על הנטיעה מ״אConcerning Noah's Work as a Planter 41
א׳
1For the sacred sporting of the soul is a sight not permissible to an ordinary citizen, but it is open to a king, with whom wisdom was for a very long time a guest, if indeed she did not make him her permanent abode. The name of this king is Abimelech. He looked out at the window, the mind’s eye wide-opened and admitting light, and saw Isaac sporting with Rebecca his wife (Gen. 26:8). [170] What other occupation is seemly for a wise man rather than bright sportiveness and making merry in the company of one who waits patiently for all that is beautiful? Hence it is evident that he will get drunk also, seeing that drunkenness benefits the character, saving it from overstrain and undue intensity.
ב׳
2[171] For strong drink is likely to intensify natural tendencies, whether good or the reverse, just as many other things do. Money, it has been said, is the cause of good things to a good man, of evil things to a bad man. Fame again makes the fool’s badness more conspicuous, while it causes a brighter glory to rest upon the virtue of the righteous man. On this principle, therefore, a lavish use of strong drink places the man who has given the rein to his passions more completely at their mercy, while it makes him who has cherished right feelings more kindly and well disposed.
ג׳
3[172] Again, all know that when one of two opposite predicates is applicable to two or more sets of people, it cannot but be that the other is applicable also. For instance, black and white are opposites. If white is predicable of bad and good, black too will of course be equally so of both, not only of one of the two sets. So too soberness and drunkenness are opposites, and both bad and good men, so our forefathers said, partake of soberness. It follows that drunkenness also is predicable of both sorts. Accordingly the man of moral worth will get drunk as well as other people without losing any of his virtue.
