על עבודת האדמה ל״וOn Husbandry 36
א׳
1[157] The letter of the Law perhaps suggests all these considerations and more than these. But that no malicious critic may too daringly give rein to his inventive talent, we will leave the letter, and make one or two remarks about the inner meaning of the Law. Firstly, it considers that a man ought to concern himself not only with the acquisition of good things, but with the enjoyment of what he has acquired, and that happiness results from the practice of perfect excellence seeing that such excellence secures a life sound and complete in every way. Secondly, what the Law means is that a man’s main consideration is not house or vineyard or the wife already betrothed to him; how he is to take to wife her whom he has wooed and won; how the planter of the vineyard is to cull and crush its fruit, and then drink large draughts of the intoxicating beverage and make his heart glad; or how the man that has built the house is to occupy it; but that the faculties of a man’s soul are a man’s main consideration. Through these he can make a beginning, make progress, and reach perfection in praiseworthy doings.
ב׳
2[158] Beginnings are seen in a wooer, for, just as he who is wooing a woman has wedlock still in futurity not being already a husband, in the same way the well-constituted man looks forward to one day marrying Discipline, a highborn and pure maiden, but for the present he is her wooer. Progress is seen in the work of the husbandman, for, as it is the planter’s care that the trees should grow, so is it the earnest student’s care to bring it about that the principles of sound sense shall receive the utmost development. Perfection is to be seen in the building of a house, which is receiving its finishing touches, but has not yet become quite compact and firmly settled.