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Treatise Two · Section One
Now, what had befallen the Khazar king is recorded in the history of the Khazars: that he revealed to his vizier the secret of a dream, a dream that recurred to him commanding him to seek the deed pleasing to God, exalted be He, in the mountains of Varsan.
And how the king and his vizier together set out toward the barren mountains by the sea, and how they chanced upon that cave in the night — the cave where a group of Jews would spend every Sabbath.
And how the two revealed themselves to the Jews and entered their religion, and were circumcised in that cave, and returned to their country secretly embracing the Jewish faith, concealing their belief.
Until they gradually disclosed the secret little by little to select members of their inner circle, until their number grew and their conviction became known, and they prevailed over the rest of the Khazars and brought them into the Jewish faith.
They summoned scholars and books from other lands and studied the Torah. And what is told of their distinction and their victory over their enemies, their conquest of territories, the treasures revealed to them, and the growth of their army to two hundred thousand, along with their love of the religion and their longing for the Temple —
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Until they erected a replica of the Tabernacle that Moses, peace be upon him, had constructed, and honored the princes of Israel and received their blessing from them — all as recorded in their chronicles.
When the king had studied the Torah and the books of the Prophets, he took that rabbi as his teacher and began to question him in Hebrew. The first question he asked him was about the divine names and attributes ascribed to God, and about what appears in some of them as corporealism — something remote from reason, as the revealed law likewise explicitly rejects it.
Section Two
The rabbi said: All the names of God, exalted be He — with the exception of the Explicit Name — are predicates and relational attributes derived from the reactions of creatures toward Him by virtue of His decrees and His dispositions.
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He is called 'Merciful' when the condition of one who had been pitied by people improves, and they then attribute mercy and compassion to God — whereas what those terms truly imply among us is weakness of soul and base nature, which cannot apply to Him, exalted be He.
Rather, He is a just ruler who decrees poverty for one person and wealth for another, without any change occurring in His own essence — He does not feel compassion for the one nor anger at the other.
We see the like of this in human judges: cases are brought before them and they rule according to what the law requires, so that some prosper and others suffer.
So by our reckoning of His effects He becomes sometimes 'a merciful and gracious God' and sometimes 'a jealous and avenging God,' even though He, exalted be He, undergoes no change from one attribute to another.
In sum, the attributes — other than the Explicit Name, may He be exalted — divide into three categories: either effective, or relational, or negative.
The effective attributes are derived from effects that issue from Him through natural intermediaries, such as 'making poor and making rich,' 'humbling and exalting,' 'gracious and merciful,' 'jealous and avenging,' 'mighty,' 'Almighty,' and the like.
The relational attributes are such as 'blessed,' 'praised,' 'glorified,' 'holy,' 'high,' and 'exalted' — derived from the veneration accorded to Him by rational beings. These, however numerous they may be, do not entail any multiplicity in Him nor draw Him out of His oneness.
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The negative attributes are such as 'living,' 'one,' 'first,' and 'last.' He is described by these to negate their opposites from Him, not to affirm those qualities in the sense that we understand them.
For we understand 'life' only in terms of sensation and motion, and He transcends both. We describe Him as 'living' in order to negate the attribute of inertness and death — because of the presumption that what is not alive must be dead.
Reason does not require this; for one may negate 'life' from time itself without thereby requiring that time is dead, since it is not of time's nature to receive life or death — just as saying 'the stone is not knowing' does not require you to describe it as ignorant.
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Just as a stone is too lowly to receive knowledge or ignorance, so the divine essence is too exalted to receive life or death.
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Just as it receives neither light nor darkness — so that if we were asked whether that essence is luminous or dark, we would say, in a figurative sense, that it is luminous, out of fear that the imagination might infer that what is not luminous must be dark.
But in truth we may say: only bodies receive light and darkness, and the divine essence is not a body, so it cannot be described as luminous or dark — except by way of metaphor, or to negate the deficient attribute.
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The attributes associated with the Explicit Name, may He be exalted, are the creative ones — without natural intermediary — such as 'forming,' 'creating,' and 'alone doing great wonders': meaning, by the mere act of His will, without the mediation of any other cause.
Perhaps this is what is meant by the verse 'I appeared to Abraham... as El Shaddai' — meaning through the way of power and dominance, as it says: 'He allowed no man to oppress them and rebuked kings on their behalf.'
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He did not produce miracles for them as He did for Moses — hence He said 'and by My name YHWH I was not made known to them,' meaning 'through My name YHWH,' since the preposition in 'by El Shaddai' stands in its place.
He acted with Moses and Israel in a way that left no doubt in any soul that the Creator of the world was the one who created those things by direct creative intention — as a primary, intentional act.
Such as the plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, the manna, the pillar of cloud, and the like — not because their stature was greater than that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but because they were a multitude, and doubt lingered in their souls.
The Patriarchs were at the pinnacle of faith and purity of heart — so much so that even had they encountered nothing but hardship, their faith in God would not have wavered. Hence there was no need for miracles in their case.
We call Him, exalted be He, 'wise of heart' because He is the very essence of intellect — He is the Intellect, and intellect is not merely an attribute of His. As for 'mighty in strength,' that belongs to the effective attributes.
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Section Three
The Khazar said: How do you deal with the corporeal attributes in this list — such as 'seeing and hearing,' 'speaking,' 'writing the tablets,' 'descending upon Mount Sinai,' 'rejoicing in His works,' and 'grieving in His heart'?
Section Four
The rabbi said: Did I not already compare Him to a just judge of upright character? From his rulings there issues the prosperity and happiness of some, and so he is called beloved of them and delighting in them; and he rules against others with the demolition of their homes and the obliteration of their traces, and so he is described as hating them and angry with them.
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And that nothing is hidden from him — neither what is done nor what is said — so he is 'seeing and hearing.' And that the air and all bodies are set in motion by His will and take shape at His command, just as the heavens and the earth were shaped.
So He is called 'speaking' and 'writing.' Likewise, from the subtle spiritual substance called the Holy Spirit there take shape spiritual forms
Called 'the Glory of God,' and named figuratively 'YHWH,' that descends upon Mount Sinai. We shall expand this explanation when we speak about the sciences.
Section Five
The Khazar said: Grant that you have extricated yourself on all the attributes so as not to require multiplicity — but what will free you from the attribute of will, which you ascribe to Him, exalted be He, while the philosopher denies it of Him?
Section Six
The rabbi said: We are near to extricating ourselves — if we are not pressed beyond the issue of will. Let us say to the philosopher: O philosopher, what is the principle by which, in your view, the heavens perpetually revolve, and the highest sphere carries all things yet has no place and no inclination in its motion?
And the sphere of the earth is planted and stands still at the center without inclination or support — you must acknowledge that principle, for things do not create themselves nor do they create each other.
That same principle caused the air to take shape into the hearing as the Ten Commandments, and caused the writing to be engraved in the tablets — call it will, or command, or whatever you like.
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Section Seven
The Khazar said: The secret of the attributes has become clear to me, and within it I now grasp the meaning of 'the Glory of God,' 'the Angel of God,' and 'the Shekhinah' — that these are names applied to things seen by the prophets.
Such as 'a pillar of cloud,' 'a consuming fire,' 'cloud and thick darkness,' 'fire and brightness' — just as one speaks of the light in the mornings and evenings, or on a cloudy day, as a ray from the sun even though it is hidden.
One says that the light and the ray come from the substance of the sun itself — though it is not quite so; rather, it is the bodies that are acted upon in facing it and are illuminated by it.
Section Eight
The rabbi said: Likewise, the Glory is a radiance of divine light that benefits those who rise toward it in His land.
Section Nine
The Khazar said: Your phrase 'those who rise toward it' has become clear to me, but your phrase 'in His land' is difficult for me to accept.
Section Ten
The rabbi said: It is not difficult to accept that one land may be distinguished from the rest of the lands — for you see places where certain plants grow but not others, certain minerals but not others, certain animals but not others.
And its inhabitants are distinguished by character and ethical disposition unlike others, by virtue of the equilibrium of temperament — for it is according to temperament that the soul's perfection or deficiency is determined.
Section Eleven
The Khazar said: But I do not hear of any superiority in the inhabitants of Syria over the rest of mankind.
Section Twelve
The rabbi said: So too this mountain of yours — you say it produces vines — yet if no grapevines are planted in it and the proper cultivation is not done, it will not yield grapes. So the primary distinction belongs to the people who are the elect and the cream, as I mentioned; then to the land, which lends support together with the acts and revealed laws associated with it.
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Section Thirteen
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The Khazar said: But how can this be, when prophets arose from Adam until Moses in places other than the Land — Abraham in Ur of the Chaldeans, Ezekiel and Daniel in Babylon, and Jeremiah in Egypt?
