על החלומות, ספר בOn Dreams, Book II
א׳
1[1] In setting forth the third kind of God-sent dreams we may fitly summon Moses to our assistance, that, as he learned when he did not know, he may teach us too in our ignorance regarding their tokens, by throwing light on each. This third kind of dreams arises whenever the soul in sleep, setting itself in motion and agitation of its own accord, becomes frenzied, and with the prescient power due to such inspiration foretells the future.
ב׳
2[2] The first kind of dreams we saw to be those in which God originates the movement and invisibly suggests things obscure to us but patent to Himself: while the second kind consisted of dreams in which the understanding moves in concert with the soul of the Universe and becomes filled with a divinely induced madness, which is permitted to foretell many coming events.
ג׳
3[3] In accordance with these distinctions, the Sacred Guide gave a perfectly clear and lucid interpretation of the appearances which come under the first description, inasmuch as the intimations given by God through these dreams were of the nature of plain oracles. Those which fall under the second description he interpreted neither with consummate clearness nor with excessive indistinctness. A specimen of these is the Vision that appeared on the heavenly stairway. For this vision was indeed enigmatic, but the riddle was not in very high degree concealed from the quick-sighted.
ד׳
4[4] The appearances of the third kind being more obscure than the former, owing to the deep and impenetrable nature of the riddle involved in them, demanded a scientific skill in discerning the meaning of dreams. Accordingly all the dreams of this sort recorded by the lawgiver received their interpretation at the hands of men who were experts in the aforesaid science.
ה׳
5[5] Whose then are the dreams? Does not everybody perceive that they are those of Joseph, those of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and those which the chief baker and chief butler themselves saw?
ו׳
6[6] It would seem fitting always to begin our teaching with those which come first; and first to come are those which Joseph saw when from the divisions of the universe, two in number, heaven and earth, two visions were presented to him. From the earth came the dream of the reaping. It runs on this wise: “Methought that we were binding sheaves in the midst of the plain, and my sheaf rose up” (Gen. 37:7). The other has to do with the zodiac: “As it were the sun and the moon and eleven stars worshipped me” (ibid. 9).
ז׳
7[7] On the former dream an interpretative judgement is pronounced in a tone of vehement menace to this effect: “Shalt thou indeed be king over us? or shalt thou indeed be lord over us?” (ibid. 8). The latter dream again incurs well-merited displeasure: “Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren come to bow down to the ground to worship thee?” (ibid. 10).
ח׳
8[8] So much by way of a foundation. As we go on to build the superstructure let us follow the directions of Allegory, that wise Master-builder, while we investigate the details of either dream. There are, however, in both dreams some prefatory remarks to be listened to first. Some have given the nature of that which is good a wide application, making it extend to many objects; while others have assigned it only to that which is most excellent: the former have regarded it as mixed, while the latter have left it free from admixture.
ט׳
9[9] Now, those who have maintained that only the morally beautiful is good, preserving it unmixed, have attributed the good to the reasoning faculty, the noblest part in us; while those who have regarded it as mixed have associated it with three things, soul, body, and things external to us. The latter class belong to the softer and luxurious way of life, having been reared up for the greater part of the time from their very cradle in the women’s quarter and in the effeminate habits of the women’s quarter. Those others are austere of life, reared by men, themselves too men in spirit, eager for what will do them good rather than for what is pleasant, and taking food suited to an athlete with an eye to strength and vigour, not to pleasure.
י׳
10[10] There are two companies as leaders of which Moses introduces Isaac and Joseph. The noble company is led by Isaac who learns from no teacher but himself, for Moses represents him as weaned (Gen. 21:8), absolutely disdaining to make any use of soft and milky food suited to infants and little children, and using only strong nourishment fit for grown men, seeing that from a babe he was naturally stalwart, and was ever attaining fresh vigour and renewing his youth. The company which yields and is ready to give in is led by Joseph,
י״א
11[11] for he is one who does not indeed take no account of the excellences of the soul, but is thoughtful for the well-being of the body also, and has a keen desire to be well off in outward things; and he is naturally drawn in different directions since he has set before him many ends in life, and as he experiences one counter-attraction after another, he is shaken this way and that and can never attain to fixity.
י״ב
12[12] For indeed our aims do not rest in peace like cities under a treaty, 〈but engage in war and deliver attacks〉 and counter-attacks, in turn winning victory and suffering defeat. For at times the appetite flows strongly to wealth and reputation and completely masters the interests of body and soul, and then again is met and driven back by an opposing force, and vanquished by both or one of them.
י״ג
13[13] In the same way the pleasures of the body descend upon us in gathered force like a cataract deluging and obliterating one after another all the things of the mind; and then, after no long interval, Wisdom with strong and vehement counterblast both slackens the impetus of pleasures and mitigates in general all the appetites and ambitions which the bodily senses kindle in us.
י״ד
14[14] Such is the cycle of unceasing warfare ever revolving round the many-sided soul; for, when one foe has been laid low, another yet mightier is sure to spring up, after the fashion of the many-headed Hydra; for we are told that on it another head grew to take the place of that which had been cut off; and this is a figurative way of teaching how hard it is to vanquish undying vice so varied in its form, so varied in its offspring.
ט״ו
15[15] Do not, then, select any single thing 〈and regard it〉 as Joseph’s sole portion, but be well assured that he represents Opinion with its vast medley of ingredients. For there is manifest in him, on the one hand, the rational strain of self-control, which is of the masculine family,
ט״ז
16[16] fashioned after his father Jacob: manifest, again, is the irrational strain of sense-perception, assimilated to what he derives from his mother, the part of him that is of the Rachel type: manifest also is the breed of bodily pleasure, impressed on him by association with chief butlers and chief bakers and chief cooks: manifest too is the element of vainglory, on to which as on to a chariot his empty-headedness makes him mount up, when (Gen. 41:43) puffed with pride he lifts himself aloft to overthrow equality from its seat.
י״ז
17[17] In what we have said so far we have been giving a rough sketch of Joseph’s character. We must now consider in detail each of his dreams. And the one which must be examined first is the one concerning the sheaves. “Methought,” says he, “that we were binding sheaves” (Gen. 37:7). The very first word, “methought,” is the utterance of one at a loss, hesitating, dimly supposing, not seeing steadily and distinctly.
י״ח
18[18] For “methought” is a word which becomes those waking up out of deep sleep and still in dreamland, not those who are thoroughly awake and see things clearly.
י״ט
19[19] You will not find the Practiser Jacob saying “methought,” but “behold a stairway firmly fixed, whose top reached to heaven” (Gen. 28:12), and again “at the time that the sheep conceived, I saw them with my eyes in my sleep, and behold the he-goats and the rams leaped upon the sheep and the goats wholly white, and streaked, and sprinkled as though with ashes” (Gen. 31:10, 11).
כ׳
20[20] For the very visions seen in their sleep are of necessity clearer and purer in the case of those who deem the morally beautiful eligible for its own sake, even as their doings by day are bound to be more worthy of approbation.
כ״א
21[21] Now, when I listen to him who is telling the dreams I marvel at his deeming that they were tying up sheaves, not reaping them. The former is the work of unskilled underlings, the latter the business of masters and of those thoroughly well versed in farm work.
כ״ב
22[22] For the power to distinguish necessaries of life from refuse, and plants which supply nourishment from those which do not, and genuine from spurious, and a highly profitable fruitage from a root that is devoid of profit, in things yielded by the understanding, not in those which the soil puts forth, is a mark of consummate excellence.
כ״ג
23[23] So the sacred story represents those whose eyes are open as reaping, and, what is most unexpected, not reaping barley or wheat but reaping out the reaping itself: accordingly it is said “When ye reap your reaping, ye shall not finish that which remains of the reaping” (Lev. 19:9).
כ״ד
24[24] For the lawgiver wishes the virtuous man to be not only a judge of things that differ, distinguishing and separating things which produce and their productions, but to do away with the very conceit that he has the power to distinguish, mowing the very mowing and cutting away the workings of his own mind, in obedience to and belief in Moses’ saying that “judgement belongs to God only” (Deut. 1:17), with Whom in all matters comparisons and distinctions rest: to acknowledge defeat at whose hands is a noble thing and more glorious than far-famed victory.
כ״ה
25[25] Like the “reaping the reaping” is the two-fold circumcision, which we meet with in such a case as that of the lawgiver devising as a new practice a circumcision of circumcision (Gen. 17:13), or “the consecration of a consecration” (Num. 6:2). that is, the purification of the very purification of the soul, when we yield to God the prerogative of making bright and clean, and never entertain the thought that we ourselves are sufficient apart from the divine overseeing guidance to cleanse our life and remove from it the defilements with which it abounds.
כ״ו
26[26] To this class belongs also the “double cave” (Gen. 23:9), that pair of precious memories concerned, one with all that has come into being, the other with Him who has made it. These constitute the nurture of the man of worth, for whom all things in the universe are objects of contemplation, and who loves to inquire also concerning the Father who brought them into being.
כ״ז
27[27] I imagine that the discovery of the double diapason in music is to be traced to this same pair. For both the work and its Fashioner must needs be celebrated by two quite perfect melodies, not the same in each case.
כ״ח
28[28] For since the themes of praise were different it was necessary for the corresponding musical harmonies to be distinct also, the conjunct assigned to the conjunct universe, compacted as it is of different parts, the disjunct reserved for Him Who is in virtue of His existence disjunct from all creation, even God.
כ״ט
29[29] There is again a statement breathing love of virtue expressed in the words of the Sacred Guide, “Ye shall not make an end of what remains of the reaping” (Lev. 19:9), for he does not forget the principle with which he set out, acknowledging that “the end is the Lord’s” (Num. 31:28 ff.), with whom rests the lordship and establishment of these things.
ל׳
30[30] But in fact the man who has never learned the mysteries of reaping vaunts him saying, “Methought I was in company with others binding sheaves which I had not reaped” (Gen. 37:7), and failed, as I pointed out a little while ago, to take into account that this is a service performed by unskilled slaves.
ל״א
31[31] When we assign to words their figurative meaning we say that sheaves are “doings” which each of us grasps with the hand as his proper nourishment, hoping that he will find life and occupation therein for ever.
ל״ב
32[32] Now, the varieties of the sheaves, that is to say of the doings which may be called our nourishment, are so countless, so countless also the various sorts of men who lay hold of and make choice of the sheaves, that it is impossible to recount or even to conceive of them all. It may not, however, be out of place to instance some of these varieties which are introduced in his story of his dream.
ל״ג
33[33] For he says to his brothers, “Methought we were binding sheaves” (l.c.). Brothers he has ten who are sons of the same father as he, one who is son of the same mother; and the name of each of them is the symbol of a most essential “doing.” “Reuben” is the symbol of good natural endowments, for “seeing son” he is called, in so far as he is a son not perfect, but in so far as he is a man with power to see and keenness of vision, well endowed by nature.
ל״ד
34[34] Symeon, which means “diligent listening,” is the symbol of aptness to learn; Levi of excellent activities and practices and sacred ministries; Judah of songs and hymns addressed to God; Issachar of rewards rendered as recompense for noble deeds, the deeds themselves, it may be, constituting the perfect reward; Zabulon of light, since he is named “night’s flowing,” and when night fails and flows away, light of necessity dawns;
ל״ה
35[35] of distinguishing and analysing matters Dan is the symbol; Gad of piratical attack and counter-attack; Asher, whose name signifies “felicitation,” symbolizes natural wealth, which has the reputation of being a possession conferring felicity;
ל״ו
36[36] Naphthali’s name denotes a “broadening” or “flung wide open,” and so he is a symbol of peace, by which all things are opened out and given width, just as they are shut in by war. Benjamin is a symbol of time, both that of youth and that of old age, for his name is said to mean “son of days,” and youth and old age are alike measured by days and nights.
