על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב י״דOn the Special Laws, Book II 14
א׳
1[49] And therefore in the judgement of truth none of the wicked keeps a feast, even for the shortest time, tormented as he is by consciousness of wrongdoing and depressed in soul, even though he simulates a smile with his face. For where does the wicked man find a season for true rejoicing? He whose every plan is for evil, whose life-mate is folly, with whom everything, tongue, belly and organs of generation, is against what is seasonable.
ב׳
2[50] For with the first he blurts out matters of secrecy which call for silence, while in his greed he fills the second with viands unlimited and strong drink in great quantities, and as for the third, he misuses them for abominable lusts and forms of intercourse forbidden by all laws. He not only attacks in his fury the marriage-beds of others, but even plays the pederast and forces the male type of nature to debase and convert itself into the feminine form, just to indulge a polluted and accursed passion. For this reason Moses,
ג׳
3[51] great here as ever, seeing how vast was the beauty which belonged to the true feast, held that its perfection was beyond the capacity of human nature to realize, and consecrated it to God with these very words,
ד׳
4[52] “The Lord’s feasts.” For when he considered the sorrowful and terror-stricken condition of our race, how charged it is with numberless evils generated by the greedy desires of the soul and also by the infirmities of the body, increased by the vicissitudes of fortune and the mutual onslaughts of neighbours against neighbours who inflict and suffer countless wrongs, he could not but wonder that anyone, tossed about on so vast a sea of events, whether of his own intending or not, and unable to find tranquility or the secure anchorage of a life kept safe from danger, could really hold a feast, not in the sense in which the word is commonly used, but in the true sense; and the true sense is, to find delight and festivity in the contemplation of the world and its contents and in following nature and in bringing words into harmony with deeds and deeds with words.
ה׳
5[53] And therefore it was a necessary pronouncement that the feasts belonged to God alone, for God alone is happy and blessed, exempt from all evil, filled with perfect forms of good, or rather, if the real truth be told, Himself the good, Who showers the particular goods on heaven and earth.
ו׳
6[54] And so it was that in the days of old a certain mind of rich intelligence, her passions now calmed within her, smiled because joy lay within her and filled her womb. And when, as she considered the matter, it seemed to her that joy might well be the peculiar property of God alone, and that she herself was sinning in taking for her own conditions of well-being above human capacity, she was afraid, and denied the laughter of her soul until her doubts were set at rest.
ז׳
7[55] For the gracious God allayed her fears by an oracle in which He bade her acknowledge that she laughed, meaning thus to teach us the lesson that joy is not altogether denied to the creature. Joy is of two kinds. One is unmixed and of the utmost purity, admitting nothing whatever of the nature opposite to its own. This joy belongs to God and to no other. The other which flows from it is a mixed stream blended with lesser tributaries of sorrow, and if the blend is such that the pleasant ingredients outnumber the unpleasant, the wise man receives it as the greatest of gifts. So much for this matter.