על הנטיעה ל״בConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 32
א׳
1[132] When, therefore, in the fourth year and in the number 4 all the soul’s fruit shall have been consecrated, in the fifth year and in the number 5 we ourselves shall get the enjoyment and use of it; for he says, “in the fifth year ye shall eat the fruit.” This accords with nature’s incontrovertible law, that the place of creation is in all things lower than that of the Creator. That is why Moses treats it as a marvel that we should be recipients even of secondary privileges.
ב׳
2[133] Again, the reason why he ascribes to us the fruit of the fifth year and number is that 5 is the number proper to sense-perception, and that, if we are to face facts, we must own that it is sense-perception that supplies food to our mind. By means of the eyes, it serves up to it the varying qualities of colours and forms; through the ears, the peculiarities of sounds in all their diversity; scents by way of the nostrils; savours by the palate; smoothness and roughness, yielding softness and resistent hardness, nay coldness and heat as well, by means of the faculty distributed over all the body, which we are in the habit of calling “touch.”
