על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר א ל״זOn the Special Laws, Book I 37
א׳
1[198] We must now describe the ordinances dealing with each of these sacrifices, beginning with the best, which is the whole-burnt-offering. First of all, he says the victim must be a male specimen of the animals selected as best for the purpose, namely, a calf or lamb or kid. Secondly, the giver must wash his hands and lay them on the head of the victim,
ב׳
2[199] and after this one priest must take and slay it while another priest holds a vial below and after catching some of the blood goes all round the altar and sprinkles it thereon. The victim after being flayed must be divided into parts complete in themselves, while the belly and feet are washed, and then the whole must be given over to the sacred fire of the altar. Thus the one in it has become many and the many one.
ג׳
3[200] These are the contents of the ordinance taken literally. But another meaning also is indicated of the mystical character which symbols convey; words in their plain sense are symbols of things latent and obscure.
ד׳
4In the first place the victim of the whole-burnt-offering is a male because the male is more complete, more dominant than the female, closer akin to causal activity, for the female is incomplete and in subjection and belongs to the category of the passive rather than the active.
ה׳
5[201] So too with the two ingredients which constitute our life-principle, the rational and the irrational; the rational which belongs to mind and reason is of the masculine gender, the irrational, the province of sense, is of the feminine. Mind belongs to a genus wholly superior to sense as man is to woman; unblemished and purged, as perfect virtue purges, it is itself the most religious of sacrifices and its whole being is highly pleasing to God.
ו׳
6[202] In the laying of hands on the head of the animal we find the clearest possible type of blameless actions and of a life saddled with nothing that leads to censure but in harmony with the laws and statutes of nature.
ז׳
7[203] For the law desires, first, that the mind of the worshipper should be sanctified by exercise in good and profitable thoughts and judgements; secondly, that his life should be a consistent course of the best actions, so that as he lays his hands on the victim, he can boldly and with a pure conscience speak in this wise:
ח׳
8[204] “These hands have taken no gift to do injustice, nor shared in the proceeds of plunder or overreaching, nor been soiled with innocent blood. None have they maimed or wounded, no deed of outrage or violence have they wrought. They have done no service of any other kind at all which might incur arraignment or censure, but have made themselves humble ministers of things excellent and profitable, such as are held in honour in the sight of wisdom and law and wise and law-abiding men.”