ל״ז
37[37] Thus each one of them grasps the sheaves that are proper to him, and when he has grasped them binds all these parts together. The man well endowed by nature grasps quickness of apprehension, persistence, goodness of memory, the qualities in which excellence of natural endowment shows itself; the apt learner grasps listening, silence, attention; the enterprising man, venturesomeness and courage ready to take risks;
ל״ח
38[38] the man of thanksgiving takes hold of commendations, eulogies, odes, panegyrics both in speech and song; the man who is bent on rewards, lays his hand on unflinching assiduity, fortitude that never gives in, and the carefulness in which speed is combined with caution;
ל״ט
39[39] he who is in pursuit of light replacing darkness grasps wakefulness and keen-sightedness; the man who aims at analysis and accurate distinctions, lays hold of keen-edged arguments, of power to resist the delusion of confusing likeness and identity, of impartiality, of integrity;
מ׳
40[40] he who pirate-like counters ambush by ambush grasps trickery, quackery, sorcery, fallacies, pretence, feigning, practices which are in themselves reprehensible but when resorted to in dealing with enemies are belauded; he that makes it his object to be rich in nature’s riches, will lay his hands on self-control and parsimony; the lover of peace on good order, just dealing, freedom from arrogance, equality.
מ״א
41[41] These are the constituent parts of the sheaves bound by the brothers of the dreamer, sons of the same father as he, while the sheaf of his uterine brother is made up of days and time, cause of nothing as cause of everything.
מ״ב
42[42] The dreamer himself, interpreter of dreams to boot, lays hold of vainglory, deeming it a possession of highest importance and splendour and advantage to human life. Accordingly it is in the first instance from dreams, things beloved of night, that he becomes known to the sovereign of the land of the body, not from “doings” luminous with the self-evidence of manifest fact, things which need day to exhibit them.
מ״ג
43[43] The next step is that he is proclaimed procurator or protector of all Egypt, to stand second only to the sovereign in the signs of honour shewn to him, a position set down as more insignificant and absurd in wisdom’s judgement than the infliction of indignity and defeat.
מ״ד
44[44] In the next place he puts round his neck “a golden collar” (Gen. 41:41 f.), a manifest halter, a circlet and hoop of unending necessity, not a life of orderly sequence, not the chain which marks Nature’s doings: these are properties of Tamar, whose adornment is not a collar but a necklace (Gen. 38:18). Yes, and he puts on his finger a royal ring (Gen. 41:42), a gift and pledge, by which nothing is given, nothing pledged, in sharp contrast once more to that which was given to Tamar by Judah, king of the nation that sees, even Israel.
מ״ה
45[45] For this king gives the soul a seal (Gen. 38:18), a gift all-beauteous, by which he teaches it that when the substance of the universe was without shape and figure God gave it these; when it had no definite character God moulded it into definiteness, and, when He had perfected it, stamped the entire universe with His image and an ideal form, even His own Word.
מ״ו
46[46] To go back to Joseph. He mounts the second chariot (Gen. 41:43), elated by mental dizziness and empty conceit, and becomes the victualler (ibid. 48) and keeper of the body’s treasuries, providing food for it from all quarters: and thus threatens serious danger to the soul.
מ״ז
47[47] Not the least significant testimony to his principle and ambition for life is his name. “Joseph” means an “adding,” and vainglory is always making additions.
מ״ח
48To what is genuine it adds what is counterfeit, to what is appropriate what is alien, to what is true what is false, to what is sufficient what is excessive, to vitality debauchery, to life’s maintenance vanity.
מ״ט
49[48] Mark what it is that I wish to make clear. Food and drink nourishes us, though it be the plainest barley-cake and water from the spring. Why then has vainglory superadded countless sorts of milk cakes and honied pastry and elaborate and diversified blends of innumerable wines highly seasoned with a view to indulgence in pleasure rather than partaking of nourishment?
נ׳
50[49] Again, relishes of the simplest kind are onions, greens, many fruits and cheese, and anything else of that kind as well: if you like, we will put down beside these fish and meat in the case of men who are not vegetarians.
נ״א
51[50] Would it not, then, have been quite sufficient, after broiling them on the coals or roasting them in a rough and ready way just as real heroes used to do, to eat them? Nay, this is not all that your epicure craves for. Having procured the alliance of vainglory and stirred up the greediness within him he is on the look-out for and hunts up pastry-cooks to dress their food and serve their table, men who are famous masters of their art.
נ״ב
52[51] These set at work the baits that have been found out ages ago to tempt our miserable belly, and make up and arrange in proper order decoctions of special flavour with which they coax the tongue into subservience: hereupon they forthwith get on to their hook the sense of taste which gives them access to the senses in general: and by means of taste the glutton is quickly revealed as no freeman but a slave.
נ״ג
53[52] Clothing, as everybody knows, was produced at first to guard against the harm done to the body by great cold and heat, “wind-proof,” as I think the poets have it, in winter and 〈cooling in summer〉.
נ״ד
54[53] Who, then, is the cunning worker of those costly sea-purples, those light transparent summer gauzes, those spider-web shawls, those costumes dyed or woven into gay colouring by hands expert in producing variety by either art, which outdo the painter’s power of imitating nature? Who? I ask. Is it not vainglory?
נ״ה
55[54] Once more, we felt the need of a house to live in for the same reasons, and that we may not suffer from the incursions of wild beasts or of men worse than beasts. Why then do we decorate the pavements and walls with costly marbles? Why do we scour Asia and Libya and all Europe and the islands searching for choicest columns and architraves?
נ״ו
56[55] Why for the adornment of the capitals of our columns do we vie with each other in enthusiasm over Doric and Ionic and Corinthian carvings and other embellishments devised by those who scorn to keep to the established styles? Why do we build men’s and women’s apartments with golden ceilings? Is it not owing to vainglory?
נ״ז
57[56] For sleep, all that was needed was a soft piece of ground (for it is reported that to this very day the Naked Philosophers among the Indians retain their primitive custom of making earth their couch), or, if more was required, a bed of rushes or of unhewn stones or common timber.
נ״ח
58[57] But in fact beds with ivory legs to their framework are provided, and sofas with costly mother-of-pearl and many-hued tortoiseshell inlaid with much toil and outlay of money and expenditure of time. Some are all of silver or all of gold or of mosaic work elaborately furnished with bedding of gold tissue and brocaded with flowers evidently for show and display, not for everyday use. Of these vainglory is the artist.
נ״ט
59[58] For unguents what need was there to look for anything more than the fruit-juice pressed from the olive? For indeed it produces smoothness, and counteracts physical exhaustion, and brings about good condition. If a muscle be relaxed it braces it and renders it firm, nor is there anything surpassing it for infusing tone and vigour.
ס׳
60[59] But to attack the position of such wholesome kinds vainglory’s delicate unguents were set up. For these great countries where spices grow are laid under contribution, Syria, Babylon, the lands of the Indians and the Scythians; and on these the labour of perfumers is expended.
ס״א
61[60] Again, for drinking what more was needed than Nature’s cup, art’s very masterpiece? Of that cup our hands are the material. Let a man hold them close together and hollow them; then let him carefully lift them to his mouth while someone else pours the water into them. He obtains not only the quenching of his thirst, but pleasure untold.
ס״ב
62[61] But if a different one must needs have been found, was not the rustic mazer sufficient? Was it necessary to go in search of works of art by other famous artists? Why was it necessary that a lavish quantity of gold and silver goblets should be manufactured save for the sake of vanity, so loud in its insolence, and vainglory swinging so dizzily to and fro?
ס״ג
63[62] When, again, we see people wanting to be crowned not with a garland of laurel or ivy, not with a sweet-smelling wreath of violets or lilies or roses or olive or any flower at all, but passing by God’s gifts, which He distributes as the seasons of the year run their course; when they poise over their head golden wreaths, a grievous weight, without any shame in mid-market at the hour when it is full, what else can we think of them than that they are slaves of vainglory, though they assert that they are not only free, but actually lords and rulers of many others?
ס״ד
64[63] The day will pass before I have given the sum of the corruptions of human life, and indeed why need we dwell at length upon them? For who has not heard, who has not seen them? Indeed who is not conversant and familiar with them? And therefore the Holy Word did well in giving the name of Addition to one who was the enemy of simplicity and the friend of vanity.
ס״ה
65[64] For just as we find on trees, to the great damage of the genuine growth, superfluities which the husbandmen purge and cut away to provide for their necessities, so the true and simple life has for its parasite the life of falsity and vanity, for which no husbandman has hitherto been found to excise the mischievous overgrowth, root and all.
ס״ו
66[65] And so the practisers of sound sense, perceiving that Joseph first with his senses, and afterwards with his understanding, pursues this way of artificiality, cry outright, “An evil beast has seized and devoured him” (Gen. 37:33).
ס״ז
67[66] And indeed this life of confused mankind, so full of complications, of vain inventions, which has covetousness and knavery for its cunning architects, what is it but a ferocious beast which feasts on all who come near to it? And therefore such as these will be the subject of mourning, as though they were dead, even while they still live, since the life that they obtain is meet to be lamented and bewailed; for Jacob, we are told, mourned for Joseph while still alive.
ס״ח
68[67] On the other hand Moses will not suffer Nadab and his brother, those holy principles, to be mourned (Lev. 10:6). They were not seized by a savage, evil beast, but were taken up by a rush of fire unquenchable, by an undying splendour, since in sincerity they cast aside sloth and delay, and consecrated their zeal, hot and fiery, flesh-consuming and swiftly moving, to piety, a zeal which was alien to creation, but akin to God. They did not mount by steps to the altar, which the law had forbidden (Ex. 20:26), but wafted by a favouring breeze and carried even to the revolving heavens were there like the complete and perfect burnt offering resolved into ethereal rays of light.
ס״ט
69[68] So then, O soul, that art loyal to thy teacher, thou must cut off thy hand, thy faculty, when it begins to lay hold of the genitals, whether they be the created world or the cares and aims of humanity.
ע׳
70[69] For he often bids us cut away the hand that has taken hold of the “pair” (Deut. 25:11, 12), first because it has thereby given a welcome to the pleasure which it should hate, secondly because it has judged that to beget rests with ourselves, and thirdly because it has ascribed to the created the power of its maker.
ע״א
71[70] Observe that Adam, that mass of earth, is doomed to die when he touches the twofold tree (Gen. 2:9), thus honouring the two before the one, and revering the created rather than the maker. Not so be it with thee. Pass clear away “from the smoke and wave,” and flee fast from the silly cares and aims of mortal life as from that dread Charybdis and touch it not, as the saying goes, with the tip of thy toe.
ע״ב
72[71] But when thou hast stripped thyself to serve the holy rites, then widen hand and power and take a right good grip of the lessons of instruction and wisdom, for there is an ordinance running thus: “If a soul bring a gift or sacrifice, the gift shall be fine flour,” and then it continues, “and taking a full handful from the fine flour, with the oil and all the frankincense, he shall lay the memorial on the altar” (Lev. 2:1, 2).
ע״ג
73[72] This is an excellent saying, that the server of the sacrifice should be an unbodied soul, not the twofold gross mass compounded of mortal and immortal. For that which prays, which gives thanks and offers sacrifice truly without blemish, must be as he says a “one” only, the soul.