Section Fourteen
The rabbi said: Every one who prophesied did so either in it or on its account. Abraham prophesied in order to go there; and Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied on its account.
Both of them had been present in the First Temple, and the Shekhinah — in whose presence every prepared member of the elect was elevated to prophecy — was with them.
As for Adam the First, the Land of Israel was his soil and in it he died — as has been transmitted to us, in that
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The cave holds four couples: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.
This is the land called 'before the Lord,' of which it is said: 'the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it.'
It was over this land that the rivalry and jealousy between Abel and Cain first arose — when they sought to know which of them was accepted, to be Adam's successor and his distilled essence and inner core, so as to inherit the Land in connection with the divine order.
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And the other would be like a husk. So what came to pass came to pass — the killing of Abel — and the kingship remained barren. It is said: 'Cain went out from before the Lord' — meaning from that land where they had been, wandering and roaming on the earth.
And he himself said: 'Behold, You have driven me today from the face of the ground, and from Your face I shall be hidden.'
Just as it is said: 'Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from before the Lord' — he was fleeing only from the place of prophecy; so God returned him to it from the belly of the fish and had him prophesy there.
When Seth was born resembling Adam — as it is said, 'he begat in his likeness, in his image' — he took Abel's place, as it says: 'for God has appointed me another seed in place of Abel, for Cain killed him.'
He deserved to be called 'son of God' like Adam, and deserved that land — which is a rank below the Garden of Eden. And it was over it that the jealousy between Isaac and Ishmael arose.
Until Ishmael was expelled as a husk — even though it was said of him: 'Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly' — with worldly prosperity. But it was then said: 'and My covenant I will establish with Isaac' — an allusion to the attachment of the divine order to him and to otherworldly felicity. Ishmael has no covenant, nor does Esau, even though both prospered.
And over this land arose the jealousy between Jacob and Esau over the birthright.
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And the blessing — until Esau was repelled, for all his strength, before Jacob, for all his weakness.
As for Jeremiah's prophecy in Egypt — it was about it and on its account. Likewise the prophecy of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. As for Sinai and Paran — these all fall within the borders of the Land of Israel.
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For they lie within the Red Sea boundary, as God said: 'I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River' — the wilderness being the wilderness of Paran, 'that great and terrible wilderness,' its boundary in the south; and the River being the Euphrates, its boundary in the north.
In it are the altars of the Patriarchs at which they were answered with heavenly fire and divine light.
The binding of Isaac took place on a barren mountain — that is Mount Moriah. Then the hidden truth was revealed in the days of David, and it was known that this was the very specific place prepared for the Shekhinah.
Araunah the Jebusite had been plowing and tilling it, as it is written: 'And Abraham called the name of that place: The Lord will be seen — as it is said today: on the mountain of the Lord, He will be seen.'
And Chronicles states explicitly that the Temple was built on Mount Moriah — so there, without doubt, are the places that deserve to be called the 'gates of heaven.'
Do you not see how Jacob did not attribute the vision he saw to the purity of his soul or to the quality of his faith and certainty, but rather attributed it to the place, as he said: 'And he was afraid and said: How awesome is this place!'
And it says of him before that: 'And he encountered the place' — meaning the specific, distinctive place.
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Do you not see how Abraham was transferred from his homeland when he proved worthy and the divine order's attachment to him became necessary — he being the very heart of that elect — to the place where his perfection would be completed? Just as a farmer who finds a goodly fruit-bearing tree in a wilderness transfers it to cultivated land suited to produce such a tree, and tends it there, so that it becomes a garden tree after having been wild, and becomes plentiful after having been scarce — not
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— found only occasionally and wherever chance would have it. Thus prophecy spread through his descendants in the Land of Israel, growing more prevalent the longer they remained in the Land — through the supporting conditions of ritual purities, acts of worship, and sacrifices, and especially through the presence of the Shekhinah.
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For the divine order waits, as it were, for whoever deserves to be connected to it, and then becomes for him a divine illumination, as in the case of the prophets and the righteous.
Just as the intellect waits for the one whose nature is perfected and whose soul and character are balanced, to settle in him to full perfection — as in the case of the philosophers.
Just as the soul waits for the one whose natural powers are perfected in a manner prepared for a further excellence, and then settles in him — as in the animal.
Just as nature waits for the equilibrated temperament in its qualities to settle in it, and it becomes a plant.
Section Fifteen
The Khazar said: These are overarching principles of knowledge that require detailed elaboration, and we are not in a position to pursue that now. I shall ask you about them when we come to the subject of the sciences. Elaborate for me on the merits of the Land of Israel.
Section Sixteen
The rabbi said: It was set aside for the guidance of the inhabited world, confirmed as an inheritance for the tribes of Israel from the time the languages were dispersed.
As it is written: 'When the Most High apportioned nations.' Nor was it possible for Abraham to be connected with the divine order and to covenant and contract with Him except after reaching this Land — in the vision between the halves.
What then do you think of an entire community of the elect who earned the name 'people of God,' in a specific land called 'the inheritance of God,' at appointed times ordained by Him, exalted be He — not established by convention, not derived from astrology, nor from anything else of the sort?
Rather, what is called 'appointed seasons of God' — together with ritual purities, acts of worship, utterances, and acts precisely ordained by Him — these are called 'the work of God' and 'the service of God.'
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Section Seventeen
The Khazar said: With this order in place it is fitting that the Glory of God should be manifest.
Section Eighteen
The rabbi said: Do you not see how the Land is permanently bound to the Sabbatical rest, as it says: 'the sabbath of the land' and 'the land shall rest a sabbath to God'? And its natural produce is not permitted to be sold outright, as it says: 'for the land is Mine.'
Know too that the 'appointed seasons of God' and the 'Sabbaths of God' are associated only with the 'inheritance of God.'
Section Nineteen
The Khazar said: Should not the days be reckoned as beginning from China, since it is the easternmost point of the inhabited world?
Section Twenty
The rabbi said: Did not the Sabbath begin from Sinai, and from Alush before it where the manna first fell? Otherwise, does the Sabbath enter only upon those for whom the sun has set after Sinai, proceeding westward to the edge of the west?
Then to those beneath the earth, then to China which is the east of the inhabited world — so that the Sabbath for China comes eighteen hours after the Land of Israel.
Since Syria is as the center of the inhabited world, sunset in Syria is midnight in China, and midday in Syria is sunset in China.
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This is the secret of the calendar-fixing rule that is built upon eighteen hours — as the teaching: 'if the new moon was born before midnight, it will certainly be visible near sunset' — and the intent is Syria, the seat of the revealed law.
It is the place where Adam was sent down from the Garden of Eden on the Sabbath night, and from it the calendar began after the six days of Creation. And Adam began naming the days.
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So wherever the earth was inhabited and the children of Adam were connected, their reckoning of the days followed what Adam had established.
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That is why all people agree on the seven collective days. Do not counter me with those who begin them from the midday of the westernmost end of the inhabited world, which is sunset for the Land of Israel.
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And in it the first light was created, then the sun — for the sun was light and then set immediately and became night for the inhabited world. The order was thus established by the night preceding the day, as it says: 'and there was evening and there was morning.'
And likewise the revealed law came 'from evening to evening.' Do not counter me with those recent astronomical observers, the 'thieves of knowledge' — not that they intended theft, but they found sciences adulterated since the eclipse of the eye of prophecy.
They reasoned, they rationalized, and they laid down conventions according to what their inference yielded them — among which was making China the starting point of the days, contrary to the revealed law; but it is not a complete contradiction,
For they agree with those of the revealed law that the day begins from the east; the disagreement between us and them is only in our placing the night before the day.
Therefore the eighteen hours must be the foundation in naming the collective day, because Syria — the place where the naming of the days began — was six hours from the sun at the time naming began.
So the name of the Sabbath, for example, continues upon the first day that the sun began its circuit from the far west — Adam seeing it set while he was in Syria and naming it the beginning of the Sabbath —
Until it reached the zenith after eighteen hours and had set for the beginning of
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China, and it was named there as well the beginning of the Sabbath — and that was the last boundary of the naming, for what lies beyond is called the east, relative to the origin-point of the days. There must be a shared locus that is the last of the west and the first of the east, which is the Land of Israel, the beginning of the inhabited world.
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This is not merely by the decree of the revealed law, but by the decree of nature as well. For it is impossible for the collective days to have one unified name for the entire inhabited world unless we posit a place that is the starting-point of the naming and a place adjacent to it — not such that part of it is east of another part, but that one part is purely east and another purely west.
Otherwise, days cannot acquire a settled name, since every point on the terrestrial equator is simultaneously east and west — China being east of Syria and west of the antipodes.
