על הנטיעה כ״גConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 23
א׳
1[100] Natural duties which are indifferent seem to me to correspond to garden or orchard trees: for in each case most wholesome fruits are borne, for bodies in one case, for souls in the other. But many harmful shoots that spring together with the trees of the preliminary stage and many harmful growths that come on them have to be cut away, to save the better parts from being injured.
ב׳
2[101] Might we not speak of the returning of a sum entrusted to us as a tree grown in the soul’s orchard? Yet this tree at all events requires cleansing and more than usual attention. What is the cleansing in this case? When you have received something in trust from a man when he was sober, you should not return it to him when he is drunk, or when playing fast and loose with his money, or when mad, for the recipient will not be in a fit condition to derive any real benefit from recovering it. And do not return it to debtors or slaves, when the creditors and masters are lying in wait for them. To do so is betrayal, not payment of a due. And do not be strict about a small sum entrusted to you, with a view to ensnaring people into trusting you with larger sums.
ג׳
3[102] It is true that fishermen drop small baits with a view to hooking the bigger fish, and are not seriously to blame. They can plead that they are providing for a good market, and to secure people an abundant supply for the table every day.
ד׳
4[103] Then let no one parade the payment of a trifling sum entrusted to him by way of a bait to get a larger deposit. To do so is to hold out in one’s hands an insignificant amount belonging to one person, while in intention one is appropriating untold sums belonging to all men. If, then, you treat the deposit as a tree and remove its impurities, to wit payments entailing injurious treatment to the recipient, ill-timed payments, payments that are really ensnaring tricks, and everything of this kind, you will make fit for your orchard what was turning wild.