ע״ד
74[73] What then is the offering of an unbodied soul? What but the fine flour, the symbol of a will, purified by the councils of instruction, fit to produce nourishment that gives no sickness and life that knows no guilt.
ע״ה
75[74] From such a sacrifice is the priest bidden to take his handful, take it with his whole hand, that is with all the grips of the mind, to offer the best of sacrifices, even the whole soul, brimful of truths of all sincerity and purity—a soul, too, rich with fatness, gladdened by light divine and perfumed with the breaths exhaled from justice and the other virtues, thus fitted to enjoy for ever a life of all fragrance and sweetness. For this is signified by the oil and the frankincense with which the priest fills his hand as well as with the wheaten flour.
ע״ו
76[75] Therefore also Moses dedicated a special feast for the “hand-grip of corn,” only not for all but for such as come from the holy land, for “When,” he says, “ye come into the land which I give you and ye reap its reaping, ye shall bring handgrips of corn as a firstfruit unto the priest” (Lev. 23:10).
ע״ז
77[76] That means, “When, my mind, thou comest to virtue’s land, the gift fit for God alone, the land of goodly pasturage and tilth and fruit-bearing, and then if so be that thou hast sown in accordance with it, thou reapest the good when brought to its increase by God the consummator, do not bear the harvest home, that is, do not assign or ascribe to thyself the cause of the produce until thou hast rendered the firstfruit to Him Who is the source of riches and moves thee to practise the husbandry of thy enrichment.”
ע״ח
78[77] And we are told to bring the “firstfruit of your reaping,” that is not of the land but of ourselves, that we may mow and reap ourselves, by consecrating every nourishing, excellent and worthy growth.
ע״ט
79[78] But he who was both the initiated and the initiator in the mysteries of dreams boldly said that his sheaf rose and stood upright (Gen. 37:7). For indeed as skittish horses rear their necks proudly on high, so all the votaries of vainglory set themselves up above everything, above cities and laws and ancestral customs and the affairs of the several citizens.
פ׳
80[79] Then they proceed from the leadership of the people to dictatorship over the people, and while they bring low the state of their neighbours they cause their own to rise and stand upright and firm, and thus they bring into subjection even souls whose spirit is naturally free and unenslaved.
פ״א
81[80] That is why he adds, “Your sheaves turned round and made obeisance to my sheaf” (ibid.). For the lover of modesty is overawed by the stiff-necked, and the cautious by the self-willed, and the honourer of equality by one who is unequal both in relation to himself and others.
פ״ב
82[81] And surely that is natural, for the man of worth who surveys, not only human life but all the phenomena of the world, knows how mightily blow the winds of necessity, fortune, opportunity, force, violence and princedom, and how many are the projects, how great the good fortunes which soar to heaven without pausing in their flight and then are shaken about and brought crashing to the ground by these blasts.
פ״ג
83[82] And therefore he must needs take caution to shield him, as an inseparable safeguard to prevent any grave disaster suddenly befalling him, for caution is to the individual man what a wall is to a city.
פ״ד
84[83] Surely then they are all lunatics and madmen who take pains to display untimely frankness, and sometimes dare to oppose kings and tyrants in words and deeds. They do not perceive that not only like cattle are their necks under the yoke, but that the harness extends to their whole bodies and souls, their wives and children and parents, and the wide circle of friends and kinsfolk united to them by fellowship of feeling, and that the driver can with perfect ease spur, drive on or pull back, and mete out any treatment small or great just as he pleases.
פ״ה
85[84] And therefore they are branded and scourged and mutilated and undergo a combination of all the sufferings which merciless cruelty can inflict short of death, and finally are led away to death itself.
פ״ו
86[85] These are the rewards of untimely free-speaking, which in the eyes of sensible judges is not free-speaking at all; rather they are the guerdons of silliness and frenzy and incurable brainsickness. Why? Who if he sees a storm at its height, a fierce counter-wind, a hurricane swooping down and a tempest-tossed sea, sets sail and puts out to sea when he should remain in harbour?
פ״ז
87[86] What pilot or skipper was ever so utterly intoxicated as to wish to sail with all these terrors launched upon him, only to find the ship water-logged by the down-rushing sea and swallowed up, crew and all. For he who would have a safe voyage can always wait for the sunny breeze to take him gently and smoothly on his way.
פ״ח
88[87] Again, would anyone who has seen a bear or a lion or wild boar sweeping along to attack him, instead of soothing and calming them as he should, provoke them to savagery just to offer himself as a banquet to satisfy the cruel appetites of the carnivorous brutes?
פ״ט
89[88] As well might we think it advisable to fight against the stinging scorpions and asps of Egypt and all other creatures possessed of fatal poison whose single bite carries with it inevitable death—creatures whom we may well be content to tame with charms and ensure that they do us no grievous harm.
צ׳
90[89] Then are there not some men more fierce and malicious than boars, scorpions or asps, men whose spite and malice can only be avoided by using some method of taming and soothing them?
צ״א
91And therefore we shall find wise Abraham doing obeisance to the sons of Cheth (Gen. 23:7), whose name means “removing,” when the fitness of the circumstances prompted him to do so.
צ״ב
92[90] For it was not out of any feeling of respect for those who by nature and race and custom were the enemies of reason, who remove instruction, the true coinage of the soul, and change it into petty coins and waste it miserably, that he brought himself to do obeisance. Rather it was just because he feared their power at the time and their formidable strength and took care to give no provocation, that he will win that great and secure possession, that prize of virtue, the double cave which is the most excellent abiding-place of wise souls: the cave which could not be won by war and fighting, but with reason shewn in subservience and respectful treatment.
צ״ג
93[91] Again, do not we too, when we are spending time in the market-place, make a practice of standing out of the path of our rulers and also of beasts of carriage, though our motive in the two cases is entirely different? With the rulers it is done to shew them honour, with the animals from fear and to save us from suffering serious injury from them.
צ״ד
94[92] And if ever occasions permit it is good to subdue the violence of enemies by attack, but if they do not permit the safe course is to keep quiet, and if we wish to gain any help from them the fitting course is to soften and tame them.
צ״ה
95[93] Praise therefore is due to those also who are here under consideration, because they did not give way to the champion of vainglory but resisted him and said: “Shalt thou indeed reign over us? Not so” (Gen. 37:8). For they see that he is not yet become strong, that he is not as a flame fully kindled and shining brightly with abundance of fuel to feed it, but is still a mere smouldering spark, one who sees glory but as in a dream and does not yet pursue it with clear waking vision.
צ״ו
96[94] In their hearts they have a comfortable hope that they may even be able to escape his clutches, and so they say: “Shalt thou indeed be king over us?” that is, “Dost thou think to lord it over us while we still have life, existence, strength, breath? When we have grown weak, thou wilt perhaps have the mastery, but while we are strong thou wilt hold but the rank of a subject.”
צ״ז
97[95] And that is but natural, for when right reason is strong in the mind, vainglory is brought low, but gains strength when reason is weak. While, then, the soul still preserves its power and no part of it is amputated, let it take courage to ply the opposing vanity with missiles and arrows and use full liberty of speech. “Thou shalt not lord or king it over us,” it will say,
צ״ח
98[96] “nor over others while we live, but we will with a single onset bear down thy threats and menaces, with the aid of the spear and shield-bearers, the children of sound sense, of whom it is said ‘they went on to hate him because of his dreams and because of his words’ ” (ibid.).
צ״ט
99[97] And are not all the phantoms created by vanity but dreams and words? while all things which concern right living and thinking are facts and clear realities, and the former because of their falsity deserve our hatred, while the latter because they are filled full of the loveliness of truth deserve our love.
ק׳
100[98] Let no one then after this dare to accuse these persons so rich in virtue as though they were displaying the marks of a misanthropic and unbrotherly character, but understanding that it is no man that is here judged but one of the traits or feelings that exist in every man’s soul (in this case the mad craving for glory and love of vanity), let him give his approval to those who are moved by implacable loathing and enmity against a mind of this sort, and never tolerate the object of their abhorrence.
ק״א
101[99] For he knows for a certainty that such judges could never have failed to give a sound verdict, but as their training from the first has taught them who is the true king, the true lord, they hate the thought of giving homage and honour to one who appropriates the honour due to God and calls away his suppliants to do service to himself.
ק״ב
102[100] Therefore they will boldly say: “Wilt thou indeed be king and king it over us, or dost thou fail to know that we are not self-ruling but under the kingship of an immortal king, the one and only God? Wilt thou indeed be lord and lord it over us? Are we not under a master, and have we not and shall we not have for ever the same lord, bondage to whom gives us more joy than his freedom does to any other?” For of all things that are held in honour in this world of creation bondage to God is the best.
ק״ג
103[101] So I myself would pray that I might hold firmly to their judgements, for they are the scouts, the watchers, the overseers of mental facts, not of material things, strict in censorship, never failing in soberness, thus no more misled by the lures which so commonly deceive.
ק״ד
104[102] But hitherto I have been as a drunken man beset by constant uncertainty, and like the blind I need staff and guiding hands, for had I a staff to lean on I might perhaps be saved from stumbling or slipping.
ק״ה
105[103] But those who know themselves to be lacking in self-testing and thoughtfulness and yet do not take pains to follow those who have tested and thought out everything with care, those who know the road of which they themselves are ignorant, may be sure that they are pinned amid impassable ravines and with all their efforts will be unable to advance further.
ק״ו
106[104] And I, when the drunken fit abates a little, am in such close alliance with them that I take their friends for my friends and their enemies for my enemies. Indeed, even in my present state I will reject and hate the dreamer because they hate him; and no one of sense can blame me for this because the votes and decisions of the majority must always prevail.
ק״ז
107[105] But when he changes his life for the better and renounces his idle visions, his troublous crawling and cringing amid the vain fantasies of the vainglorious, and the dreams of night and darkness and the chance issues of things vague and obscure;
ק״ח
108[106] when he rises from his deep slumbering to abiding wakefulness and welcomes clearness before uncertainty, truth before false supposition, day before night, light before darkness; when moved by a yearning for continence and a vast zeal for piety he rejects bodily pleasure, the wife of the Egyptian, as she bids him come in to her and enjoy her embraces (Gen. 39:7);
ק״ט
109[107] when he claims the goods of his kinsmen and father from which he seemed to have been disinherited and holds it his duty to recover that portion of virtue which falls to his lot; when he passes step by step from betterment to betterment and, established firmly as it were on the crowning heights and consummation of his life, utters aloud the lesson which experience had taught him so fully, “I belong to God” (Gen. 50:19), and not any longer to any sense object that has been created,
ק״י
110[108]—then his brethren will make with him covenants of reconciliation, changing their hatred to friendship, their ill-will to good-will, and I, their follower and their servant, who have learnt to obey them as masters, will not fail to praise him for his repentance.
קי״א
111[109] And with good reason too, since Moses the revealer preserves from destruction the story of his repentance, so worthy of love and remembrance, under the symbol of the bones which he held should not be suffered to remain buried for ever in Egypt (Ex. 13:19). For he deemed it a grievous shame to suffer any fair blossom of the soul to be withered or flooded and drowned by the streams which the Egyptian river of passion, the body, pours forth unceasingly through the channel of all the senses.”
קי״ב
112[110] So much for the vision drawn from earth—the vision of the sheaves and the interpretation put upon it. It is now fitting to examine the other, and to see how the rules of dream-interpretation explain it.