The antipodes east of China and west of the West; the West east of the antipodes and west of Syria — so there is no east and no west, no beginning and no end, and no settled names for the days.
The order described above gives the days settled names starting from the Land of Israel — yet naming necessarily involves an imprecision in any case, since it is impossible to determine horizons point by point from the earth.
For Jerusalem itself has many easts and wests — the east of Zion, for example, differs from the east of the Temple Mount, and their horizon-circles truly differ.
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— differences unperceivable to the senses, let alone Damascus versus Jerusalem. One must say that Damascus's Sabbath precedes Jerusalem's, and Jerusalem's precedes Egypt's — and one must acknowledge the imprecision.
The imprecision in which regions differ in naming the same day is eighteen hours — no more and no less. The inhabitants of one region call it the Sabbath, while those of another region have already departed from the Sabbath, a region's-worth later.
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A region's-worth later — until the eighteen hours from the time when the naming of the Sabbath began, when the sun was at the zenith of Syria, are complete, and the name ceases to apply to that day.
No one remains who calls that day by that name; rather, naming begins for the following day. For this reason it was taught: 'if the new moon was born before midnight, it will certainly be visible near sunset' —
As if to say: 'if the new moon was born before the midnight of the Sabbath in Jerusalem, it will certainly be visible on the Sabbath near sunset.'
This is because the name of the Sabbath continued for eighteen hours after the naming separated from the starting-point, until the sun returned to the zenith of Syria after a day and a night.
And the new moon was due to appear for those at the eastern end of China on the eve of the Sabbath — consistent with the teaching: 'a night and a day of the month are required.'
The name 'Sabbath' had already been lifted from the inhabited world and the name 'first day' had begun — even though Syria had by then passed out of the Sabbath and was in the middle of the first day.
The intent is the collective name prevalent throughout the inhabited world, so that one may ask those in China and those in the West: on which day did you celebrate Rosh Hashanah? — and they say: the Sabbath, for example.
So the knowledge of the Sabbaths of God and the appointed seasons of God is tied to the Land that is the inheritance of God — as in what you have read of it being called 'His holy mountain,' 'the footstool of His feet,' 'the gate of heaven,' and 'for out of Zion shall go forth the Torah.'
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Their bones carried there — such as Jacob and Joseph — and the longing of Moses to see it but being prevented, which was a deprivation; then it was shown to him from the head of Pisgah, which was a parting gift.
And the desire of nations — Persia, India, Greece, and others — to draw near to it and offer prayers for themselves at that great Temple, and what they spent of their wealth for that place.
Even though they followed other laws — because the true law did not accept them — and what honor it receives even today, despite the manifest Shekhinah being absent from it, with all nations still making pilgrimage to it.
And they wage war over it — except us, due to our incapacity and our suffering. And what the rabbis have recorded of its merits is too lengthy to enumerate here.
Section Twenty-One
The Khazar said: Let me hear from that what salient points come to mind for you.
Section Twenty-Two
The rabbi said: Among those is their teaching: 'all may ascend to the Land of Israel and none may be compelled to descend.' And their ruling that a woman who refuses to go with her husband to the Land of Israel is divorced without her marriage settlement.
And conversely, if the man refuses to go with his wife to the Land of Israel, he must divorce her and give her the settlement. And their saying: 'a person should always dwell in the Land of Israel' —
'— even in a city whose majority are gentiles; and one should not dwell outside the Land, even in a city whose majority are Israelites. For whoever dwells in the Land of Israel is like one who has a God, and whoever dwells outside the Land is like one who has no God.'
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'They have driven me this day from attachment to the inheritance of God, saying: go worship other gods' — teaching you that whoever dwells outside the Land is as one who worships foreign gods.
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They gave Egypt a precedence over other lands and ruled on other lands by the argument from minor to major: 'if Egypt, about which a covenant was made, is forbidden, how much more so all other lands.'
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And their teaching: 'whoever is buried in the Land of Israel is as if buried beneath the altar.' They consider one who died there more meritorious than one whose body was transported there, on account of their saying: 'those absorbed by it during life are not like those absorbed after death.'
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Indeed, they said of one who could have lived there yet did not, then arranged to be transported there after his death: 'in your lives you made My inheritance abominable, and in your deaths you come and defile My land.'
And R. Hananiah went so far that when asked whether a man may travel outside the Land to perform levirate marriage with his brother's wife, he said: 'If his brother married a gentile — blessed be God who killed him! Let him follow him there.'
And their prohibition of selling land to a non-Jew; their prohibition of selling a damaged house and leaving it in ruins; and what relates to their teaching: 'fines may be adjudicated only in the Land of Israel'; and that a slave may not be taken outside the Land.
And much else. And their saying: 'the air of the Land of Israel makes one wise.' And among their expressions of love for the Land, they said: 'whoever walks four cubits in the Land of Israel is assured of a place in the World to
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Come.' And R. Zeira said to the one who criticized him for fording a river without a ford out of eagerness to reach the Land of Israel: 'A place that Moses and Aaron did not merit — who can say that I merit it?'
Section Twenty-Three
The Khazar said: You are then negligent toward your own law, since you do not seek out this place and make it your home in life and in death — while you say 'have mercy on Zion, for it is the house of our life,' and believe that the Shekhinah will return to it.
Were its sole merit that the Shekhinah dwelt there for nine hundred years, souls would still find tranquility and purity there — as we experience at the sites of the righteous and the prophets.
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How much more so then, being the 'gate of heaven'? The nations have agreed upon this: the Christians believe that souls gather there and ascend from it to heaven; the Muslims believe it is the place of the nocturnal ascent.
And from there they believe the prophets ascended to heaven; and it is the place of the gathering on the Day of Resurrection. For all it is the prayer direction and the place of pilgrimage.
And your bowing and prostrating toward it is either performance, or worship without reflection.
Your earliest forebears chose it as a dwelling over the lands of their birth, and chose to be strangers there rather than natives in their own places — and that was when no manifest Shekhinah dwelt in it, for it was then filled with baseness, filth, and idol worship.
And yet they had no aspiration but to cling to it, and they would not leave it in the chains of exile and hunger except by permission from God, exalted be He. And they longed to have their bones carried there.
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Section Twenty-Four
The rabbi said: You have rebuked me, O king of the Khazars — and this very sin is what prevented the fulfillment of God's promise in the Second Temple, when He said: 'Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion.'
The divine order was ready to restore it as at the first, had they all responded to the call of departure with willing hearts. But only some responded; the majority — including the most distinguished — remained in Babylon, content with protected status and servitude, unwilling to leave their dwellings and circumstances.
Perhaps Solomon's riddle applies to them — his saying: 'I am asleep but my heart is awake' — alluding by sleep to the exile, and by the waking of the heart to the remaining of prophecy among them.
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'Hark, my beloved knocking' — God's call to them to return. 'My head is filled with dew' — an allusion to the Shekhinah emerging in the dew of the Temple.
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'I have put off my garment' — an allusion to their sloth in responding to the call to return.
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'My beloved put his hand through the opening' — the insistence of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the prophets, peace be upon them, until some responded — but with an incomplete response, so they received in proportion to their intent.
For the divine order settles upon a person only in proportion to his readiness for it — if little, then little; if great, then great.
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Had we prepared ourselves to meet the God of our forebears with sincere intention, He would have aided us as He aided the forebears in Egypt. But we utter 'bow down to His holy mountain,' 'bow to the footstool of His feet,' 'who restores His Shekhinah to Zion,' and the like — merely like the chattering of the starling and the parrot.
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Section Twenty-Five
The Khazar said: This is sufficient for me on that topic. I want you to bring close to me what you have read about the sacrifices — things that are difficult for the mind to accept — such as the verse: 'My offering, My food, My fire-offering, My sweet aroma.'
It speaks of the offerings as God's offerings and His food and His aroma.
Section Twenty-Six
The rabbi said: The phrase 'for My fire' makes everything easy. It says that those offerings, the food, and the sweet aroma attributed to Me — they are 'for My fire,' meaning the fire activated by His command, exalted be He.
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Whose fuel is the offerings; then the priests eat the remainder of their appointed portion. The intent is the goodness of order, and the King resides therein — a residence of honor, not a residence of containment.
Posit a likeness: the divine order is like the rational soul that dwells in a natural animal body — when the body's temperament is balanced and the governing and governed powers are organized in an arrangement capable of a more noble state than that of the animals, it deserves the dwelling of the intellective king within it to guide, direct, and accompany it, as long as that order persists.
When the order is corrupted the soul departs; and the ignorant imagines that the intellect needs food, drink, and aromas — since he sees it remaining with their presence and departing with their absence. But it is not so.
Rather, the divine order is generous, desiring good for all — so whenever something is ordered and prepared to receive its governance, it does not withhold from it nor ceases to pour forth upon it light, wisdom, and inspiration.
