אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג מ״חAllegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 48
א׳
1In a corresponding manner we shall now find Moses, the wise man, in his perfection, scouring away and shaking off pleasures, but the man of gradual improvement not so treating pleasure in its entirety, but welcoming simple and unavoidable pleasure, while declining that which is excessive and overelaborate in the way of delicacies.
ב׳
2[141] For in the case of Moses he uses this language: “And he washed with water the belly and the feet of the whole burnt-offering” (Lev. 9:14). It is excellently said; for the wise man consecrates his whole soul as being worthy to be offered to God, owing to its freedom from voluntary or involuntary blemish; and, being in this condition, he washes out and bathes away and scours off the whole belly and the pleasures that it and the parts adjoining it yield, not so dealing with some part of it, but filled with such contempt for the whole, that he rejects even necessary food and drink, being fed by the contemplation of things divine.
ג׳
3[142] And therefore witness is borne to him in another place also: “for forty days he ate no bread and drank no water” (Exod. 34:28), when he was in the holy mount and listened to the divine communications made by God as He declared His laws. But not only does he renounce the whole belly, but with it he scours away the feet, that is, the supports of pleasure; but the things that create pleasure are its supports,
ד׳
4[143] for the man of gradual improvement is said to wash the inwards and the feet (Lev. 1:9), not the whole belly: for he is not sufficient to thrust from him pleasure in its completeness, but is content if he can get rid of its inwards, that is, of the delicacies, produced by the elaborate skill of dainty cooks and confectioners, of which we are told by the epicures that they serve, if we may so speak, as a means of giving succulence to the principal pleasures.