על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ב ה׳On the Special Laws, Book II 5
א׳
1[18] But there are others, boastful persons, of the sort that is puffed up by arrogance, who in their craving for high position determine to have nothing to do in any way with the frugal, the truly profitable mode of living. Indeed, if any rebuke them in order to rein in the unruliness of their desires, they regard the admonition as an insult, and as they press forward to a career of luxury disregard their correctors and hold the admirable and also highly valuable instructions of wisdom a matter for laughter and mockery.
ב׳
2[19] And if they happen to have some abundance of resources and means of living on a lavish scale, they employ oaths to set the seal on their use and enjoyment of the wealth which enables them to spend so freely. Here is an instance of what I mean. A short time ago a man of considerable property who had found a loose and dissipated style of living to his taste, was in the presence of an elderly person, a relation or old family friend, I believe, who was reproving him and advising him to make a change and conduct himself with more strictness and seriousness. The other strongly resented this reproof and countered the challenge by swearing that so long as he possessed his incomings and goods in stock he would take no step in the direction of economy, either in town or country, either on shipboard or on the road, but would make display of his wealth always and everywhere. But this is evidently not so much an exhibition of wealth as of arrogance and intemperance.
ג׳
3[20] And yet to this day among those who hold high offices of authority there are not a few who possessing accumulated goods in vast numbers and abundant resources, to whom wealth is ceaselessly flowing in as from a perennial fountain, still sometimes betake themselves to the use of such things as we poor people use. Their cups are earthern, their loaves spit-baked, their extra dishes olives or cheese or greens: in the summer they wear a girdle and a thin shirt and in the winter a stout rent-proof mantle. The floor will sometimes serve for their bedstead: they have nothing to say to beds of ivory-work or made of tortoiseshell and gold, or bedding brocaded with flowers and purple-dyed garments and elaborate honey-cakes and tables spread with costly luxuries. The reason,
ד׳
4[21] I take it, is not only that they are blessed with a fine nature, but also that they have been brought under the influence of a right training from their earliest years. That training has taught them to value the interests of the man before those of the ruler. It makes its abode in their souls, and hardly a day passes but it reminds it of their common humanity and draws them away from lofty and overweening thought, reduces their swollen dimensions, and medicines their inequality with equality.
ה׳
5[22] And therefore they have filled their cities with plenty and abundance, with order and peace; of no good thing have they mulcted them, all good things have they bestowed freely, unsparingly and unstintedly. These and the like are the actions of noble men, rulers in the true sense.
ו׳
6[23] Far different are the actions of the newly rich who have been wafted into opulence by a freak of fortune. They know nothing, have never even dreamt, of the true wealth which has eyes to see, whose substance is the perfect virtues and the actions which conform with them; it is a blind wealth against which they have struck and taking it for their support they fail of necessity to see the road before them and wander away into pathless wilds, admiring what deserves no serious respect and mocking at what nature would bid them honour. Such persons, when they take a mistimed oath, are rebuked and reproached in no gentle terms by the holy word. Hardly can they be purged and healed, so that even the gracious nature of God deems them unworthy of His pardon.