And when its order is disrupted it no longer receives that light, so it is destroyed; and the divine order is too exalted to be affected by disruption or disorder. Everything in the order of worship — service, sacrifices, incense, songs, food —
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And drink — all of it at the highest level of purity and sanctification — is called 'the service of God' and 'the food of your God,' and so forth. These are but allusions to His satisfaction with the goodness of order among the nation and its leadership, and to His accepting, as it were, their hospitality and dwelling among them in honor of them.
While He, the holy and transcendent One, takes no pleasure in their food or drink — for their food is for themselves. Just as when the digestion of the stomach and liver functions properly, then the refined essence in the heart and the refined-of-refined-essence in the spirit function properly, the heart, spirit, and brain are nourished by that food.
And the organs of digestion and all the limbs were also set right by the spirits flowing to them from the arteries, nerves, and veins. In sum, the entire temperament was set right, and it was prepared to receive the governance of the rational soul.
The rational soul being a separate substance approximating the substance of the angels, of whom it is said: 'their dwelling is not with flesh.'
So the soul dwells in the body as a governance and politics, not as a physical containment — and it eats nothing of that food, for it is above it. Likewise, the divine order dwells only in a soul capable of receiving the intellect.
[ ]
The soul is bound only to the warm innate spirit; the innate spirit must have a source to which it is bound as a flame is bound to the wick's tip — and the wick's analog is the heart. The heart needs blood as its material, and blood can only be formed by the organs of digestion.
So it needs the stomach, the liver, and their servants. Likewise the heart needs the lung, the throat, the nose, the diaphragm, and the chest muscles for the service of breathing — to temper the heart's constitution through the air entering and the fumes leaving.
And it needs to expel the waste of food through the instruments of expulsive power — the organs of defecation and urination. So the body is a unit from all that we mentioned, and it needs what transfers it from place to place in seeking
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[ ]
What it needs, and to flee what harms it — and needs instruments that attract to it and repel from it — so it needs hands and feet. And it needs advisors who discern and warn of what is feared and hoped, who preserve what had been registered and remembered from the past so as to guard against its like in the future, or to hope for it.
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So it needs the external and internal senses — the head being their seat, sustained and supplied by the heart. Thus the entire body became organized in a single order, all governed by the heart, which is the primary seat of the soul, even if the soul dwells in the brain — a secondary dwelling, mediated through the heart.
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And thus was organized the living divine community — as Joshua said: 'By this you shall know that the living God is in your midst.' The fire was activated by God's will when He was pleased with the community, as the sign of His acceptance of their hospitality and gift.
For fire is the subtlest and noblest of the bodies beneath the lunar sphere — so its natural dwelling was the fat and grease of the offerings, their drippings, and the smoke of the incenses and oils, in keeping with the known property of fire that it clings only to the fatty and oily.
Like the innate heat that clings to the subtle fatty element in the blood. So He commanded, exalted be He: the altar of the burnt offering and the altar of incense and the lampstand; then the burnt offerings, the incense of spices, the oil for light, and the anointing oil.
As for the altar of the burnt offering — the known manifest fire is to connect with it. As for the golden altar — a fire more hidden and subtle. As for the lampstand — the light of wisdom and inspiration is to connect with it.
And the table — that bodily abundance and goods may connect with it, as the Sages said: 'whoever wants to become wise should turn south; whoever wants to
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Become wealthy should turn north.' All of this is in honor of the Ark and the cherubim, which are in the position of the heart, the lung hovering over it.
And these needed instruments and servants, such as the laver and its stand, tongs, firepans, basins, ladles, jars, pots, forks, and the like.
And it needed what would protect it — the Tabernacle, the Tent, its covering, and the protection of all the Tabernacle's court and its furnishings. Even its transport as a whole needed carriers — and God chose the sons of Levi for this.
Because they are the nearest — especially since the time of the calf, of which it is said: 'all the sons of Levi gathered to him.' He chose for the most exalted task Eleazar — the noblest and subtlest of things.
As it says: 'The charge of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest: the oil for the light, the incense of spices, the continual meal-offering, and the anointing oil.'
These are the things connected to the subtle fire and to the light of wisdom and inspiration — and indeed to the light of prophecy through the Urim and Thummim.
And to the next most distinguished Levitical clan after Eleazar — the sons of Kohath — was assigned the carrying of the inner organs: 'the Ark, the table, the lampstand, the altars, and the sacred vessels with which they minister.'
Of them it is said: 'for the service of the holy things is upon them; they shall carry on the shoulder.' Just as the internal organs have no assigned bones to bear them but are borne by the forces and spirits, along with their attachment to what is adjacent to them.
And to those below them — the sons of Gershon — the carrying of the soft outer organs: 'the curtains of the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, its covering, and the covering of the skin that is upon it above.' And to those below them — the sons of Merari — the carrying of the hard organs: 'its clasps, its boards,'
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'Its bars, its pillars, and its sockets.' And the two lower clans were aided in their carrying by wagons according to their loads: 'two wagons to Gershon and four wagons to Merari, according to their service.'
All this is by wise divine arrangement. But I do not assert definitively — and God forbid that I should — that the intent of this service is the order I describe; rather it is something more hidden and more exalted.
It is a law from God; and whoever accepts it with complete acceptance, without rationalizing or imposing judgment, is better than one who reasons and investigates. But whoever has descended from that high level to investigation — it is better for him to orient it toward wisdom than to abandon it to evil suspicions and doubts that lead to destruction.
Section Twenty-Seven
The Khazar said: You have been remarkable in your analogy, O rabbi — except that I have not heard any analogy for the head and its senses, nor for the anointing oil.
Section Twenty-Eight
The rabbi said: Yes, the root of knowledge is deposited in the Ark, which is in the position of the heart — namely the Ten Commandments and their branches, which are the Torah, placed beside it, as it says: 'place it at the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God.'
From there two branches of knowledge branch out: the knowledge of the law, carried by the priests; and the knowledge of divine revelation, carried by the prophets. These were in the position of the advisors who discern, who warn the nation, who record and chronicle — they are the head of the nation.
Section Twenty-Nine
The Khazar said: You are therefore today a body without a head and without a heart.
Section Thirty
The rabbi said: Rather — as you say — yes, not even a body, but scattered limbs in the position of
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The dry bones that Ezekiel saw. But O king of the Khazars — these bones, which retain a nature from the natures of the living, and which had been organs for a heart, head, spirit, soul, and intellect, are better than bodies fashioned from marble and gypsum, with heads, eyes, ears, and all the organs — upon which no breath of life has ever settled nor ever can.
These are merely a resemblance and an image like a human, but are not a human.
Section Thirty-One
The Khazar said: It is as you say.
Section Thirty-Two
The rabbi said: The dead communities that sought to resemble the living community were able to do no more than outward resemblance — they built houses for God but no trace of God appeared in them.
They practiced asceticism and devotion that divine inspiration might appear upon them — but it did not appear. They disobeyed and rebelled and transgressed — but no heavenly fire descended upon them, nor sudden plague to confirm that it was punishment from God for that transgression.
Their heart — meaning that House toward which they face — was struck, yet their condition did not change. Their condition changes only according to their numbers or scarcity, their strength or weakness, their discord or unity — by the way of nature and chance.
But when our heart — which is the Temple — is struck, we are destroyed; and when it is restored, we are restored — whether we be few or many, in whatever circumstance — because He who holds us together is the living God.
He is our owner and our sustainer in this condition, for all our dispersion and scattering.
Section Thirty-Three
The Khazar said: Indeed, such dispersal is unimaginable for any nation without its being absorbed into another — especially given the length of this period. How many nations have perished that came after you, and
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No memory remains of them — Edom, Moab, Ammon, Aram, Philistia, Chaldea, Media, Persia, Greece, the Brahmans, the Sabeans, and many others.
Section Thirty-Four
The rabbi said: Do not take my agreement with you in speech as an admission that we are in the position of the dead. On the contrary, we have a connection to that divine order through the laws He made as a bond between us and Him —
Such as circumcision, of which it is said: 'and My covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant'; and the Sabbath, of which it is said: 'for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations.'
Not to mention the covenant of the Patriarchs and the covenant of the Torah — which He imposed once at Horeb and a second time in the plains of Moab — together with the promises and warnings bound to it in the section 'When you beget children,' etc.
And what is included in it from His words: 'If your outcast be at the ends of heaven...' and 'for the Lord your God is a merciful God...' And such passages as 'When all these things come upon you...' and 'you will return to the Lord your God...'
And the Song of Ha'azinu, and more. We are therefore not in the position of the dead — but in the position of the gravely ill patient from whose recovery the physicians have despaired, though one still hopes for it through miracles and the transcendence of natural law.