קי״ג
113[111] He saw, the text says, another dream and told it to his father and brethren, and said “it was as though the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.” And his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream that thou hast dreamt? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to do obeisance to thee on the earth?” And his brothers were angry with him, but his father kept the saying in memory (Gen. 37:9–11).
קי״ד
114[112] Well, the students of the upper world tell us that the Zodiac, the largest of the circles of heaven, is formed into constellations out of twelve signs, called zodia or “creatures” from which also it takes its name. The sun and the moon, they say, ever revolve along the circle and pass through each of the signs, though the two do not move at the same speed, but at unequal rates as measured in numbers, the sun taking thirty days and the moon about a twelfth of that time, that is two and a half days.
קי״ה
115[113] He then who saw that heavensent vision dreamt that the eleven stars made him obeisance, thus classing himself as the twelfth to complete the circle of the zodiac.
קי״ו
116[114] Now, I remember once hearing a man who had applied himself to the study in no careless or indolent manner say that it is not only men who have a mad craving for glory, but the stars too have rivalry for precedence and consider it right that the greater should have the lesser for their squires.
קי״ז
117[115] How far this is true or mere idle talk is a question I must leave to the investigators of the upper world.
קי״ח
118But we say that the lover of ill-considered aims, irrational contentions and vainglory is always puffed up by folly and claims to exalt himself not only above men but above the world of nature,
קי״ט
119[116] and thinks that all things have come into being for his sake and that they must each of them, earth, water, air, heaven, pay their tribute to him as king. And so extreme is the stupidity under which he labours that he has not the reasoning power to see what even a brainless child could understand, that no craftsman makes the whole for the sake of the part, but rather the part for the sake of the whole, and that a man is a part of the all, so that as he has come into being to help to complete the universe it would be only right for him to subscribe his contribution to it.
ק״כ
120[117] But some people we see are so brimful of folly that they are aggrieved if the whole world does not follow their wishes.
קכ״א
121Thus Xerxes, the king of the Persians, wishing to strike terror into his enemies, made a display of action on a grand scale by creating a revolution in nature; for he converted two elements,
קכ״ב
122[118] earth into sea, and sea into earth, giving dry land to the ocean and ocean in exchange to the dry land, by bridging over the Hellespont and breaking up Mount Athos into deep hollows, which filled with salt water at once formed a new and artificial sea entirely transformed from its ancient nature.
קכ״ג
123[119] And having played the conjurer, as he thought, with the regions of earth he proceeded in the boldness of his schemes to mount to heaven also, taking, unhappy wretch, impiety as his fellow climber. He thought to remove the irremovable and to overthrow the divine host, and, to quote the proverb, he began with the “sacred line.”
קכ״ד
124[120] “For he aimed his arrows at the best of the heavenly bodies, the sun who rules the day, and little knew that he himself was wounded by the unseen bolt of insanity, not merely because the feats he hoped to do were impossible, but because they were utterly unholy, either of which reflects great discredit on the attempter.
קכ״ה
125[121] And the Germans of the most thickly populated part, where the sea ebbs and flows, when the flood-time comes there, try eagerly, we are told, to repel its onsets, brandishing their unsheathed swords and running like a hostile band to meet the oncoming waves.
קכ״ו
126[122] They deserve our detestation in that in their godlessness they dared to take arms to oppose the parts of nature which know no servitude. They deserve our ridicule because they attempt the impossible as though it were possible, and think that water like a living creature can be speared, wounded, killed, or again can feel pain and fear, or, in its terror at the attack, run away, and in fact feel all the sensations of the living soul, both pleasurable and painful.
קכ״ז
127[123] Not long ago I knew one of the ruling class who when he had Egypt in his charge and under his authority purposed to disturb our ancestral customs and especially to do away with the law of the Seventh Day which we regard with most reverence and awe. He tried to compel men to do service to him on it and perform other actions which contravene our established custom, thinking that if he could destroy the ancestral rule of the Sabbath it would lead the way to irregularity in all other matters, and a general backsliding.
קכ״ח
128[124] And when he saw that those on whom he was exercising pressure were not submitting to his orders, and that the rest of the population instead of taking the matter calmly were intensely indignant and shewed themselves as mournful and disconsolate as they would were their native city being sacked and razed, and its citizens being sold into captivity, he thought good to try to argue them into breaking the law.
קכ״ט
129[125] “Suppose,” he said, “there was a sudden inroad of the enemy or an inundation caused by the river rising and breaking through the dam, or a blazing conflagration or a thunderbolt or famine, or plague or earthquake, or any other trouble either of human or divine agency, will you stay at home perfectly quiet?
ק״ל
130[126] Or will you appear in public in your usual guise, with your right hand tucked inside and the left held close to the flank under the cloak lest you should even unconsciously do anything that might help to save you?
קל״א
131[127] And will you sit in your conventicles and assemble your regular company and read in security your holy books, expounding any obscure point and in leisurely comfort discussing at length your ancestral philosophy?
קל״ב
132[128] No, you will throw all these off and gird yourselves up for the assistance of yourselves, your parents and your children, and the other persons who are nearest and dearest to you, and indeed also your chattels and wealth to save them too from annihilation.
קל״ג
133[129] See then,” he went on, “I who stand before you am all the things I have named. I am the whirlwind, the war, the deluge, the lightning, the plague of famine or disease, the earthquake which shakes and confounds what was firm and stable; I am constraining destiny, not its name but its power, visible to your eyes and standing at your side.”
קל״ד
134[130] What shall we say of one who says or even merely thinks these things? Shall we not call him an evil thing hitherto unknown: a creature of a strange land or rather one from beyond the ocean and the universe —he who dared to liken to the All-blessed his all-miserable self?
קל״ה
135[131] Would he delay to utter blasphemies against the sun, moon and the other stars, if what he hoped for at each season of the year did not happen at all or only grudgingly, if the summer visited him with scorching heat or the winter with a terrible frost, if the spring failed in its fruit-bearing or the autumn shewed fertility in breeding diseases?
קל״ו
136[132] Nay, he will loose every reef of his unbridled mouth and scurrilous tongue and accuse the stars of not paying their regular tribute, and scarce refrain from demanding that honour and homage be paid by the things of heaven to the things of earth, and to himself more abundantly inasmuch as being a man he conceives himself to have been made superior to other living creatures.
קל״ז
137[133] Such is our description of the leaders of vainglory: let us now consider separately the rank and file which follow them. They are for ever plotting mischief and evil against the practisers of virtue, and when they see them zealous to brighten their life with the light of guileless truth and irradiate it with moonbeams as it were and with pure sunlight, they hinder them by deceit or violence and drive them down to the sunless region of the impious where deep night reigns and endless darkness, and innumerable tribes of spectres and phantoms and dream-illusions. And when they have brought them to their setting there they compel them to do obeisance to themselves as masters.
קל״ח
138[134] For we understand by the sun the practiser of wisdom, since it provides light for material things even as the other does for the immaterial things of the soul. And by the moon we understand the instruction which serves the wise, for both render a service most pure and useful in lightening a night, while the excellent thoughts and reasonings, the children as it were of instruction and the practising soul, are the brethren. These it is who rule aright the straight path of life, but those who purpose to say nothing and think nothing that is wholesome deem well to ply them all with wrestling-grips of manifold turns and twists, with the throat-clutch which dislocates the neck, or the leg-fall which brings the wrestler with a thud to the ground.
קל״ט
139[135] And therefore one of this sort is gently rebuked by his father, not Jacob, but by that right reason which is higher and greater than Jacob. “What is this dream which you dreamt?” (Gen. 37:10), he says.
ק״מ
140[136] “You did not dream,” he means, “or did you suppose that the naturally free would be forced into slavery to the human, the powers which rule into subjection and, more unreasonable still, made subject not to some others but to those whom they rule, and slaves to none but those who themselves are in slavery?” That could only be if by the power of God who alone can do all things, whose right it is to move the immovable and to make stable the inconstant, the present state of things should be changed to its opposite.
קמ״א
141[137] Nay, no dream! for what sense would there be in rebuking or showing anger to one who has seen an illusion in his sleep? “Was it of my free will that I saw it?” he would say. “Why charge me as you charge those who have deliberately gone wrong? I did but tell you what came upon me from without and struck my mind suddenly through no action of my own.”
קמ״ב
142[138] But the fact is that we are not concerned here with a dream, but with things that resemble dreams: things which seem great and brilliant and desirable to those who are not very well purified, but are small and dull and ridiculous in the eyes of uncorrupted judges of truth.
קמ״ג
143[139] What he means is this: “Shall I right reason come: shall fruitful instruction the mother and nurse of the soul-company that yearns for knowledge come too, shall the children of us two press forward, and shall we all standing straight opposite ranged in order with lifted hands address our prayers to vanity?
קמ״ד
144[140] Shall we first bow and then cast ourselves to the ground in supplication and obeisance?” No, may the sun never shine on these happenings, since deep darkness befits things evil and bright light the good, and what greater evil could there be than that vanity the fictitious and deceiver should receive praise and admiration, usurping the place of its opposite, simplicity in whom there is no fiction or falsity.
קמ״ה
145[141] There is a further excellent lesson in the words, “The father retained the saying” (Gen. 37:11). For surely it is the business of a soul which is no youngster nor barren nor sterile but verily an elder and skilled in parenthood, to take caution for its lifemate, to despise nothing at all but to crouch in awe before the power of God which none can evade or defeat, and to look with circumspection to see what end shall befall it.
קמ״ו
146[142] And so the oracles say that the sister of Moses, to whom we who deal in allegory give the name of “Hope,” “spied out from a distance” (Ex. 2:4), looking doubtless to the consummation of life, that it may meet us with good auspice sent down from high heaven by the Consummator.
קמ״ז
147[143] For many a time and to many has it happened that they have crossed wide spaces of navigable waters and passed a long voyage in safety escorted by favourable breezes, and then in the harbour itself have suddenly been shipwrecked just when they were on the point to cast anchor.
קמ״ח
148[144] Multitudes, too, have fought manfully for years in cruel warfare and remained unwounded without even a scratch or a pin-prick: they have returned in mirth and in gladness as though war were a public festival and a civic banquet, without a limb missing or unsound, and then in their own homes have been conspired against by those who should have been the last to do such a deed and slaughtered as the saying goes like “oxen at the stall.”
קמ״ט
149[145] And just as sudden and unexpected evils are wont to bring these outward inflictions upon us, so too they push the soul’s faculties in the opposite direction or deflect them to a side course if they can, or seek violently to overturn them. For who that has entered the arena of life remains without a fall?
ק״נ
150[146] Who has never been tripped up and thrown? Happy he who has fallen but seldom. Has there been any for whom fortune was not ever lying in wait, taking breath and collecting her strength, to grip him in her arms and carry him off before he can prepare to meet her?
קנ״א
151[147] Do we not know by experience of men who have passed from childhood to old age without feeling any disturbance of soul, because nature has so blessed them, or through the care of those who rear and train them or through both—men full of the profound inward peace which is the only true peace of which the peace of cities is but a copy—men who have therefore been held happy because they have never known even in their dreams the intestine war kindled by passion, the cruellest of wars—and then at the very eventide of life they have been wrecked on the rock of an unlocked tongue or insatiate greed of belly, or in uncontrolled lasciviousness of the lower-lying parts.
קנ״ב
152[148] For some “on the threshold of old age” affect the life of prodigal youth, a life dishonoured, abandoned, shamed. Others affect a life of knavery, slander and roguery, starting on their restless course just when, were it an old habit, we should expect them to discard it.
