על הגירת אברהם י״חOn the Migration of Abraham 18
א׳
1[101] Admirable therefore also is the prayer of Isaac the self-taught for the lover of wisdom that he may receive the good things both of mind and of sense: “May God give thee,” he says, “of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth” (Gen. 27:28), which is equivalent to saying in the first place “May He pour down on thee perpetually the heavenly rain apprehended by mind alone, not violently so as to deluge thee, but in gentle stillness like dew so as to do thee good”; and secondly “May He grant thee the earthly, the outward and visible wealth; may that wealth abound in marrow and fatness and may its opposite, the poverty of the soul and its parts, be withered and dried up by His grace.”
ב׳
2[102] If again you examine the High Priest the Logos, you will find him to be in agreement with this, and his holy vesture to have a variegated beauty derived from powers belonging some to the realm of pure intellect, some to that of sense-perception. The other parts of that vesture call for a longer treatment than the present occasion allows, and must be deferred. Let us however examine the parts by the extremities, head and feet.
ג׳
3[103] On the head, then, there is “a plate of pure gold, bearing as an engraving of a signet, ‘a holy thing to the Lord’ ” (Ex. 28:32); and at the feet on the end of the skirt, bells and flower patterns (Ex. 28:29 f.). The signet spoken of is the original principle behind all principles, after which God shaped or formed the universe, incorporeal, we know, and discerned by the intellect alone; whereas the flower patterns and bells are symbols of qualities recognized by the senses and tested by sight and hearing.
ד׳
4[104] And he has well weighed his words when he adds: “His sound shall be audible when he is about to enter into the Holy Place” (Ex. 28:31), to the end that when the soul is about to enter the truly holy place, the divine place which only mind can apprehend, the senses also may be aided to join in the hymn with their best, and that our whole composite being, like a full choir all in tune, may chant together one harmonious strain rising from varied voices blending one with another; the thoughts of the mind inspiring the keynotes—for the leaders of this choir are the truths perceived by mind alone—while the objects of sense-perception, which resemble the individual members of the choir, chime in with their accordant tuneful notes.
ה׳
5[105] For, to say all in a word, we must not, as the Law tells us, take away from the soul these three things, “the necessaries, the clothing, the fellowship” (Ex. 21:10), but afford each of them steadily. Now, the “necessaries” are the good things of the mind, which are necessary, being demanded by the law of nature; the “clothing,” all that belongs to the phenomenal world of human life; and the “fellowship,” persistent study directed to each of these kinds, that so in the world of sense we may come to find the likeness of the invisible world of mind.