As in His word: 'Can these bones live?'
And as in the parable struck in 'Behold, My servant shall prosper,' from His words: 'He had no form and no beauty,' and 'like one from whom people hide
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Their face from him' — meaning that in its outward appearance and ugly countenance it is in the position of repulsive things that disgust the observer so that he hides his face from them: 'despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains and acquainted with illness.'
Section Thirty-Five
The Khazar said: But how can this be a parable for Israel when it says 'surely our illnesses he has borne' — while Israel's afflictions came upon them on account of their own sins?
Section Thirty-Six
The rabbi said: Israel among the nations is in the position of the heart among the limbs — the most diseased and the healthiest of all.
Section Thirty-Seven
The Khazar said: Give me further explanation.
Section Thirty-Eight
The rabbi said: The heart has continuous diseases that alternate within it: cares, griefs, fear, malice, enmity, love and hatred, and terrors — with its temperament exposed to the onslaughts of constant fluctuation and change.
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Whether from excess or deficiency of breath — not to mention bad food, bad drink, physical activities, exercises, sleep, and wakefulness — all these affect it, while the other limbs rest in ease.
Section Thirty-Nine
The Khazar said: It has now become clear how it is the most diseased of the limbs — but how is it the healthiest?
Section Forty
The rabbi said: Is it possible for a morbid humor to take hold in it, producing inflammation, cancer, warts, ulcer, numbness, and paralysis as can occur in the other limbs?
Section Forty-One
The Khazar said: This cannot be, because the least of such things would cause death; and because the heart, by the subtlety of its sensory capacity — due to the purity of its blood and the abundance of its spirit — is aware of the slightest harmful cause and repels from
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Itself as long as it has the capacity to repel; while others do not perceive what it perceives, so a morbid humor can take hold in them until these diseases become entrenched.
Section Forty-Two
The rabbi said: So its very awareness and sensitivity is what draws the abundance of diseases to it — and this same awareness is the cause of their being repelled at the first onset, before they take hold.
Section Forty-Three
The Khazar said: Yes.
Section Forty-Four
The rabbi said: The divine order stands toward us as the soul stands toward the heart. For this reason He said: 'Only you have I known from all the families of the earth; therefore I will call you to account for all your iniquities.'
These are the diseases. As for the health — it is as the Sages say: 'He forgives the iniquities of His people, removing one by one' — for He does not leave accumulated sins piling up upon us, which would bring about our ruin through gradual weakening.
As He did with the Amorites, of whom He said: 'for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete until now' — leaving them until the disease of their sin became entrenched, then killing them.
Just as the heart, by its element and essence, is pure and of balanced temperament, so that the rational soul connects with it — so too Israel, by virtue of their element and essence.
And just as the heart is afflicted by diseases from the other limbs — from the appetites of the liver, stomach, and genitals due to their poor temperament — so Israel contracted diseases from their assimilation to the nations, as it says: 'they mingled with the nations and learned their practices.'
So it is not strange that in such a case it may be said: 'surely our illnesses he has borne and our pains he has carried' — for we imposed the burden upon ourselves.
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The world is in ease and comfort, while the afflictions that befall us are a cause for the rectification of our religion, the purification of the pure among us, and the expulsion of the dross from us — through our purity and rectification the divine order will be connected to the world.
Just as you have learned that the elements were arranged to produce from them the minerals, then the plants, then
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The animals, then man, then the distilled essence of Adam — so all are arranged for the sake of that distilled essence, that the divine order may connect with it; and that distilled essence for the sake of the distilled of the distilled — namely the prophets and the righteous. By this the poet's saying fits: 'Grant Your awe, O Lord our God, over all Your works — then give honor to Your people — then the righteous will see and rejoice' — for they are the distilled of the distilled.
Section Forty-Five
The Khazar said: You have indeed awakened and drawn analogies, and you have done well in the awakening and the analogies. But one would expect to see among you more devotees and ascetics than among other peoples.
Section Forty-Six
The rabbi said: It is painful to me that you have forgotten the principles you established and acknowledged. Did we not agree that one can only draw near to God through deeds commanded by God? Do you suppose that drawing near consists of humility and submission and what runs in that vein?
Section Forty-Seven
The Khazar said: Yes — along with justice. That is what I thought I had read in your books, such as: 'What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God...' and 'What does the Lord your God require of you,' and much else of that sort.
Section Forty-Eight
The rabbi said: These and their like are the rational laws — they are the preamble and introduction to the divine law, preceding it by nature and in time. No human community can do without them in governance.
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Even a band of robbers cannot do without maintaining justice among themselves — otherwise their fellowship cannot endure.
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When Israel's transgression reached such a degree that they became lax even in the rational and political laws — which no community can do without, just as no individual can do without the natural necessities of eating, drinking, movement, rest, sleep, and wakefulness —
And yet they persisted in the acts of worship like sacrifices and other divinely revealed laws — He was then satisfied with them at a lesser level.
And it was said to them: 'Would that you had observed
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The laws that even the least and lowest of communities observe — namely justice, kindness, and acknowledgment of God's bounty — for the divine law cannot be complete except after the rational and political laws are perfected.
And in the rational law is the obligation of justice and the acknowledgment of God's bounty. So one who lacks this — how can he stand with the sacrifices, the Sabbath, circumcision, and the like, which reason neither requires nor forbids?
These are the laws that distinguished Israel beyond the rational laws, and through them they received the favor of the divine order.
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So they did not understand why these laws were obligatory — just as they did not understand how it came about that the Glory of God descended among them, and the fire of God consumed their offerings, and how they heard the word of the Lord, and how everything happened to them that happened — things that reason could not accept were it not for the direct witness and observation that admits no refutation.
For such a reason it was said to them: 'what does the Lord require of you' and 'add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices,' and the like. Can an Israelite reduce himself to 'doing justice and loving kindness' and abbreviate circumcision, the Sabbath, and the other laws, and succeed?
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Section Forty-Nine
The Khazar said: No, according to what you have established. He would merely become, according to the philosopher's view, a virtuous man — and it would not matter by what way he drew near, whether by Judaism or Christianity or something else, or by whatever he invented for himself.
We have returned to rationalism, analogy, and independent judgment — and all people would be independent reasoners, free to legislate for themselves according to what their reasoning leads them to. This is absurd.
Section Fifty
The rabbi said: The divine law does not call us to asceticism — but to balance, giving each power of soul and body its rightful share with justice and without excess. For excess in one power is deficiency in another.
One who inclines toward the power of desire falls short in the power of thought, and vice versa. One who inclines toward aggression falls short in other powers. So prolonged fasting is not worship for one whose appetites are dormant and body weak — for self-indulgence in such a case is deficiency and negligence.
And reducing one's wealth is not worship if it happens to come lawfully here in a way that does not occupy its acquisition over learning and practice — especially for one with dependents, children, and hopes for expenditures that please God; rather, having more wealth is more appropriate for him.
In sum: our law is divided among awe, love, and joy — you may draw near to your Lord through each one of them. Your prostration on fast days brings you no closer to God than your joy on Sabbaths and festivals.
Provided your joy comes from thought and intention. Just as supplication requires thought and intention, so joy in His command and law requires thought and intention — so that you rejoice in the very law itself, in love of its Lawgiver.
Consider what He has favored you with — as if you were His guest, invited to His table and His bounty — and give thanks for it inwardly and outwardly. And if the delight carries you to the point of singing and dancing out of joy in the law itself, then that singing and dancing is worship and a connection between you and the divine order.
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. .
Whoever believes this has affirmed creation in time without doubt. And whoever affirms creation in time has affirmed a Creator who brought it about, exalted be He. Whoever does not believe it falls into doubts about the eternity [of the world] and cannot ascribe his belief to a Creator of the world. Therefore, observing the Sabbath's obligations is a closer approach to God than devotion, asceticism, and withdrawal.
See how the divine order, bound to Abraham, then to the multitude of his elite, and to the Holy Land, leads the nation step by step and guards the lineage so that no one strays — placing them in the most protected, best, and most fertile of locations.
He is therefore called 'the God of Abraham' and 'God of the Land' — just as He is called 'Enthroned on the Cherubim,' 'Dweller of Zion,' and 'Indwelling in Jerusalem' — comparing these places to the heavens, as Scripture says, 'You Who dwell in the heavens.'
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His light manifests here as it manifests in the heavens — but through a people who deserve to receive that light; He pours it forth upon them, and this is called from Him: love. This is what has been prescribed for us and obligated upon us — to believe in it, to glorify, and to give thanks for it with 'With eternal love You have loved us.'
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So that we should recognize the initiative was from Him, not from us — just as we say of an animal that it did not create itself; rather, God gave it form and perfected it when He saw matter suited to that form. So too He, exalted, took the initiative to bring us out of Egypt, that we might be His army and He our King.
