אליגוריות החוקים, ספר ג נ׳Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis, Book III 50
א׳
1For the filling of the belly is the most essential matter, and the foundation, so to speak, of the other passions. None of them, as we see, can take shape unless it have the belly to support it, for nature has made the belly the basis of all things.
ב׳
2[146] Hence it comes that when Leah’s sons, the good things of the soul, had been born before Jacob’s other sons, and had ceased with Judah, who is “praise” (Gen. 29:35), God, being about to create representatives of the forward striving of the body as well, causes Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, to bear children even before her mistress. Now Bilhah is “swallowing.” For the prophet knew that no part or organ of the body can subsist without “swallowing” and the belly, but this holds sway and sovereignty over all the body and over all the material frame whose concern is with mere living.
ג׳
3[147] Do not let any subtle point escape your notice, for you will not find a single pointless expression. Moses removes the breast; the belly he does not remove, but washes (Lev. 8:29, 9:14). Why is this? Because the perfect wise man can, by wholly renouncing anger, utterly avert and drive off the uprising of the spirited element in him, but to exscind the belly he is powerless. Even the man of fewest needs who scorns the very necessaries of life and trains himself in abstinence from them, is forced by nature to take necessary food and drink. Let him therefore wash the belly and cleanse it from superfluous and unclean provisions; for this too is a sufficiently great gift from God to the lover of virtue.