קנ״ג
153[149] And therefore we should earnestly entreat and supplicate God that He should not pass by our perishing race but charge His saving mercy to remain with us to the end, for it is a grievous thing that when we have tasted peace in its purity we should be hindered from taking our fill of it.
קנ״ד
154[150] And yet this hunger for peace, assuaged as it is by yearning and desire, is a lighter ill than thirst; but when in our eagerness to quench our thirst we have to drink of another fountain whose water is muddy and noisome, we must needs, replete with bitter-sweet pleasure, lead the life which is not worth living, pursuing the harmful as though it were profitable in our ignorance of our own interest.
קנ״ה
155[151] And the stream of these evils becomes most grievous when the unreasoning forces of the soul attack and overpower the forces of reason.
קנ״ו
156[152] Whilst the herd obeys its herdsman, or the flocks of sheep or goats obey the shepherd or goatherd, all goes well with them; but, when the controlling herdsmen prove weaker than their charges, everything goes awry. Arrangement gives way to disarrangement, order to disorder, steadiness to disturbance, organization to confusion, since the lawful control no longer subsists. For if it ever existed it is now destroyed.
קנ״ז
157[153] What follows? Must we not believe that, since the troop of unreason has made the soul its province, we have within ourselves a herd of brute cattle and a herdsman too, the ruling mind? But while the mind is strong and capable of playing the herdsman, all things are managed with justice and profit;
קנ״ח
158[154] but when weakness befalls the king, the subject element must suffer also, and it is just when the victim thinks he is most at liberty that he becomes the easiest of prizes, which whoso would win needs but little preparation for the contest. For it is the nature of anarchy to plot mischief and of government to bring salvation, and chiefly so where law and justice are honoured, and that means government based on reason.
קנ״ט
159[155] Here we may conclude our close study of the dreams of vainglory. As for gluttony it has two forms—drinking and eating, and the spicings and the flavourings needed are by no means simple in the former, but innumerable in the latter. These are entrusted to two caretakers: the liquor treated with nicety to a chief butler, the more elaborate edibles to a chief baker.
ק״ס
160[156] There is a carefully considered meaning in describing the dreams as appearing to both these in a single night. They both aim at serving the same need, for it is not simple nutrition which they prepare but nutrition accompanied with pleasure and delight. And though the labour of each deals with but a half of nutrition they are both concerned with the whole:
קס״א
161[157] each half attracts the other, for after eating men at once desire to drink and after drinking no less quickly to eat, and this is one of the chief reasons for assigning the same time to the dreams of both.
קס״ב
162[158] Now the province of the chief butler is drunkenness and of the chief baker gluttony. Each in his vision sees what fits his trade, wine and the parent plant of wine, the vine, in the first case, in the second loaves of the finest meal disposed on baskets which the baker saw himself carrying (Gen. 40:16, 17).
קס״ג
163[159] It would be well to examine the former dream first. It runs as follows: “In my sleep there was a vine over against me, and on the vine were three stalks, and itself was blossoming having put forth shoots. The grapes in the cluster were ripe, and Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the cluster and squeezed it into the cup and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand” (Gen. 40:9–11).
קס״ד
164[160] The prefacing with the words “in my sleep” is as striking as the words are true. For indeed he who gives way to the intoxication which is of folly rather than of wine bears a grudge against upright standing and wakefulness, and lies prostrate and sprawling like sleepers with the eyes of his soul closed, unable to see or hear aught that is worth seeing or hearing.
קס״ה
165[161] And thus brought low, as he passes through life he finds no road but a pathless tract where neither eye nor hand can guide him. He is pierced by brambles and thorn-bushes and sometimes rolls over precipices or charges into others, bringing miserable destruction both to himself and them.
קס״ו
166[162] And that deep and abysmal sleep which holds fast all the wicked robs the mind of true apprehensions, and fills it with false phantoms and untrustworthy visions and persuades it to approve of the blameworthy as laudable: thus in the present case the dreamer treats sorrow as a joy and does not perceive that the vine of his vision is the plant which 〈produces〉 folly and madness.
קס״ז
167[163] “There was,” he said, “a vine before me” (Gen. 40:9), the wanted and the wanter, wickedness and the wicked, facing each other. That vine we fools till, little thinking that it is to our own harm, and we eat and drink its fruit, thus ranking it with both kinds of nutriment, a possession which proves to entail no half measure but a wholesale complete totality of mischief.
קס״ח
168[164] But we should not fail to understand that a strong drink produced by the vine does not affect all who take it in the same way; often it acts in opposite ways so that some may be reckoned as bettered by it and others worsened.
קס״ט
169[165] With some it relaxes pensiveness and gloom, lightens the stress of cares, softens wrath and fears, tutors the temperament to reasonableness and makes the soul contented with itself. With others it lubricates anger, screws up grief, excites amorousness and rouses discourtesy. It unlocks the mouth and unbridles the tongue, unbars the senses, maddens the passions, and makes the mind savage and wild and flustered with everything it meets.
ק״ע
170[166] Thus the condition in the former case seems to resemble still cloudless weather in the air, or unruffled calm in the sea, or undisturbed peace and tranquillity in the city; while that of the latter resembles a fierce violent blast, a stormy billowy sea or civil faction, the turmoil of which is more hateful than even uncivilized warfare.
קע״א
171[167] Thus in one of two convivial gatherings we may find nothing but laughter and sport, guests promising, expecting and conferring kindnesses, pleasant feelings and pleasant talk, cheerful faces, glad hearts and freedom from restraint;
קע״ב
172[168] in the other nothing but anxiety, depression, quarrellings, revilings, woundings, while the guests snort, scowl and bark, and fight it out with neck-grips, wrestling and fisticuffs, gnawing off ears and noses or any limbs or parts of the body that come handy, and thus exhibiting their life-long inebriation and tipsiness with every kind of misconduct in this far from sacred contest.
קע״ג
173[169] The deduction follows that the vine symbolizes two things—folly and gladness.
קע״ד
174Each of them is shewn by many proofs, but to avoid prolixity I will give only a few.
קע״ה
175[170] There was a time when he led us along the way of philosophy, the way of the desert, barren of passions and of wrongdoings, and took us as to the high land and there set right reason on a peak of wide view and bade it survey the whole land of virtue, whether it is rich and deep of soil, fertile of grass and fruit, and well fitted both to give increase to the lessons there sown and to raise the stalk of tree-like verities there planted, or the opposite of all this; survey, too, the actions which are as cities, whether they are thoroughly well fenced and secure, or uncovered and stripped of the security which is as a wall; survey the inhabitants, too, whether they have increased in number and strength, or whether they are weak through fewness, or few through weakness (Num. 13:18–21).
קע״ו
176[171] And it was then that, unable to carry the whole main-stalk of wisdom, we cut a single branch and cluster of grapes and raised it up, a manifest sign of joy, as the lightest of burdens, meaning by the vine so rich in clustering grapes to shew forth to those of keen mental vision the sprouting and fruit-bearing alike of noble living (Num. 13:24).
קע״ז
177[172] This vine of which we could take but a part men aptly liken to gladness, and in this I have the witness of one of the ancient prophets who under inspiration said, “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel” (Is. 5:7).
קע״ח
178[173] Israel is the mind which contemplates God and the world, for Israel means “seeing God,” while the house of the mind is the whole soul, and this is that most holy vineyard which has for its fruit that divine growth, virtue.
קע״ט
179[174] So great and splendid is happy thinking, for that is the original meaning of gladness or εὐφροσύνη, that Moses tells us that God does not disdain to feel and shew it, particularly when the human race turns away from its sins and inclines and reverts to righteousness, following by a free-will choice the laws and statutes of nature.
ק״פ
180[175] “For the Lord, thy God,” he says, “will turn to be glad over thee for good, as He was glad over thy fathers, if thou shalt hear His voice, to keep all His commandments and ordinances and the judgements which are written in the book of this law” (Deut. 30:9, 10).
קפ״א
181[176] What could be better able to implant the yearning for virtue or an ardour for noble living than this? Dost thou wish, O mind, that God should be glad? Be glad thyself, and bring Him no costly gift (for what does He need of what is thine?), but contrariwise accept rejoicing all the good things which He gives thee.
קפ״ב
182[177] For it gladdens Him to give when the recipients are worthy of His bounty, since you surely must admit that if those who live a life of guilt can be rightly said to provoke and anger God, those whose life is laudable may be equally well said to gladden Him.
קפ״ג
183[178] Mortal parents, fathers and mothers, vast as are their deficiencies, are gladdened by nothing so much as by the virtues of their children. And shall not the Begetter of all, in Whom is no deficiency at all, be gladdened by the noble living of His creatures?
קפ״ד
184[179] So then, my mind, having learned how great an evil is the wrath of God, and how great a good is the gladness of God, stir not up to thine own destruction aught that deserves His anger, but practise those things only by which thou shalt make God glad.
קפ״ה
185[180] And these thou shalt not find by traversing long roads where no foot has trodden, or by crossing seas where no ship has sailed, nor by pressing without a pause to the boundaries of land and ocean. For they do not dwell apart in the far distance, nor are they banished from the habitable world, but, as Moses says (Deut. 30:12–14), the good is stationed just beside thee and shares thy nature, close bound with the three most essential parts, heart, mouth and hands, that is mind, speech, actions, since to think and speak and do the morally good is the essential thing, a fullness composed of good purposing, good action and good speaking.
קפ״ו
186[181] Let us say then to one whose business is one form of belly-gorging, namely deep-drinking, that is to the chief butler, “Why in this evil plight, thou fool? Thou thinkest that thy preparations conduce to gladness of mind, but in reality thou kindlest the flame of lack of mind and lack of continence and feedest it with fuel in lavish abundance.”
קפ״ז
187[182] But he, perhaps, may answer: “Do not upbraid me so rashly, without first considering how I stand. My appointed task is to be cup-bearer, not to one invested with self-control and piety and the other virtues, but to one steeped in greed, licentious, unjust, priding himself on his impiety, he who once dared to say, ‘I know not the Lord’ (Ex. 5:2). Naturally I, on my side, have busied myself with what gives him pleasure.”
קפ״ח
188[183] And wonder not that God and Pharaoh, the mind which usurps the place of God, find gladness in things opposite to each other. Who then is God’s cup-bearer? He who pours the libation of peace, the truly great high priest who first receives the loving-cups of God’s perennial bounties, then pays them back when he pours that potent undiluted draught, the libation of himself.
קפ״ט
189Mark how the differences between the cup-bearers correspond to those whom they serve.
ק״צ
190[184] Thus I, the servant of that Pharaoh who keeps his stubborn incontinent thinking in an intensity of looseness, am an eunuch (Gen. 40:7), gelded of the soul’s generating organs, a vagrant from the men’s quarters, an exile from the women’s, a thing neither male nor female, unable either to shed or receive seed, twofold yet neuter, base counterfeit of the human coin, cut off from the immortality which, through the succession of children and children’s children, is kept alight for ever, roped off from the holy assembly and congregation. “For he that hath lost the organs of generation is absolutely forbidden to enter therein” (Deut. 23:1).
קצ״א
191[185] But the high priest is blameless, perfect, the husband of a virgin (Lev. 21:12, 13) who, strange paradox, never becomes a woman, but rather has forsaken that womanhood through the company of her husband (Gen. 18:11). And not only is he a husband, able to sow the seed of undefiled and virgin thoughts, but a father also of holy intelligences.
