על החלומות, ספר ב ד׳On Dreams, Book II 4
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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).
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.
ז׳
7[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.
ח׳
8[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.
ט׳
9[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.
י׳
10[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.
י״א
11[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.