Section Fifty-One
The Khazar said: The speech here has overstepped greatly, and the rhetoric has been very loose — that the Creator would take pride in a mortal creature.
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Section Fifty-Two
The rabbi said: Would you consider that easy in the case of the creation of the sun?
Section Fifty-Three
The Khazar said: Yes, on account of the greatness of its effects — for it is, after God, the cause of all existence; through it and for its sake night and day are ordered, the seasons of the year are arranged, minerals, plants, and animals are formed, and by its brilliant light sight and visible colors exist.
Section Fifty-Four
The rabbi said: Is not the light of inner perception more subtle and noble than the light of external sight? Were not the peoples of the earth in blindness and transgression before the children of Israel — excepting the isolated individuals we have mentioned?
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Some say there is no Creator — indeed no part of the world has a better claim to be created than to be a creator, so all is eternal. Some say the celestial sphere is the eternal one and the creator of all, so they worship it. Some claim that fire is the substance of light and of powerful and wondrous acts, so it is what ought to be worshipped.
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Others worship the sun, moon, stars, and animal images they associate with the celestial sphere. Others worship their kings or their sages — and they all agree that there appears in the world no effect and deed that transcends custom and nature.
Even the philosophers whose gaze was subtle and views purified — who affirmed a First Cause unlike any thing and with nothing like it — concluded by their reasoning that He could have no effect in the world, especially in particulars, from which they exalt and elevate Him as too transcendent even to know them, let alone to originate events within them.
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And there appeared through miracles and the transcendence of natural law, visibly and incontrovertibly, that the world has a Master, Guardian, and Controller who knows the fine and the great, and who rewards for good and evil. This became a guidance for hearts, and all who came after could not deviate from its foundations — so that today the entire inhabited world attributes eternity to God and creation in time to the world.
And their proof of this is the children of Israel — what was decreed in their favor and what befell them.
Section Fifty-Five
The Khazar said: This is indeed a great source of pride — and the clarity of it is almost like sorcery! Truly it has been said: 'to make for Himself an everlasting name, and You made for Yourself a name as on this day,' and 'for praise, for name, and for glory.'
Section Fifty-Six
The rabbi said: Have you not seen how David paved the way for praising the Torah when he opened by describing the sun in 'The heavens declare the glory of God' — describing the breadth of its light, the clarity of its body, the constancy of its path, and the beauty of its spectacles — then followed that with 'The Torah of the Lord is perfect'?
And what follows — as if saying: do not marvel at these attributes, for the Torah is more manifest, more radiant, more renowned, more exalted, and more beneficial. And had there been no children of Israel, there would have been no Torah; nor did they gain distinction on account of Moses — rather, Moses gained distinction on their account.
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For the love was for the community — the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and Moses was chosen to convey the good to them through his hands. We therefore do not call ourselves the nation of Moses, but the nation of God, as it is said: 'the people of the Lord' and 'the people of the God of Abraham.'
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And [the proof of God's pride in Israel is seen in] actions — but pure intentions of which actions are the evidence, of the kind that are burdensome to a person but he performs them with the utmost eagerness and love: such as traveling to the designated place from wherever one is, making the pilgrimage three times a year with all the hardship and expense, while experiencing it with the utmost joy and delight.
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Such as giving the first tithe, the second tithe, and the tithe for the poor; the appearance-offering; leaving produce in the Sabbatical years and the Jubilees; the expenditures of Sabbaths and festivals and their rest; giving first fruits, firstborn [animals], priestly gifts, the first shearing, and first portions of your dough — besides vows and freewill offerings.
Besides everything required for every intentional and unintentional transgression, and the peace-offerings, and the sacrifices required for various impurities that befall him, for every birth, every discharge, every skin-affliction, and much else.
All of this by God's command, exalted be He — not rationally derivable, not subject to independent judgment, and not within human capacity to calculate this system as arranged and proportioned so that no deficiency need be feared in it, as if it were calibrated precisely to Israel's number and measure, and to the yield of the Land of Syria in plants and animals.
And the measure of the tribe of Levi — and the command in the desert according to these proportions — came from His knowledge that when this ratio is properly maintained with Israel's strength and abundance, the Levites would lack nothing, nor would the matter reach the point of weakening a tribe or family.
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Whoever contemplates this will see it is not of human devising — glory to its Deviser! 'He has not done thus for any nation; they have not known His ordinances.' And this system lasted through both kingdoms.
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For approximately thirteen hundred years; and had the people persisted in virtue it would have endured 'like the days of the heavens over the earth.'
Section Fifty-Seven
The Khazar said: You are today utterly bewildered from these great obligations — and what nation could possibly sustain this system?
Section Fifty-Eight
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The rabbi said: The community that was monitored, punished, and rewarded immediately for wrongs among itself — I mean: the Shekhinah. Do you not see the words of Joshua: 'You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God'?
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And his community had reached such a degree of moral discipline that among a company of more than thirty thousand, at the destruction of Jericho, there was found no violator but Achan alone. Then the punishment descended immediately upon the community — as well as the punishment of Miriam's skin-affliction, the punishment of Uzzah, the punishment of Nadab and Abihu, and the punishment of the men of Beth-shemesh who looked into the Ark of the Lord.
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Among the miracles of the Shekhinah was that even slight displeasure for some transgression would appear immediately in walls and in garments. And when it intensified, it would appear in bodies, in varying degrees of severity and mildness.
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The priests were assigned to this subtle science — to distinguish what is divine in origin, requiring a waiting period of weeks as in Miriam's case, from what is of a humoral constitution that may be chronic or non-chronic. It is a wondrous science that He, exalted, urged: 'Be watchful in the matter of the skin-affliction, to be very careful and to do according to all that the Levitical priests instruct you.'
Section Fifty-Nine
The Khazar said: Do you have some persuasive argument and approximation for this?
Section Sixty
The rabbi said: I have already told you that there is no proportionality between our intellects and the divine order.
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And we should not presume to assign causes for such great matters. Yet I will say — with prior seeking of forgiveness and disclaimer of certainty — that perhaps skin-afflictions and discharges are connected to the impurity of the dead, for death is the greatest corruption.
The leprous limb is like the dead, and corrupt seminal emission likewise — for it had been a natural spirit prepared to be a drop [of semen] from which a human might form; its corruption is the opposite of the particular quality of life and spirit.
Such corruption, by reason of its subtlety, is perceived only by those of refined spirits and noble souls who are in contact with the divine through prophecy, or through true visions and verified imaginations.
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Indeed, there are people with heaviness in their souls who, whenever they have not purified themselves from ritual impurity, have been found to corrupt delicate things by their touch — such as plants and wines. Most of us feel a change from proximity to the dead and cemeteries, and our souls are weakened for a time in the house where the dead lay.
One who is coarse of heart will not feel this change — just as we see in intellectual matters: one seeking clarity of thought in the demonstrative sciences, or clarity of soul for prayer and supplication, will find harm in heavy food and in excess of eating and drinking.
Similarly, he will find harm from sitting with women and with those who jest, and from engaging with frivolous love-poetry.
Section Sixty-One
The Khazar said: This is persuasive to me when the soul is in doubt. But why should this noble substance become impure —
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The essential one — meaning semen, which is entirely spirit — whereas urine and feces, for all the foulness of their smell and appearance and their abundance, do not render impure. What remains [to discuss] is the skin-affliction of the garment and the house.
Section Sixty-Two
The rabbi said: I have stated that this is among the particularities of the Shekhinah — for it was present in Israel in the position of the soul in a human body, imparting to them divine life and conferring upon them radiance, beauty, and light in their souls, bodies, appearances, and dwellings.
Whenever it withdrew from them, their judgment became inferior, their bodies coarsened, and their beauty changed. And when it withdrew from individuals, there appeared on each person the traces of the contraction of the Shekhinah's light from him — just as you see that the sudden contraction of the spirit due to fear and anxiety changes the body.
And we observe in women and children — because of the weakness of their spirits — that there appear in their bodies traces of blackness and pallor from going out at night, which is attributed to demons; and sometimes from that and from seeing the dead and the slain, diseases that are difficult to remove arise in the body and soul.
Section Sixty-Three
The Khazar said: I see that your law contains every subtle and wondrous element of the sciences — which is not the case for any other [law].
Section Sixty-Four
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The rabbi said: Indeed, the Sanhedrin were required not to be lacking in any of the true, imaginative, and conventional sciences — even magic and languages. And how could seventy wise elders always be found if the sciences were not widespread and disseminated throughout the nation?
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Whether barley is of the same species as wheat, whether kohlrabi is of the same species as cabbage; knowing the strength of roots and the extent of their spread in the earth; what persists for another year and what does not — so as to know how much to leave between one species and another in space and in time.