קצ״ב
192[186] Some of these survey and watch the facts of nature as Eleazer and Ithamar (Ex. 28:1). Others are God’s ministers, hastening to kindle and keep alive the heavenly flame. For rubbing together words and thoughts on holiness they cause piety, that most godlike of qualities, to flash forth as though from tinder.
קצ״ג
193[187] And he who is at once the preceptor and father of these is no ordinary part of the holy congregation but one without whom the solemn council of the soul’s parts could never be convened at all, its chairman, its president, its chief magistrate, who alone, and by himself, and without any other, is capable of considering and executing all things.
קצ״ד
194[188] When he is in line with others he is one of a few, but when he stands alone he is a “many,” a whole judgement-court, a whole senate, a whole people, a whole multitude, a whole human race, or rather, to tell the real truth, a being whose nature is midway between 〈man and〉 God, less than God, superior to man.
קצ״ה
195[189] “For when the high priest enters the Holy of Holies he shall not be a man” (Lev. 16:17). Who then, if he is not a man? A God? I will not say so, for this name is a prerogative, assigned to the chief prophet, Moses, while he was still in Egypt, where he is entitled the God of Pharaoh (Ex. 7:1). Yet not a man either, but one contiguous with both extremes, which form, as it were, one his head, the other his feet.
קצ״ו
196[190] We have explained one kind of vine, that which is the property of gladness, and the potent drink which it gives, undiluted wise counsel, and also the cup-bearer who draws it from the divine mixing-bowl which God Himself has filled to the brim with virtues.
קצ״ז
197[191] The other kind, the vine of folly and grief and wine frenzy, has already been explained in a way, but it is represented typically otherwise by the words spoken elsewhere in the Greater Song. “Their vine,” he says, “is of the vine of Sodom and their tendrils of Gomorrah, their grapes are grapes of gall, a cluster of bitterness to them. Their wine is the wrath of dragons and the incurable wrath of asps” (Deut. 32:32, 33).
קצ״ח
198[192] You see what the potent wine-cup of folly produces: bitterness, evil temper, sudden passionateness, deep anger, savageness, stinging spite, maliciousness. Most forcible are his words when he says that the plant of folly is in Sodom, for Sodom means blinding or making barren, since folly is blind and unproductive of excellence, and through its persuasions some have thought good to measure and weigh and count everything by the standard of themselves, for Gomorrah by interpretation is “measure.”
קצ״ט
199[193] But Moses held that God, and not the human mind, is the measure and weighing scale and numbering of all things. And he shews it in these words: “There shall not be in thy pouch divers weights, great and small. There shall not be in thy house divers measures great and small. A true and a just weight thou shalt have” (Deut. 25:13–15).
ר׳
200[194] And the true and just measure is to hold that God Who alone is just measures and weighs all things and marks out the confines of universal nature with numbers and limits and boundaries, while the false and unjust measure is to think that these things come to pass as the human mind directs.
ר״א
201[195] This eunuch and chief cup-bearer in one to Pharaoh, after seeing in his vision the parent plant of folly, the vine, goes on to picture it with three roots, to suggest the extremes which can be reached in sinning through the three divisions of time, for the root is the extreme.
ר״ב
202[196] When then folly overshadows and masters the whole soul and suffers no part of it to go at large and in freedom, it compels him to commit, not only such sins as may be remedied, but also such as are incurable.
ר״ג
203[197] The sins which admit of healing treatment are described as the lightest and first in the list; those that are beyond treatment as hard indeed and coming last, thus corresponding to roots.
ר״ד
204[198] And just as wisdom begins its benefits with the lesser of right actions and ends with them at their highest point, so folly, I think, forces the soul down from the height and little by little removes it from instruction and sets its dwelling far apart from right reason and brings it in ruin to the uttermost extremes.
ר״ה
205[199] After the roots the dream shewed him the vine blossoming and sprouting and bearing fruit. “It was blossoming itself, having put forth shoots. The grapes of the cluster were ripe” (Gen. 40:10). Would that fruitlessness might be its lot, that it might never put forth green shoots and remain withered for all time,
ר״ו
206[200] for what greater evil could there be than that folly should blossom and be fruitful?
ר״ז
207Again, the cup of Pharaoh, the receptacle of senselessness and wine-frenzy and ceaseless life-long intoxication, is, he says, “in my hand” (Gen. 40:11), that is, in the enterprises which I take in hand, in my projects and faculties, for without the activities of my mind passion by itself will make little headway.
ר״ח
208[201] The reins should be in the hands of the driver, and the rudder in the hands of the pilot, since only so can the chariot go aright in the race or the ship on its voyage. Even so in the hand and power of the craftsman, who produces one form of belly-gorging, namely wine-bibbing, is the task of filling the incontinent man.
ר״ט
209[202] But what was he thinking of, that he did not shrink from boasting over an action which called for denial rather than confession? Were it not a better course, instead of confessing that he was the teacher of incontinence, to ascribe the incentives to passion to the incontinent one himself as inventor and author of his own base,
ר״י
210[203] unmanly, invertebrate life? But the fact is that folly prides herself on matters which should make her hide her face in shame. In this case she not only glories in carrying round the cup, the receptacle of the incontinent soul, and displaying it to all, but in squeezing the grapes into it, and this means manufacturing the stuff which brings passion to its fullness and drawing it out of concealment into the light.
רי״א
211[204] For just as babes who want to be fed, when they are going to suck the milk, squeeze and press the nurse’s breast, so the maker of incontinence presses hard on the fountain from which the curse of wine-bibbing pours like rain, to find in the squeezed droppings a nourishment of delicious sweetness.
רי״ב
212[205] Thus then let us describe that wine-maddened, raving, incurable pest, the man frenzied by strong liquor. But his fellow, himself too a belly-slave, the friend of gross eating and gluttony, the dissolute artificer of viands, must be considered in his turn.
רי״ג
213[206] Yet we need little thought in our quest of him, for the dreamer’s vision is the closest possible reproduction of his image, and through careful study of the dream we shall see him reflected as it were in a mirror.
רי״ד
214[207] “I thought,” it says, “that I lifted three baskets of wheaten loaves on my head” (Gen. 40:16). “Head” we interpret allegorically to mean the ruling part of the soul, the mind on which all things lie, and once indeed that mind cried out loudly and bitterly, “All these things have been upon me” (Gen. 42:36).
רי״ה
215[208] So then he marshals the procession of all the arts which he contrived against the unhappy belly, and bearing the ritual basket himself is not ashamed, poor fool, to be burdened with a triple load of baskets, that is with the three divisions of time.
רי״ו
216[209] For pleasure is said by her votaries to consist of the memory of past, the enjoyment of present and the hope of future delights.
רי״ז
217[210] Thus the three baskets are likened to the three divisions of time, and the baked meats in the baskets to the concomitants of each of these divisions, memories of the past, participations of the present, expectations of the future, and he who bears all these to the pleasure-lover, who has loaded the table not with one general kind of incontinence, but with practically every species and genus of licentiousness, and that board has no peace-draughts and lacks the salts of friendship.
רי״ח
218[211] At this board there is one banqueter only, and yet to him it is as a public feast: that banqueter is King Pharaoh, who has made dispersion and scattering and the undoing of continence his business, for his name means “scattering.” And he shews his great importance and kingship not in delighting in the seemly, the good cheer of temperance, but in glorying in the unseemly, the practices of foulness, wrecked as he is on the rocks of insatiableness and greediness and luxurious living.
רי״ט
219[212] And therefore the birds (Gen. 40:17), that is the unforeseen chance events which swoop upon us from without, will overrun like fire all the contents and set them ablaze and consume them with their devouring force, so that not a fragment is left to be enjoyed by the basket-bearer who had hoped to carry his inventions and projects for ever as a secure and permanent possession never to be taken from him.
ר״כ
220[213] But thanks be to the victorious God who, however perfect in workmanship are the aims and efforts of the passion-lover, makes them to be of none effect by sending invisibly against them winged beings to undo and destroy them. Thus the mind stripped of the creations of its art will be found as it were a headless corpse, with severed neck nailed like the crucified to the tree of helpless and poverty-stricken indiscipline.
רכ״א
221[214] For so long as they remain unharmed by the visitors, whose way it is to arrive suddenly and unforeseen, the arts which cater for the enjoyment of pleasure seem to flourish. But when these visitors swoop down out of the unseen, these arts are turned upside-down and the craftsman perishes with them.
רכ״ב
222[215] We have now explained the dreams of the two partners in the workshop of the palate, where both kinds of provender, drink and food, and these not of the necessary, but of the superfluous and intemperate kind, are produced. Our next immediate duty is to investigate the dreams of him who believed himself to be the king of these two, and the other faculties of the soul, namely Pharaoh.
רכ״ג
223[216] “In my sleep,” he says, “I thought I was standing by the edge of the river, and it was as though from the river came up seven kine of choice flesh and well favoured, and they fed in the reed grass. And, lo, seven other kine came up behind them from the river, evil and ugly to look on, and lean-fleshed, such that I never saw uglier in all Egypt.
רכ״ד
224[217] And the lean and ugly kine ate up the seven first kine, the choice and well favoured, and they passed into their bellies. But it could not be seen that they had passed into their bellies, and their looks remained ugly as at the first.
רכ״ה
225[218] And after I had waked I slept, and saw again in my sleep that seven ears of corn came up on one stalk, full and good, and other seven ears thin and wind-blasted grew up beside them, and the seven ears swallowed up the good and full ears” (Gen. 41:17–24).
רכ״ו
226[219] You note the opening words of the self-lover, who, in body and soul alike, is the subject of movement and turning and change. “I thought I stood,” he says, and does not reflect that to be unswerving and stable belongs only to God and to such as are the friends of God.
רכ״ז
227[220] God’s unswerving power is proved most clearly by this world which ever remains the same unchanged, and, since the world is firmly balanced, its maker must needs be steadfast. We have other infallible witnesses in the sacred oracles,
רכ״ח
228[221] for we have these words with God as speaker: “Here I stand there before thou wast, on the rock in Horeb” (Ex. 17:6), which means, “This I, the manifest, Who am here, am there also, am everywhere, for I have filled all things. I stand ever the same immutable, before thou or aught that exists came into being, established on the topmost and most ancient source of power, whence showers forth the birth of all that is, whence streams the tide of wisdom.”
רכ״ט
229[222] For I am He “Who brought the fountain of water from out the steep rock,” as it says elsewhere (Deut. 8:15). And Moses too gives his testimony to the unchangeableness of the deity when he says “they saw the place where the God of Israel stood” (Ex. 24:10), for by the standing or establishment he indicates his immutability.
ר״ל
230[223] But indeed so vast in its excess is the stability of the Deity that He imparts to chosen natures a share of His steadfastness to be their richest possession. For instance, He says of His covenant filled with His bounties, the highest law and principle, that is, which rules existent things, that this God-like image shall be firmly planted with the just soul as its pedestal. For so He declares when he says to Noah, “I will establish My covenant on thee” (Gen. 9:11).
רל״א
231[224] And these words have two further meanings. First that justice and God’s covenant are identical; secondly that while the gifts bestowed by others are not the same as the recipients’, God gives not only the gifts, but in them gives the recipients to themselves. For He has given myself to me and everything that is to itself, since “I will establish my covenant with thee” is the same as “I will give thyself to thee.”
רל״ב
232[225] And it is the earnest desire of all the God-beloved to fly from the stormy waters of engrossing business with its perpetual turmoil of surge and billow, and anchor in the calm safe shelter of virtue’s roadsteads.
