על הבריחה והמציאה ג׳On Flight and Finding 3
א׳
1[14] Jacob, seeing that Laban has grown deaf to instruction or lawful authority, naturally plans to run away, fearing lest, besides being unable to help, he should suffer harm at his hands. For association with men devoid of sense is hurtful, and the soul often involuntarily takes the impressions of their mad folly; and in the nature of things culture feels a repugnance towards lack of culture, and painstaking towards carelessness.
ב׳
2[15] And so the faculties of the Practiser lift their voice aloud, proclaiming their grounds for hatred: “Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father’s house? Are we not counted of him strangers? For he hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured our money. All the riches and the glory, which God took away from our father, shall be for us and for our children” (Gen. 31:14–16).
ג׳
3[16] For being free both in names and in sentiments, they deem no senseless man to be rich or glorious, but all such, speaking broadly, to be poor and inglorious, even if they surpass in fortune wealthy kings. For they do not say that they will have their father’s wealth, but that which was taken away from their father, nor his glory, but the glory that was taken away from him.
ד׳
4[17] The worthless man is destitute of the real riches and the true gloriousness; for these good things are won by sound sense and self-mastery and the dispositions akin to these, which are the inheritance of virtue-loving souls.
ה׳
5[18] Accordingly it is not the things that pertain to the good-for-nothing man, but those of which he has been stripped, that are affluence and renown to the worthy. Virtues are what has been stripped from him, and has become the property of the worthy, thus bringing into harmony what is said elsewhere: “we will sacrifice the abominations of Egypt to the Lord our God” (Exod. 8:26); for victims perfect and free from blemish are the virtues and virtuous conduct, and these the Egyptian body, in its devotion to the passions, abominates.
ו׳
6[19] For even as in this passage, understood in accordance with reality, things which Egyptians reckon profane are called sacred in the estimation of the keen-sighted, and are all offered in sacrifice; exactly in the same way, the things of which every foolish man has been deprived and stripped, these the comrade of nobility of character will inherit. And these are real glory, indistinguishable from knowledge, and wealth, not the blind wealth, but that which has the keenest sight for the things that actually are, which accepts no counterfeit coinage, nay nothing whatever that is soulless, even though it be approved coin.
ז׳
7[20] Right fitly, therefore, will Jacob run away from the man who has no part in the good things of God, the man who, even in finding fault with another, impugns himself without knowing it when he says, “If thou hadst told me, I would have sent thee forth” (Gen. 31:27). For this alone would have been a sufficient ground for flight, if, when you were the slave of ten thousand masters, you assumed the style of dominion and lordship and proclaimed liberty to others.
ח׳
8[21] I however, says Jacob, took no man to help me to find the way that leads to virtue, but paid heed to Divine oracles bidding me depart hence, and to this moment they guide my steps.
ט׳
9[22] And how wouldst thou have sent me forth? Would it have been, as thou didst grandiloquently recount, “with merriment” that caused me pain, and “music” all unmusical, and “drums” noises inarticulate and meaningless, inflicting blows on the soul through the ears, “and with cithara” (ibid.), not instruments but modes of conduct void of melody or harmony? Nay, these are the very things that made me plan flight; but you, it seems, devised them as means of diverting me back from flight, to induce me to retrace my steps for the sake of the power to cheat and mislead inbred in those senses which I had with difficulty gained strength to tread underfoot.