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Then the differentiation of species of animals for this purpose and for another — [namely,] what has venom and what does not. Then the knowledge of the treifot [fatally defective animals], which is more precise than everything Aristotle brought concerning the lethal organs of animals — so as to distance [oneself] from eating carrion.
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And in the little of this science that remains with us there is what astonishes the mind. Then there is knowledge of the blemishes that disqualify priests from service, and the blemishes in animals that disqualify them from offerings.
Then the differentiation of types of discharges for men and for women, and the cycles of menstrual periods — in the details of all of this are sciences that humans cannot attain by way of analogy without divine assistance.
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And in astronomical science and the motions of the heavens, the calendar intercalation has some results derived from it. The grandeur of the calendar system is well known, as is what this nation — weak in material condition but strong in essential form — has achieved in it.
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And how could it not be so — given that it is invisible among the nations due to its scarcity, degradation, and dispersal — yet kept in order by the remnants of the divine law in an order that makes them as one. Among the most wondrous is the calendar intercalation by the transmitted foundations from the House of David — the lunar cycle which has not deviated for one thousand two hundred years.
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Whereas the observations of the astronomers of Greece and others have deviated and required corrections and additions every hundred years. This has remained accurate because it is bound to prophecy.
And as for musical science — imagine a nation that elevates melodies and entrusts them to its most noble members: the sons of Levi, who dedicated themselves to singing in the great Temple at the great occasions, supported from the tithes so that they had no occupation but music. The art is great in the estimation of people, as it is in itself.
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And their leaders in the art were David and Samuel — so what do you think: did they master music or not?
Section Sixty-Five
The Khazar said: There, without doubt, it was complete and perfected; and there the movement of souls was as it is said — that it transfers the soul from one character to its opposite. It cannot be today in any proportion to what it once was.
Since it has become vile and is carried by servants and those rejected by society. But, rabbi, it has fallen from its dignity just as you have fallen from your dignity.
Section Sixty-Six
The rabbi said: And what do you think of Solomon's sciences, for he spoke on all the sciences with divine, rational, and natural support, and the peoples of the earth would come to him to transmit his sciences to their nations — even from India.
. . . .
All the sciences had their foundations and summaries transmitted from us — first to the Chaldeans, then to Persia and Media, then to Greece, then to Rome. And because of the distance of time and the multiplicity of intermediaries, it is not mentioned in the sciences that they were transmitted from Hebrew — only from Greek and Roman. But the distinction belongs to Hebrew in the language itself and in the meanings it contains.
Section Sixty-Seven
The Khazar said: Does Hebrew have a distinction over other languages? Those are more complete and more expansive — we see that plainly.
Section Sixty-Eight
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The rabbi said: It suffered what its bearers suffered — it weakened with their weakness and became constricted by their scarcity. But in itself it is the most noble in transmission and by analogy. As for transmission: it is the language with which Adam and Eve were inspired and in which they spoke.
As is indicated by the derivation of Adam from adamah [soil], ishah from ish [man], Havah from hai [living], Qayin from qaniti [I have acquired], Shet from shat [placed], and Noah from yenahamenu [comfort us] — along with the testimony of the Torah and the universal transmission back to Eber, to Noah, to Adam.
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And it is the language of Eber, and is named Hebrew on his account, for he preserved it at the time of the Dispersion and the scattering of tongues. Abraham had been a Syriac-speaker in Ur of the Chaldeans — for Syriac was the language of the Chaldeans — and Hebrew was for him a special language: the Holy Tongue, while Syriac was the profane tongue.
For this reason Ishmael carried it [Aramaic] to the Arabian Arabs, so these three languages became related to one another — Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew — in their nouns, grammatical forms, and conjugations.
As for its distinction by analogy: this is by considering the people who used it for what was needed of speech — especially given the prophecy widespread among them, and the need for sermons, songs, and hymns.
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And their kings — such as Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon — could they have lacked expression when they needed it for anything? Just as we today are lacking because the language has departed from us.
Consider the Torah's description of the Tabernacle, the Ephod, the Breastplate, and other things — when it needed unusual names, how perfectly it found them, and how beautiful the arrangement of the description.
And similarly the names of nations, types of birds, and stones. And consider the hymns of David, the laments of Job, his dispute with his companions, the sermons of Isaiah with his promises and warnings, and others.
Section Sixty-Nine
The Khazar said: Your aim in all this is only to place Hebrew on par with other languages in completeness — so where is the added distinction? Indeed, others surpass it in metered poetry fitted to musical tunes.
Section Seventy
The rabbi said: It has become clear that melodies are independent of the meter of speech — and that by alternating long and short [syllables] one can set 'Give thanks to the Lord for He is good' to the same tune as 'He Who makes great wonders.'
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. .
'Great wonders by Himself alone' — this applies to tonal melodies. But as for the measured, cadenced, sung [poetry] in which structure is beautiful, [Hebrew] has traded [meter] for a distinction that is higher and more beneficial.
Section Seventy-One
The Khazar said: And what is it?
Section Seventy-Two
. .
The rabbi said: The purpose of language is to convey what is in the mind of the speaker to the mind of the listener. This purpose is only fully achieved through oral communication — for oral communication has an advantage over writing. As it is said: 'from the mouths of scholars, not from their books.'
For in oral communication one is aided by pausing at places of separation and continuing at places of connection; by intensifying and softening the speech; by gestures and signals — of wonder, question, statement, encouragement, warning, and supplication.
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And movements for which plain speech falls short. The speaker sometimes employs the movements of his eyes, eyebrows, head, and hands to express the particular levels of anger, pleasure, supplication, or compulsion he intends.
And in these remnants that have remained with us from our created and devised language there are subtleties and refinements embedded in it to convey meanings and to stand in place of those oral usages — namely, the cantillation marks with which Scripture is read.
They indicate separation and connection, and distinguish the places of question from those of answer.
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And [they distinguish] the opening from the statement, caution from repetition, and the imperative from the optative — about which treatises could be composed. Whoever has this as his purpose will inevitably reject meter.
For metered [poetry] can only be recited in one way, and it usually pauses at places of connection and proceeds at places of separation — and it is not possible to guard against this without great artifice.
Section Seventy-Three
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The Khazar said: Truly, you have traded an audible beauty for a conceptual one — for meter delights the ear, whereas this notation captures meanings. But I see the majority of Jews glorifying the beauty of meter and imitating other nations and forcing Hebrew into [foreign] meters.
Section Seventy-Four
The rabbi said: This is the result of our pretentiousness and wrongheadedness. Was it not enough that we neglected this aforementioned virtue? We also corrupt the arrangement of our language — which was arranged for unity — and reduce it to discord.
Section Seventy-Five
The Khazar said: How is that?
Section Seventy-Six
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The rabbi said: Have you not seen a hundred men reading Scripture as if they were one person — pausing at the same moment and continuing their reading as one?
Section Seventy-Seven
The Khazar said: I have observed this and seen nothing like it among the Persians or among the Arabs — and it is not possible in reciting poetry. Tell me: how did this quality come to be in this language, and how does meter destroy it?
Section Seventy-Eight
The rabbi said: Because it brings together two quiescent letters and does not bring together three voweled letters.
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Except under pressing necessity — so speech always tends toward quiescence, thereby gaining this quality: namely, harmony and liveliness in reading, making memorization and the internalization of meanings easier.
. . .
The first thing that meter destroys is the matter of these two quiescent [letters], for [meter] drops the mil'el and mil'ra [stress distinctions], making ākhelah [feminine] and we'okhelah [and she ate] equivalent; imru and amru equivalent in tune; omer and yomer [equivalent]; and likewise shavti and shavti equal — despite the difference between them as past and future.
We had ample scope in the tradition of the piyyut — which does not harm the language if care is taken — but we fell with regard to metered verse as our ancestors fell in what is said about them: 'They mingled with the nations and learned their deeds.'
Section Seventy-Nine
The Khazar said: I ask you — do you know the reason for the Jews' swaying when they read Hebrew?
Section Eighty
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The rabbi said: It is said to be for the arousal of the innate heat. But I think it is from the matter we are discussing — for since it was possible for a group of them to read in unison, it became possible for ten or more to gather over a single scroll.
. .
This is why our scrolls became large — and each person sometimes leans forward and back to see the letter and then straightens up. This leaning forward and back is because the scroll is on the ground. This is the first cause, and then it became a custom from the observing, witnessing, and imitation that is in human nature.
Others read each in his own scroll, bringing it close to his eyes or himself to it as he wishes, without being crowded by his neighbor — so he has no need to lean and raise himself.