רל״ג
233[226] See what is said of wise Abraham, how he was “standing in front of God” (Gen. 18:22), for when should we expect a mind to stand and no longer sway as on the balance save when it is opposite God, seeing and being seen?
רל״ד
234[227] For it gets its equipoise from these two sources: from seeing, because when it sees the Incomparable it does not yield to the counter-pull of things like itself; from being seen, because the mind which the Ruler judges worthy to come within His sight He claims for the solely best, that is for Himself.
רל״ה
235To Moses, too, this divine command was given: “Stand thou here with Me” (Deut. 5:31), and this brings out both the points suggested above, namely the unswerving quality of the man of worth, and the absolute stability of Him that IS.
רל״ו
236[228] For that which draws near to God enters into affinity with what is, and through that immutability becomes self-standing. And when the mind is at rest it recognizes clearly how great a blessing rest is, and, struck with wonder at its beauty, has the thought that it belongs either to God alone or to that form of being which is midway between mortal and immortal kind.
רל״ז
237[229] Thus he says: “And I stood between the Lord and you” (Deut. 5:5), where he does not mean that he stood firm upon his feet, but wishes to indicate that the mind of the Sage, released from storms and wars, with calm still weather and profound peace around it, is superior to men, but less than God.
רל״ח
238[230] For the human mind of the common sort shakes and swirls under the force of chance events, while the other, in virtue of its blessedness and felicity, is exempt from evil. The good man indeed is on the border-line, so that we may say, quite properly, that he is neither God nor man, but bounded at either end by the two, by mortality because of his manhood, by incorruption because of his virtue.
רל״ט
239[231] Similar to this is the oracle given about the high priest: “When he enters,” it says, “into the Holy of Holies, he will not be a man until he comes out” (Lev. 16:17). And if he then becomes no man, clearly neither is he God, but God’s minister, through the mortal in him in affinity with creation, through the immortal with the uncreated,
ר״מ
240[232] and he retains this midway place until he comes out again to the realm of body and flesh. That it should be so is true to nature. When the mind is mastered by the love of the divine, when it strains its powers to reach the inmost shrine, when it puts forth every effort and ardour on its forward march, under the divine impelling force it forgets all else, forgets itself, and fixes its thoughts and memories on Him alone Whose attendant and servant it is, to whom it dedicates not a palpable offering, but incense, the incense of consecrated virtues.
רמ״א
241[233] But when the inspiration is stayed, and the strong yearning abates, it hastens back from the divine and becomes a man and meets the human interests which lay waiting in the vestibule ready to seize upon it, should it but shew its face for a moment from within.
רמ״ב
242[234] Moses then describes the perfect man as neither God nor man, but, as I have said already, on the border-line between the uncreated and the perishing form of being. While, on the other hand, the man who is on the path of progress is placed by him in the region between the living and the dead, meaning by the former those who have wisdom for their life-mate and by the latter those who rejoice in folly,
רמ״ג
243[235] for we are told of Aaron that “he stood between the dead and the living, and the breaking abated” (Num. 16:48). For the man of progress does not rank either among those dead to the life of virtue, since his desires aspire to moral excellence, nor yet among those who live in supreme and perfect happiness, since he still falls short of the consummation, but is in touch with both.
רמ״ד
244[236] And therefore he quite properly concludes with the phrase “the breaking abated,” not “ceased.” For in perfection all the influences which break and crush and fracture the soul do cease, but in the stage of progress they diminish, being so to speak cut down and confined, but nothing more.
רמ״ה
245[237] We find, then, that stability or fixity or permanent immobility, in virtue of its immutable and unchangeable quality, subsists as an attribute primarily to the Existing Being, secondly to His Word which He calls His covenant, thirdly to the Sage, and fourthly to the man of gradual progress. What then could make the wicked mind, fit subject for every manner of curse, think that he could stand alone, when he is carried to and fro as in a flood and swept down by eddy after eddy of the torrent of which that dead burden the body is the channel?
רמ״ו
246[238] For “I thought,” he says, “that I stood on the edge of the river” (Gen. 41:17). River, I submit, is here a symbol of speech, since both flow outward and with a swift strong current, and both are sometimes fruitful in producing inundations, water in one case, words in the other, sometimes unfruitful when they slacken or subside.
רמ״ז
247[239] And both may be beneficial by irrigating, one the fields, the other the souls of docile hearers; both at times do harm, the river by flooding the adjoining land, speech by reducing the mental powers of the inattentive to chaos and confusion.
רמ״ח
248[240] In this way speech is like a river, but it has a twofold nature better and worse, the better beneficial, the worse necessarily injurious.
רמ״ט
249[241] Moses has provided examples of both, of the plainest kind to those who have the gift of vision. “A river,” he says, “goes out of Eden to water the garden; thence it separates into four heads” (Gen. 2:10),
ר״נ
250[242] and he gives the name of Eden, which is by interpretation “delight,” to the wisdom of the Existent, because no doubt wisdom is a source of delight to God and God to wisdom, and so in the Psalms the singer bids us to “delight in the Lord” (Ps. 37(36):4). The Divine Word descends from the fountain of wisdom like a river to lave and water the heavensent celestial shoots and plants of virtue-loving souls which are as a garden.
רנ״א
251[243] And this holy Word is “separated into four heads,” which means that it is split up into the four virtues, each of which is royal. For separation into heads or rules is not like separation into local regions but into kingdoms, and when he points to virtues he means thereby to declare that the Sage who possesses them is a king, a king appointed not by men but by nature, the infallible, the incorruptible, the only free elector.
רנ״ב
252[244] Thus it was said to Abraham by those who saw his worthiness: “thou art a king from God with us” (Gen. 23:6). And thus they laid down the doctrine for the students of philosophy, that the Sage alone is a ruler and king, and virtue a rule and a kingship whose authority is final.
רנ״ג
253[245] It is this Word which one of Moses’ company compared to a river, when he said in the Psalms “the river of God is full of water” (Ps. 65(64):10); where surely it were senseless to suppose that the words can properly refer to any of the rivers of earth. No, he is representing the Divine Word as full of the stream of wisdom, with no part of it empty or devoid of itself but a …, as it has been called, filled through and through with the influx and lifted up on high by the constant never-failing outflow from that perennial fountain.
רנ״ד
254[246] And there is another psalm which runs thus: “The strong current of the river makes glad the city of God” (Ps. 66(65):4). What city? For the existing holy city, where the sacred temple also is, does not stand in the neighbourhood of rivers any more than of the sea. Thus it is clear that he writes to shew us allegorically something different from the obvious.
רנ״ה
255[247] It is perfectly true that the impetuous rush of the divine word borne along 〈swiftly〉 and ceaselessly with its strong and ordered current does overflow and gladden the whole universe through and through.
רנ״ו
256[248] For God’s city is the name in one sense for the world which has received the whole bowl, wherein the divine draught is mixed, and feasted thereon and exultingly taken for its possession the gladness which remains for all time never to be removed or quenched. In another sense he uses this name for the soul of the Sage, in which God is said to walk as in a city. For “I will walk in you,” he says, “and will be your God” (Lev. 26:12).
רנ״ז
257[249] And, when the happy soul holds out the sacred goblet of its own reason, who is it that pours into it the holy cupfuls of true gladness, but the Word, the Cup-bearer of God and Master of the feast, who is also none other than the draught which he pours—his own self free from all dilution, the delight, the sweetening, the exhilaration, the merriment, the ambrosian drug (to take for our own use the poet’s terms) whose medicine gives joy and gladness?
רנ״ח
258[250] Now the city of God is called in the Hebrew Jerusalem and its name when translated is “vision of peace.” Therefore do not seek for the city of the Existent among the regions of the earth, since it is not wrought of wood or stone, but in a soul, in which there is no warring, whose sight is keen, which has set before it as its aim to live in contemplation and peace.
רנ״ט
259[251] For what grander or holier house could we find for God in the whole range of existence than the vision-seeking mind, the mind which is eager to see all things and never even in its dreams has a wish for faction or turmoil?
ר״ס
260[252] I hear once more the voice of the invisible spirit, the familiar secret tenant, saying, “Friend, it would seem that there is a matter great and precious of which thou knowest nothing, and this I will ungrudgingly shew thee, for many other well-timed lessons have I given thee.
רס״א
261[253] Know then, good friend, that God alone is the real veritable peace, free from all illusion, but the whole substance of things created only to perish is one constant war. For God is a being of free will; the world of things is Fatality. Whosoever then has the strength to forsake war and Fatality, creation and perishing, and cross over to the camp of the uncreated, of the imperishable, of free-will, of peace, may justly be called the dwelling-place and city of God.
רס״ב
262[254] Let it be then a matter of indifference that you should give to the same object two different names, vision of God and vision of peace. For indeed the Potencies of the Existent have many names, and of that company peace is not only a member but a leader.”
רס״ג
263[255] Again God promises wise Abraham a portion of land “from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18), not meaning a section of country, but rather the better part in ourselves. For our body and the passions engendered in it or by it are likened to the river of Egypt, but the soul and what the soul loves to the Euphrates.
רס״ד
264[256] Here he lays down a doctrine of the greatest importance and value to life, namely, that the good man has received for his portion soul and the soul’s virtues, even as the bad on the other hand has body and the vices which belong to and arise through the body.
רס״ה
265[257] Now “from” has two meanings, one where the thing from which what we are describing starts is included, the other where it is excluded. For when we say that there are twelve hours from early morning to evening, or thirty days from the new moon to the end of the month, we take into our reckoning the first hours in the former case and the new moon itself in the latter. But when one says that the field is three or four stades distant from the city, clearly he does not include the city.
רס״ו
266[258] So in this case we must suppose that in the phrase “from the river of Egypt” “from” is used in this exclusive sense. For Moses would have us remove right away from bodily things, which present themselves amid restless flux and motion, which destroys and is destroyed, and receive the soul as our heritage with the virtues which are indestructible and worthy to be such.
רס״ז
267[259] Thus our investigation has shewn what was meant when the speech which deserves praise was compared to a river. It follows that speech which calls for censure was none other than the river of Egypt—speech, that is, which is ill-trained, ignorant and practically soulless. And therefore it changes into blood (Ex. 7:20), since it cannot provide nourishment, for the speech of indiscipline none can drink. And further it is prolific of frogs, bloodless, soulless creatures, whose cry is a strange harsh noise, painful to the hearers.
רס״ח
268[260] We are told, too, that all the fish in it died (ibid. 21), and by fish thoughts are symbolized. For thoughts swim and are bred in speech as in a river, and like living creatures give vitality to it. But set in undisciplined speech ideas die. For in such speech there is no sense to be found, only “bawling” cries disordered and “unregulated,” as the verse has it.
רס״ט
269[261] Enough on these points; but since in the words “I thought I stood by the edge of the river” he declares that his dream contained not only a “standing” and a “river,” but also the edges or “lips” of a river, I am bound to make such observations as are suitable on the subject of “lip.”
ר״ע
270[262] Nature clearly has provided animals and men in particular with lips for two most necessary purposes. One is to keep silence; for the lips form the strongest possible fence and barrier for confining sound. The other is to give expression to thought; for the stream of words flows through the lips. When they are closed that stream is held back, and until they part it cannot take its course.
רע״א
271[263] In this way the lips train and exercise us for both purposes, speech and silence, and they teach us to watch for the proper occasion for either. For example: Is something said worth hearing? Oppose it not but pay attention silently according to the command of Moses, “Be still and hear” (Deut. 27:9).
