על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב ל״אThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 31
א׳
1[115] These “products” are nourishment in the strict meaning of the word, supplied by the soul that is able, as the lawgiver says, to “suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock” (ibid.). He uses the word “rock” to express the solid and indestructible wisdom of God, which feeds and nurses and rears to sturdiness all who yearn after imperishable sustenance.
ב׳
2[116] For this divine wisdom has appeared as mother of all that are in the world, affording to her offspring, as soon as they are born, the nourishment which they require from her own breasts. But not all her offspring are deemed meet for divine food, but such as are found worthy of their parents; for many of them fall victims to the famine of virtue, a famine more cruel than that of eatables and drinkables.
ג׳
3[117] The fountain of the divine wisdom runs sometimes with a gentler and more quiet stream, at other times more swiftly and with a fuller and stronger current. When it runs down gently, it sweetens much as honey does; when it runs swiftly down, it comes in full volume as material for lighting up the soul, even as oil does a lamp.
ד׳
4[118] In another place he uses a synonym for this rock and calls it “manna.” Manna is the divine word, eldest of all existences, which bears the most comprehensive name of “Somewhat.” Out of it are made two cakes, the one of honey, the other of oil. These are two inseparable and all-important stages in education, at the outset causing a sweetness to flow from what knowledge opens, and afterwards causing a most brilliant light to flash from them on those who handle in no fickle and perfunctory way the subjects which they love, but lay hold of them strongly and firmly with a persistence that knows no slackness or intermission. These, as I have said, “are caused to rise up over the strength of the earth” (Deut. 32:13).