall prevail to win the victory, and so he is kept there waiting upon God, as I have said, to see whether He will bestow upon a deep reasoning faculty free from shallowness a stream sufficient to drown the onrush of the king of the Egyptians, the onrush, that is, of his passions.
ד׳
4[14] And he is deemed worthy of the boon: for, having taken the field in the cause of virtue, he does not abandon the warfare till he beholds the pleasures prostrate and out of action. This is why Moses does not fly from Pharaoh, for that would have been to run away and not return, but, like an athlete taking an interval to regain his breath, “withdraws,” that is, brings about a cessation of arms, until he shall by divine words have raised forces of wisdom and every other virtue to aid him in renewing the attack with irresistible power.
ה׳
5[15] But Jacob, “Supplanter” that he is, acquiring virtue with great toil by wiles and artifices, his name having not yet been changed into “Israel,” runs away from Laban and all his belongings, tints and shapes and material bodies generally, whose nature it is to inflict wounds on the mind through the objects of sense. For since when facing them he was not able completely to vanquish them, he flies, fearing defeat at their hands. And in doing so he is thoroughly deserving of praise; for Moses says, “Ye shall make the sons of the seeing one cautious” (Lev. 15:31), not bold and aiming at what is beyond their capacity.