על השיכרות ל׳On Drunkenness 30
א׳
1[114] These leaders prove to have followers and disciples in those who say “thy servants have taken the sum of the warriors who were with us. Not one of them is in discord. We have brought our gift to the Lord, every man what he found” (Num. 31:49, 50).
ב׳
2[115] It would seem that these too are raising a song of victory in their desire for the perfect powers that befit the leaders. For they say that they have taken the largest number, that which completes the sum, of the different aspects of courage. They are by nature combatants, marshalled to fight against two battalions of the enemy, one led by cowardice, a quality so difficult to cure, the other by rashness inspired by the frenzy of battle, and neither has any element of good judgement.
ג׳
3[116] Now it is a fine saying that “none is at discord” or thus failing to partake of courage perfect and complete. For as the lyre or any musical instrument is out of harmony if even a single note and nothing more be out of tune, but in harmony when, under a single stroke of the bow, the strings join in yielding the same symphony, so it is with the instrument of the soul. It is out of harmony when it is strained too far by rashness and forced to the highest pitch of the scale, or when it is relaxed too much by cowardice and weakened to the lowest. It is in harmony when all the strings of courage and every virtue combine to produce a single tuneful melody.
ד׳
4[117] The harmony and tunefulness in this case is mightily attested by the words which say that they have offered their gift to God, that is, that they have duly honoured the Existent by clearly acknowledging that this universe is His gift.
ה׳
5[118] For it says in words most agreeable to the truth of things, “what a man found, this he offered as a gift.” Each of us, that is, finds at our birth that great gift of God, the complete universe which He bestowed on itself and on its highest members.
