על הבריחה והמציאה י״זOn Flight and Finding 17
א׳
1[87] It is worth while to treat with particular detail those aspects of the subject which are of vital importance. They are four in number: first, why cities set apart for fugitives were chosen, not from the cities allotted to the other tribes, but from those assigned to the tribe of Levi only; secondly, for what reason they were six in number, and neither more nor less; thirdly, why three were beyond the Jordan, and the others in the land of Canaan; fourthly, why the time appointed beforehand for the return of the fugitives was the death of the High Priest.
ב׳
2[88] On each of these points we must say what is pertinent, beginning with the first. The direction to fly to the cities allotted to Levites only is wholly appropriate, for the Levites too are in a certain sense fugitives, having, for the sake of being well-pleasing to God, forsaken parents and children and brothers and all their mortal kindred.
ג׳
3[89] So the original founder of this company is represented as saying to his father and mother, “I have not seen you, my brethren I know not, and my sons I know no more” (Deut. 33:9), that I may without distraction minister to Him that is. And a flight that is real exile is loss of our nearest and dearest. It is on the ground, then, of a similarity in their doings that the Lawgiver commits fugitives to the keeping of fugitives, that they may obtain an amnesty for what they had done.
ד׳
4[90] Was this, then, the only reason, or was it also because the Tribe of Levi, consisting of those who had the care of the Tabernacle, rushed upon and slew from the young upwards those who fashioned into a god the golden calf, the Egyptian folly? They did this under the impulse of righteous anger accompanied by an inspiration from above and a God-sent possession: “And each man slays brother and neighbour and his nearest” (Exod. 32:27), for the body is “brother” of the soul, the irrational part of us neighbour of the rational, and the word of utterance “next of kin” to mind.
ה׳
5[91] For in this way only could that which is best in ourselves become capable of ministering before Him Who is Best of all Existences, if in the first place the man were resolved into soul, his brother body and its interminable cravings being broken off and cut in twain; if in the next place the soul rid itself, as I have said, of that neighbor of our rational element, the irrational, which like a torrent in five divisions pours through the channels of all the senses and rouses the violence of the passions;
ו׳
6[92] if in the next place the reasoning faculty sever and banish from itself that which has the appearance of being closest to it, the word of utterance. All this is to the end that the word or thought within the mind may be left behind by itself alone, destitute of body, destitute of sense-perception, destitute of utterance in audible speech; for when it has been thus left, it will live a life in harmony with such solitude, and will render, with nothing to mar or to disturb it, its glad homage to the Sole Existence.
ז׳
7[93] Another point to be called to mind, in addition to those which have been mentioned, is that the Tribe of Levi is that of ministers of the Tabernacle and priests, on whom rests the service of the Sanctuary, and those who commit unintentional homicide are also engaged in a service, since, as Moses tells us, “God delivers into their hands” (Exod. 21:13) for destruction those that have done deeds worthy of death. But, while the Levites were appointed for the exaltation of the good, these others were appointed for the chastisement of the guilty.