מי יורש קנייני אלוה ג׳Who is the Heir of Divine Things 3
א׳
1[10] There are indeed some whom it befits to hear but not to speak, those to whom the words apply, “Be silent and hear” (Deut. 27:9). An excellent injunction! For ignorance is exceeding bold and glib of tongue; and the first remedy for it is to hold its peace, the second to give ear to those who advance something worth hearing.
ב׳
2[11] Yet let no one suppose that this exhausts the significance of the words “be silent and hear.” No, they enjoin something else of greater weight. They bid us not only be silent with the tongue and hear with the ears, but be silent and hear with the soul also.
ג׳
3[12] For many who come to hear a discourse have not come with their minds, but wander abroad rehearsing inwardly numberless thoughts on numberless subjects, thoughts on their families, on outsiders, on things private and things public, which properly should be forgotten for the moment. All these, we may say, form a series of successions in the mind, and the inward uproar makes it impossible for them to listen to the speaker, who discourses as in an audience not of human beings, but of lifeless statues who have ears, but no hearing is in those ears.
ד׳
4[13] If then the mind determines to have no dealing with any of the matters which visit it from abroad or are stored within it, but maintaining peace and tranquillity addresses itself to hear the speaker, it will be “silent,” as Moses commands, and thus be able to listen with complete attention. Otherwise it will have no such power.
