על שינוי השמות י״גOn the Change of Names 13
א׳
1[83] It is worth inquiring why Abraham, after the change of name, is not called by his old name, but always receives the same title as his right, whereas Jacob, after he is addressed as Israel, is in spite of this called Jacob many and many a time. We must reply that these are signs differing according as virtue acquired by teaching differs from virtue acquired by practice.
ב׳
2[84] He who is improved through teaching, being endowed with a happy nature, which with the co-operation of memory assures his retentiveness, gets a tight grip and a firm armhold of what he has learned and thus remains constant. The Practiser on the other hand, after strenuous exercise, takes a breathing-space and a relaxation while he collects and recovers the force which has been enfeebled by his labours. In this he resembles the athletes who anoint their bodies. When they are weary with exercise they pour oil upon their limbs to prevent their forces being utterly shattered by the intensity and severity of the contest.
ג׳
3[85] Again, the Man of Teaching has to aid him the voice of his monitor ringing in his ears, deathless as that monitor himself, and thus never swerves: the Man of Practice has only his own will which he exercises and drills to aid him to overthrow the passion natural to created being, and, even if he reaches the consummation, yet through weariness he returns to his old kind.
ד׳
4[86] He is more patient of toil, the other more blessed by fortune. This last has another for his teacher, while the toiler, self-helped only, is busied in searching and inquiring and zealously exploring the secrets of nature, engaged in labour ceaseless and unremitting.
ה׳
5[87] Therefore did Abraham in token of the even tenor of his future life receive his new name from God, the unchangeable, that the stability of his future might be set on a firm foundation by Him Who stands and is ever the same in nature and condition. But Jacob was re-named by an angel, God’s minister, the Word, in acknowledgement that what is below the Existent cannot produce permanence unswerving and unwavering, but only such harmony as is found in a musical instrument wherein the tones now stretched to a high pitch, now relaxed to a low, are blended into melody by the artist’s skill.