רע״ב
272[264] None of those who enter upon wordy controversies can be properly held either to speak or to hear; he who would do 〈either〉 in the true sense will find 〈silence〉 useful.
רע״ג
273[265] Again when amid the wars and ills of life you see the merciful hand and power of God extended over you as a shield, be still. For that Champion needs no ally, and we have a proof of this in the words which Holy Scripture keeps amid its treasures, “The Lord shall war for you and ye shall be silent” (Ex. 14:14).
רע״ד
274[266] Once more, if you see the firstborn of Egypt, true children of their parents, perishing (Ex. 11:5), even lust, pleasure, grief and fear, and injustice, folly, licentiousness with all their brethren and kin, stand in awe and be silent, bending low before the tremendous power of God.
רע״ה
275[267] “For not a dog shall make a sound,” it says, “with his tongue, neither from men to beast” (ibid. 7), which means that neither the dog-like tongue which barks so loud, nor the man in us, the ruling mind, nor the beast-like creature, sense, should vaunt themselves when, upon the downfall of all that is our own, assistance comes self-bidden from without to shield us.
רע״ו
276[268] But occasions often arise which ill accord with silence and call for speech in song or prose, and of such, too, we may find instructive examples in the same storehouse. How so? Suppose some portion of good has fallen to us unexpectedly. It is well then to give thanks and hymn the sender.
רע״ז
277[269] And what is that good? Suppose that the passion which was attacking us is dead and has been flung out headlong without burial. Let us not delay, but setting in order our choir raise the most sacred of anthems, bidding all to say “Let us sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. Horse and rider he hath cast into the sea” (Ex. 15:1).
רע״ח
278[270] But though, no doubt, the destruction and removal of passion is a good, yet it is not a perfect good, but the discovery of wisdom is a thing of transcendent excellence. And when that is discovered, all the people will sing not with one part of music only, but with all its harmonies and melodies.
רע״ט
279[271] For “then,” says the text, “Israel sang this song upon the well” (Num. 21:17), and by the “well” I mean knowledge, which for long has been hidden, but in time is sought for and finally found—knowledge whose nature is so deep, knowledge which ever serves to water the fields of reason in the souls of those who desire to see.
ר״פ
280[272] Again when we reap the true harvest of the mind, does not the holy Word bid us bring, stored in the basket (Deut. 26:2, 4) of our reasoning faculties, the firstfruits of that rich crop of things excellent, the product of the flowering, the sprouting, the fruit-bearing of ourselves, and as we display them pronounce with words of forthright oratory our laudings of God who gives fulfilment, in such words as these: “I have purged the things hallowed from my home and stored them in the house of God (ibid. 13) under the stewardship and guardianship of those who have been chosen for their high merit to the sacred temple-ministry.”
רפ״א
281[273] These are the Levites and the proselytes, the orphans and widows (ibid.); the first suppliants, the second those who have left their homes and taken refuge with God, the others those who are as orphans and widows to creation, and have adopted God as the lawful husband and father of the servant-soul.
רפ״ב
282[274] Such is the most fitting rule for speaking and keeping silence. But the practice of the wicked is quite the contrary. For they ardently pursue a guilty silence and a reprehensible speech, and they work both as an engine for the ruin of themselves and others.
רפ״ג
283[275] Yet it is in speech—in saying what they ought not—that they exercise themselves the most. For they open their mouths and leave them unbridled, and suffer their “promiscuous” speech, to use the poet’s term, to take its course like an unchecked torrent whirling along with it vast quantities of unprofitable stuff.
רפ״ד
284[276] And so some betake themselves to pleading the cause of pleasure and lust and of every superabundant appetite and raise up unreasoning passion to menace the ruling reason. 〈Others 〉 disencumber themselves to engage in disputatious controversies, hoping thereby to blind the race of vision and to be able to hurl them over precipices and chasms, from which they can never rise again.
רפ״ה
285[277] Some, too, have set themselves up to oppose the virtue not only of men but of God; to such a pitch of madness have they advanced.
רפ״ו
286The first of these three, the company of the pleasure-lovers, are described as having for their leader the king of the country of Egypt. For God says to the prophet, “Behold he himself goeth forth to the water, and thou shalt stand meeting him by the edge (lip) of the river” (Ex. 7:15).
רפ״ז
287[278] It is as characteristic of him, that he should ever go out to the spreading tide of unreasoning passion, as it is of the wise to meet its strong current, whose waters are the advocacy of pleasure and lust—meet it not with his feet, but with his judgement, steadfastly and unswervingly, on the “lip” of the river, that is on the mouth and tongue, the organs of speech. For firmly resting on these supports he will be able to overthrow and lay low the plausibilities which plead the cause of passion.
רפ״ח
288[279] Secondly, we find the enemy of the race that has vision in the people of Pharaoh who attacked and persecuted and enslaved virtue without ceasing, until they received the requital of evil for the evil they meted out to others, submerged in the sea of their wrongdoings and in the mighty billows, which their raving had called up, and thus that occasion brought a peerless spectacle, an undisputed victory, and a joy which transcendedhope.
רפ״ט
289[280] Therefore we read: “Israel saw the Egyptians dead along the lip of the sea” (Ex. 14:30). Mighty is that champion arm by whose constraining force mouth and lips and speech became the scene of the fall of those who had whetted them as instruments against the truth, that so their own weapons, not those of strangers, should bring death to those who had taken them against others.
ר״צ
290[281] Three messages, the best of tidings, does this text proclaim to the soul, one that the passions of Egypt have perished, a second that the scene of their death is none other than the lips of that fountain bitter and briny as the sea, those very lips through which poured forth the sophist-talk which wars against virtue, and finally that their ruin was seen.
רצ״א
291[282] For we may pray that nothing that is good and beautiful should be unseen, but rather should be brought into clear light and bright sunshine, while its opposite evil deserves only to be brought into night and profound darkness and 〈night〉. And never may even a casual glimpse of evil come our way, but may the good be surveyed with ever growing eyesight. And what is so truly good as that the excellent should live and the bad die?
רצ״ב
292[283] Third on the list were those who extended the activities of their word-cleverness to heaven itself, men who gave themselves to studies directed against nature or rather against their own soul. They declared that nothing exists beyond this world of our sight and senses, that it neither was created nor will perish, but is uncreated, imperishable, without guardian, helmsman or protector.
רצ״ג
293[284] Then piling enterprises one upon another they raised on high like a tower their edifice of unedifying doctrine. For we read that “all the earth was one lip” (Gen. 11:1), a harmony of disharmony, that is a blend of all the parts of the soul, to dislodge from its position the greatest binding force in the universe, government.
רצ״ד
294[285] And therefore when they hoped to soar to heaven in mind and thought, to destroy the eternal kingship, the mighty undestroyable hand cast them down and overturned the edifice of their doctrine.
רצ״ה
295[286] And the place is called “confusion,” a fitting name for wild audacious revolution. For what is more fraught with confusion than want of government? Are not houses that have no ruler full of offences and disturbance?
רצ״ו
296[287] Are not cities left without a king destroyed by the opposite of king-rule, the greatest of evils, mob-rule? Do not countries and nations and regions of the earth lose their old abundant happiness when their governments are dissolved?
רצ״ז
297[288] And why should we appeal to the case of mankind? For the other collections of animals, whether of the air, or the land or the water, do not hold together any more than men without someone to captain them, but they always desire the presence of their proper leader and pay him honour as the sole author of their welfare, and in his absence they scatter and are destroyed.
רצ״ח
298[289] Can we then suppose that, while the creatures of the earth, who are but a tiny portion of the universe, find in government the cause of their well-being and in anarchy the cause of their ills, the world does not owe the supreme blessedness which fills it to the leadership of God its king?
רצ״ט
299[290] So then these aggressors against heaven suffered a penalty befitting their attempts. Having brought disorder into the holy, they saw their own unholiness disordered by anarchy; they had wrought confusion and were confounded. But so long as they remain unpunished, puffed up by their delusion, they deal out destruction to the government of the universe with their unholy words, enroll themselves as rulers and kings, and make over the undestroyable sovereignty of God to creation which passes away and perishes and never continues in one stay.
ש׳
300[291] Thus it is their way to talk bombastic, boastful absurdities such as “We are the leaders, we are the potentates; all things are based on us. Who can cause good or its opposite, save we? With whom does it really and truly rest to benefit or harm, save us? They are but idle babblers who say that all things are linked to an invisible power, and think that this power presides over everything in the world whether human or divine.”
ש״א
301[292] Such is their presumptuousness. Yet, if they pass from this intoxication to sobriety, and become themselves again; if realizing the sottishness of their past they feel shame and self-reproach for the sins to which their ill-judging judgement has led them; if they take repentance for their counsellor, a counsellor impervious to flattery and bribery; if they propitiate the merciful power of Him that is by recantations in which holiness replaces profanity, they will obtain full pardon.
ש״ב
302[293] But if they continue for ever to plunge and prance like stiffnecked horses disobedient to the rein, as though they were free and independent and rulers of others, necessity inexorable and implacable will make them feel that in all things great and small they are as nothing.
ש״ג
303[294] For the charioteer who has mounted the winged chariot of this world will put his bridle upon them and pull back with force the hitherto slackened reins till they are taut, tighten the muzzles, and with whip and spur recall to them the nature of that imperious authority, which the kindness and gentleness of the ruler had caused them to forget, as bad servants do.
ש״ד
304[295] For such misconstrue the mildness of the master as failure to govern, and ape the state of those who have no master, until the owner stems the full flood of the disease, by applying punishments in the place of remedies.
ש״ה
305[296] Thus we read “the lawless soul which distinguishes with its lips to do well or do ill,” and then later “shall proclaim its sin” (Lev. 5:4, 5). O soul, brimful of presumptuous folly, what is this which thou claimest? Knowest thou what is truly good, or excellent, or just, or holy, or what befits who? No,
ש״ו
306[297] the knowledge and mastery of these is a gift reserved for God alone, and for whoso is God’s friend. And this is testified by the oracle in which we are told “I will kill and make to live: I will smite and I will heal” (Deut. 32:39).
ש״ז
307[298] But indeed when the soul, wise in its own conceit, entertained this dream of things beyond its ken, it was no fleeting thought, but to its sorrow so puffed up with windy pride was it that it swore an oath that these things stood firm and established, which were but its false imaginations.
ש״ח
308[299] If then the throbbing fever of its disease begins to abate, the embers of health will gradually kindle into a blaze and force it first to “proclaim its sin,” that is reproach itself, then come to the altar as a suppliant, beseeching grace with prayers and vows and sacrifices, by which alone it can obtain forgiveness.
ש״ט
309[300] Next we might reasonably inquire why Moses speaks of the river of Egypt alone as having “lips” and refrains from doing so in the case of the Euphrates and other holy rivers. For while we have in one place “thou shalt stand meeting him on the lip of the river” (Ex. 7:15).…
ש״י
310[301] Yet some perhaps may say scoffingly that such points should not be brought into our inquiries, as savouring of petty trifling rather than any profitable process. But I hold that such matters are like condiments set as seasoning to the Holy Scriptures, for the edification of its readers, and that the inquirers are not to be held guilty of any far-fetched hair-splitting, but on the contrary of dereliction if they fail so to inquire.
שי״א
311[302] For the subject which now engages our researches is not the lore of rivers as such, but that of lives which are compared to the currents of rivers and are of opposite kinds. For the lives of the good and the bad are shewn, one in deeds, the other in words, and words belong to the tongue, mouth and lips …
