על הגירת אברהם ל״טOn the Migration of Abraham 39
א׳
1[216] To resume. The mind, when it has gone forth from the places about Haran, is said to have travelled through the country as far as the place of Shechem, to the lofty oak-tree (Gen. 12:6). Let us consider what is meant by “travelled through.” Love of learning is by nature curious and inquisitive, not hesitating to bend its steps in all directions, prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything that exists unexplored, whether material or immaterial. It has an extraordinary appetite for all that there is to be seen and heard, and, not content with what it finds in its own country, it is bent on seeking what is in foreign parts and separated by great distances.
ב׳
2[217] We are reminded that merchants and traders for the sake of trifling profits cross the seas, and compass the wide world, letting stand in their way no summer heat nor winter cold, no tempestuous or contrary winds, neither youth nor age, no sickness of body, neither the daily intercourse with friends nor the pleasure too great for words which we take in wife and children and in all else that is our own, nor the enjoyment of our fatherland and of all the gracious amenities of civic life, nor the safe use of money and property and abundance of other good things, nor in a word anything else either great or small.
ג׳
3[218] If so, it is monstrous, such speakers urge, when we stand to gain a thing most fair, worth all men’s striving for, the special prerogative of the human race, namely wisdom, to refrain from crossing every sea, from exploring earth’s every recess, in the joy of finding out whether there is in any place aught that is fair to see or hear, and from following the quest of it with utmost zest and keenness, until we can come to the enjoyment of the things that we are seeking and longing for.
ד׳
4[219] Travel through man also, if thou wilt, O my soul, bringing to examination each component part of him. For instance, to take the first examples that occur, find out what the body is and what it must do or undergo to co-operate with the understanding; what sense-perception is and in what way it is of service to its ruler, mind; what speech is, and what thoughts it must express if it would contribute to nobility of character; what pleasure is, and what desire is; what pain and fear are, and what the healing art is that can counteract them, by means of which a man shall either, if he falls into their hand, without difficulty make his escape, or avoid capture altogether; what it is to play the fool, what to be licentious, what to be unjust, what the multitude of other sicknesses to which it is the nature of pestilential wickedness to give birth, and what the preventive of these; and on the other hand, what righteousness is, or good sense, or self-mastery, courage, discretion, in a word virtue generally and moral welfare, and in what way each of them is wont to be won.
ה׳
5[220] Travel again through the greatest and most perfect man, this universe, and scan narrowly its parts, how far asunder they are in the positions which they occupy, how wholly made one by the powers which govern them, and what constitutes for them all this invisible bond of harmony and unity. If, however, in your investigation, you do not easily attain the objects of your quest, keep on without giving in, for these “need both hands to catch them,” and only by manifold and painful toil can they be discovered.
ו׳
6[221] That is why the lover of learning took possession of the place called Shechem, a name which when translated is “shouldering,” a figure of toil, since it is with these parts of the body that we are accustomed to carry loads, as Moses himself calls to mind elsewhere speaking in this wise of one who worked and strove, “he submitted his shoulder to labour, and became a tiller of the soil” (Gen. 49:15).
ז׳
7[222] Never, then, O my understanding, do thou shew weakness and slacken, but even if aught seem to be hard to discern, open wide the organ in thyself that sees, and stoop to get a view of the inside, and behold with more accurate gaze the things that are, and never either willingly or unwillingly close thine eyes; for sleep is a blind thing, as wakefulness is a thing of keen sight. And it is a sufficient reward to obtain by unremitting inspection a clear impression of the things thou art in search of.
ח׳
8[223] Do you not see that he says further that a tall oak had been planted in Shechem, thus shewing in a figure the toil of education as a hard and unbreakable substance that never yields or bends? It is a vital matter that he who would be perfect should ply this toil, to the end that the soul’s court of justice, called “Dinah,” which means “judgement,” may not be ravished by him who sinks under the opposite kind of toil, which is the insidious foe of sound sense.
ט׳
9[224] For the man who bears the name of this place, Shechem, being son of Hamor, that is of an irrational being—for “Hamor” means “ass”—practising folly and nursed in shamelessness and effrontery, essayed—foul wretch that he was—to corrupt and defile the judgement faculties of the understanding. But the hearers and pupils of sound sense, Symeon and Levi, were too quick for him. They made secure their own quarters and went forth against them in safety, and overthrew them when still occupied in the pleasure-loving, passion-loving, toil of the uncircumcised: for albeit there was a Divine decree that “of the daughters of Israel, the seeing one, none might ever become a harlot” (Deut. 23:17), these men hoped to carry off unobserved the virgin soul (Gen. 34).
י׳
10[225] Vain hope, for there is no lack of succourers to victims of a breach of faith; but even if some imagine that there is, they will only imagine, but will be convicted by events of holding a false opinion. For Justice has indeed existence, Justice the abhorrer of wickedness, the relentless one, the inexorable, the befriender of those who are wronged, bringing failure upon the aims of those who shame virtue, upon whose fall the soul, that had seemed to have been shamed, becomes again a virgin. Seemed, I said, because it never was defiled. It is with sufferings which we have not willed, as it is with wrongdoings which we have not intended. As there is no real doing in the second case, so there is no real suffering in the first.