על חיי משה, ספר ב מ״אOn the Life of Moses, Book II 41
א׳
1[221] Both the incidents mentioned above are concerned with the punishment of impious persons, ratified by means of question and answer. There are two others of a different kind: one connected with the succession to an inheritance, the other with a rite performed at apparently a wrong season. It will be better to take the latter example before the other.
ב׳
2[222] Moses dates the first month of the year’s revolution at the beginning of the spring equinox. And, in doing so, he is not like some giving the place of honour to the actual time but rather to the gifts of nature which she raises up for men. For at the equinox the corn crops, our necessary food, become ripe, while on the trees, which are in full bloom, the fruit is just beginning to appear. This ranks second to the corn, and therefore is a later growth. For in nature what is a less pressing always comes after a really pressing necessity.
ג׳
3[223] Now, wheat and barley and the other kinds of food without which life is impossible are pressing necessities, but wine and olive oil and tree fruits do not come under this head, as men continue their life for many years and reach extreme old age without them.
ד׳
4[224] In this month, about the fourteenth day, when the disc of the moon is becoming full, is held the commemoration of the crossing, a public festival called in Hebrew Pasch, on which the victims are not brought to the altar by the laity and sacrificed by the priests, but, as commanded by the law, the whole nation acts as priest, each individual bringing what he offers on his own behalf and dealing with it with his own hands.
ה׳
5[225] Now, while all the rest of the people were joyful and cheerful, each feeling that he had the honour of priesthood, there were others passing the time in tears and sorrow. They had lost relations lately by death, and in mourning them they suffered a double sorrow. Added to their grief for their dead kinsfolk was that which they felt at the loss of the pleasure and honour of the sacred rite. For they were not even allowed to purify or besprinkle themselves with holy water on that day, since their mourning had still some days to run and had not passed the appointed term.
ו׳
6[226] These persons, after the festival, came to the ruler full of gloom and depression and put the case before him—the still recent death of their kinsfolk, the necessity of performing their duty as mourners and their consequent inability to take part in the sacrifice of the crossing-feast.
ז׳
7[227] Then they prayed that they might not fare worse than the others, and that the misfortune which they had sustained in the death of their relations might not be counted as misconduct entailing punishment rather than pity. In that case they considered that their fate would be worse than that of the dead, for they have no longer any perception of their troubles, while they themselves would be suffering a living death, in which they still retained consciousness.