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Then [there is] the virtue of the vocalization marks and the fixing of the 'Seven Kings' [vowels], with the refinement and precision we possess, and the benefits derived from the distinction between qamatz —
. . .
— pataḥ, tsere, and segol, and [segol's] utility in meanings: it distinguishes past from future — such as samtí vs. shámti, and va'avarekhehu vs. va'avarekhehu — and distinguishes a verb from an adjective, such as ḥakhám vs. ḥakham, and the heh of inquiry from the heh of the definite article, such as ha-olah hi' lema'lah.
And other [distinctions] — to what [all this] contributes in the beautiful arrangement of the flow of speech through the gathering of quiescent letters, so that Hebrew text can be read in a way that a group achieves uniformity without any tune.
There are also other conditions for the melodic [reading]. For the phonetic positions in Hebrew are by [one] division three: a ḍamma [u-vowel], a fatḥa [a-vowel], and a kasra [i-vowel]. And by a second division: ḍamma-major = qamatz, ḍamma-middle = ḥolam, ḍamma-minor = shureq; fatḥa-major = pataḥ, fatḥa-minor = segol; kasra-major = tsere, kasra-minor = ḥireq.
And the sheva is movable with all of these under conditions: it is [purely] the vowel alone without augmentation; any other [vowel] requires a quiescent consonant after it. Qamatz is followed by an extended quiescent [letter], so in the first position it is not followed by a dagesch; if a dagesch follows it, it is necessarily in the second or third position.
. . .
The extended quiescent is either aleph or heh, such as bārāʾ. Sometimes an explicit quiescent follows the extended quiescent, such as qām. Ḥolam is followed by an extended quiescent — either vav or aleph, such as lo and lu — and sometimes an explicit quiescent follows it, such as shor and smol. Tsere is followed by an extended quiescent — aleph or yod — such as yotsēʾ and yotsʾei.
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. .
And libbī. Pataḥ and segol are not followed by an extended quiescent in the first position — they are only extended in the second position, either because of stress upon them, or for melody, or at a place of separation and pause.
In the first position, the rules are strictly observed as long as you look letter by letter and word by word, without concerning yourself with the harmonious arrangement of the composed speech — its connections, separations, large words, small words, and so on. At that point the Seven Kings appear in their first position without variation, and the sheva in its proper measure without extension.
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The second position looks to the beautiful composition of words and their flow — and may modify from the first position for the improvement of the second. The third position is the melodic setting, which may modify something from the two preceding positions.
In the first position, the succession of three vowels without an intervening quiescent or dagesch is not objectionable — three or more sheva-vowels may indeed follow one another consecutively, as is permissible in Arabic. But this is objectionable in the second position.
When three vowels occur in the first position, the second position extends one of them by the quantity of a quiescent — such as mashkeni, lishkeni, ritspaṯ — for Hebrew dislikes the succession of three vowels, except where two identical letters meet, like shurerakh, or with the guttural letters aleph-heh-ḥet-ayin: naharei naḥalei — there you may slow down or speed up as you wish.
Similarly, the first position permits two consecutive extended vowels — each the length of a quiescent — but the second position finds the pronunciation of this inelegant, and drops one of the two extensions while keeping the other, such as samtí and shámti and whatever resembles them.
Note pāʿal and its fellows: the pronunciation is the reverse of what the vocalization marks would suggest — the ayin is extended with a pataḥ while the pe is lightly treated.
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. .
While [the pe] has a qamatz. The extension of the ayin is for stress, not for a weak quiescent. That is why āmar lī and ʿāśāh lī remain in the first position — because the stress rests on the small letter.
Likewise we find pāʿāl with two qamatz-vowels — a past verb — so we seek its reason and find it at an atnach or sof pasuq, and we say: this quiescent was established in the second position on account of the pause and separation.
This [rule] is extended until we find pāʿāl with two qamatz also at a zaqef — so we seek its reason and find it to be a place of semantic separation that deserved to be an atnach or sof pasuq, were it not for other necessities that prevent it from falling at atnach or sof pasuq.
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Just as we also find, at atnach and sof pasuq, pataḥ-forms contrary to that pattern — such as vayyēlakh, and all vayyōmar, and zāqantī, and tishāvarnah. We find the rationale of vayyōmar to be attention to meaning, since 'and he will say' does not properly deserve a pause there — because it necessarily requires what follows to complete the meaning — except in a few cases like kaʾasher āmār.
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For its meaning is complete by reference to what preceded — so it deserves the qamatz because it is a place of separation. As for vayyēlakh and tishāvarnah — they should properly be vayyēlākh and tishāvārnah; but shifting the kasra directly to a pataḥ-major is difficult without an intermediate step, so it shifted to [regular] pataḥ.
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Perhaps zāqantī follows this path too — because its root is zāqēn, so the tsere shifts to pataḥ at the pause. Likewise we are surprised at peʿel and all in its pattern — mil'el with the pe extended — where the pe carries a segol.
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I.e., peʿel [as two consonants], not pāʾen-ʿel [as three]. However, when it falls at atnach and sof pasuq it reverts to pāʿel [i.e., pāʾen-ʿel], and we see there the necessity of extension, as we said regarding samtí and shámti.
Similarly we are surprised at shaʿar, naʿar and their company — for the extension of their pe though it has a pataḥ — and we reflect and see that they stand in the place of peʿel, but the pe was given pataḥ on account of the guttural letters aleph-ḥet-heh-ayin.
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That is why it does not change when in construct, unlike nāhār and qāhāl which change in construct — because those follow the pattern of dāvār. Similarly we find ʾeʿeśeh, yaʿaśeh, ʾebneh, ʾeqneh with segol alongside a weak quiescent, and we reflect on the basic paradigm which is ʾefʿal / yifʿal.
And we see that the ayin of the verb was not built on an extension but on an explicit quiescent with pataḥ throughout — and we understand why it was not vocalized with pataḥ-gadol, so that one would say ʾeʿeśah, since a pataḥ-vowel does not fall on a weak heh except with qamatz.
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But qamatz is extended and the ayin of the verb is not inherently extended at all, unless a vowel is transferred to it or it falls before aleph as in ʾētsēʾ. Therefore ʾeʿeśeh was necessarily shifted to segol, because segol is the most stable of the least-extended vowels.
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And tsere takes its place when the second position needs to stabilize [the vowel] instead of it at pauses. The heh is hardly visible in ʾeʿeśeh in any position except at separation or in the melodic setting.
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As for pronunciation: vayyiven, vayyiqen, vayyaʿas — how can [the heh] be stabilized with tsere? Rather, it only takes the minimum of vowels — which is segol — in the first position, until the second position shifts it to tsere at the separation.
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Similarly we are surprised at marʾeh, maʿaśeh, and miqneh and their fellows — for we see them with tsere in construct and with segol when not in construct — and we think the correct [pattern] should be the reverse of this.
When we reflect on the defective final letter of the verb — which is heh and is counted as null — and [realize] that these nouns are really mirʾ, maʿś, and miqn — they deserve nothing but segol, until the necessity to make the heh visible before a weak quiescent arises in marʾeh, maʿaśeh, marʾeihen, and maʿaseihen — and the segol becomes tsere.
The tsere [in maʾreh] is to stand in construct for the pataḥ in marʾam and maʿaśam. And what came in the first position and was not changed by the second in vocalization marks — but was changed in pronunciation — is ben: isolated [with tsere] and in construct [with segol].
. .
The melodic setting may extend it, as in ben Yaʾir — which is in its first position with segol — and the melodic setting may also compress it, as in ben aḥer — which is in its first position with tsere. There is no confusion [in recognizing] peʿēl, mil'ra, as having tsere.
The positions of this subtle science contain secrets hidden from us — and sometimes we arrive at some of them that are intended to draw attention to interpretations, as in what we say about ha-ʿolāh hī' and what distinguishes past from future and the active from the passive — and nasaf [with qamatz] is vocalized differently from naʾsaf ʾel ʿammī.
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[naʾsaf] with qamatz, while kaʾasher nēʾsaf is vocalized differently; and yishḥaṭ with pataḥ versus yishḥāṭ with qamatz. And if [a particular form] is not at a place of phonetic separation, then it is at a place of semantic separation.
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Very often the segol that follows the zarqa bears the weight of the atnach, sof pasuq, and zaqef, and the first position is accordingly altered. Were I to expand in this subject the book would become very long — I have only shown you a taste of this subtle science, and [shown] that it is not neglected but rationally grounded and precisely ordered.
Section Eighty-One
. . .
The Khazar said: This is sufficient to fill me with wonder at this language. I desire that you move with me to a description of the worshiper among you. Then I shall ask you about your arguments against the Karaites. Then I shall seek from you the foundations in the areas of opinions and beliefs. Then I shall ask you about what remains with you from the ancient sciences.