על המידות הטובות י״זOn the Virtues 17
א׳
1[90] Again who could fail to admire the ordinance about reapers or grape-pickers? He bids them at harvest time not take up what drops from the sheaves, nor put in the sickle to the whole crop, but leave part of the field uncut. In this way he makes the well-to-do high-minded and liberal by sacrificing something of their own property instead of casting greedy eyes on the whole crop, and stacking and carting it all home to be kept like a treasure. At the same time he gives fresh courage to the poor, for since they themselves own no landed property he permits them to enter the estates of their fellow-countrymen and reap a harvest from what is still left as if it were their own.
ב׳
2[91] Again in the autumn when the owners have the fruit picked he forbids them to collect the grapes that fall or to glean the vineyards. He gives the same order to the olive pickers, acting like a very loving and very just father of children who have not prospered alike, some of them living in abundance, others sunk into the deepest poverty. These last in his pity and compassion he invites into the possession of their brethren to partake of what belongs to others as though it were their own, not in any shameless fashion, but to redress their privations and to make them partners, not only in the fruits but to all appearance in the estates also.
ג׳
3[92] But there are some so corrupted in mind, so engrossed in money-getting and every kind of profiteering as though it were a matter of life and death, never considering what its source can be, that they glean the olive-yards and vineyards and give a second reaping to the barley fields and wheat fields, thus convicting themselves of a slavish and illiberal meanness and of impiety to boot.
ד׳
4[93] For they themselves have contributed but little to the husbandry. The most numerous and most indispensable parts of all that goes to produce fruit-bearing and fertility are due to nature—the seasonable rains, the happily tempered states of the air, the gentle dews, those constant nurses of the growing plants, the truly life-giving breezes, the seasons benignly brought about so that neither the summer should over-scorch, nor frost over-chill, nor the transitions of spring and autumn injure the produce.
ה׳
5[94] And though they know these things and see that it is nature who ever brings the accomplishment and bestows these rich boons upon them, they nevertheless dare to appropriate her benefactions, and, as though they themselves caused everything, refuse to share anything with anybody. Their practice shows inhumanity and impiety as well, and, since they have not of their own free will laboured to get virtue, he deals with them against their will admonishing and calling them to wisdom with holy laws which the good obey voluntarily and the bad unwillingly.