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Treatise Five · Section One
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The Khazar king said: I must impose on you to let me hear a brief, clear exposition of the principles and doctrines in the manner of the dialectical theologians (mutakallimūn). It would be fitting for me to hear this as it is fitting for you to know it — either to believe it or to refute it.
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For that lofty rank of pure belief without investigation has eluded me. I have been preceded by doubts and speculations and debates with philosophers and adherents of various creeds and religions, which have given me training in knowledge and sharpening of mind to refute corrupt opinions born of ignorance.
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Mere tradition is fitting only when the soul is at peace; but when it is troubled, investigation is preferable — especially when investigation leads to the confirmation of that very tradition, for then a person attains both ranks together: knowledge and faith combined.
Section Two
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The rabbi said: Who among us has a disciplined soul not susceptible to the opinions that pass through it — the views of naturalists, astrologers, practitioners of talismans, sorcerers, materialists, philosophers, and others? No one reaches faith without having passed through many stages of heresy.
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Life is short and the field of learning is vast. Only rare individuals arrive at faith by nature, repelling all these views instinctively, perceiving at once where the errors lie.
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I trust you are among those rare individuals. If so, I will not lead you by the path of the Karaites who have ascended to divine knowledge without gradation. Instead, I will outline for you the essential points that will help you form a conception of: prime matter; the elements; nature; the soul; the intellect; divine knowledge — then give proofs of the rational soul's independence from the body; the afterlife; and divine decree and free will — all with utmost brevity and concision.
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I say: we perceive the quantity and quality of sensible things through our senses, and reason judges that they inhere in a substrate — but that substrate is difficult to conceive. For how can we conceive of something that has neither quantity nor quality?
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Accidents cannot subsist by themselves and must have a carrier. The philosophers call this carrier hylē (prime matter), and say that the intellect grasps it only imperfectly because it is deficient in itself — for it has no actual existence and deserves none of the attributes; and if it is in potentiality, then the attribute is corporal.
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Aristotle said: it is as though prime matter is ashamed to appear naked — it appears only clothed in form.
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Some have held that the 'waters' (mayim) mentioned at the start of Genesis allude to this prime matter, and that 'the spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters' is God's will and volition operating throughout all the parts of matter — doing with it what He wills, as He wills, when He wills — just as the potter works with clay that has no form.
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The absence of form and order is alluded to by 'darkness, tohu va-vohu.' Then God's will and wisdom ordained the rotation of the highest sphere — completing one revolution every twenty-four hours and carrying all the other spheres with it — so as to produce change in this prime matter which underlies the lunar sphere, in accordance with the celestial motions.
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The first result was that the atmosphere nearest to the lunar sphere became intensely heated from proximity to the seat of motion, turning into ethereal fire — which for the philosophers is the natural fire: colorless, non-burning, but a subtle, transparent, light body. They called it the sphere of fire; and then comes the sphere of air.
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Then the sphere of water; then the globe of earth at the center, which became heavy and dense from its distance from the seat of motion. From the mixtures of these four elements all composite things come to be.
Section Three
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The Khazar said: I see that for them this has come about by chance — as they say: it happened that what was very near the sphere became fire, what was far from it became earth, and what was in between, depending on its proximity to the outer boundary or the center, became either air or water.
Section Four
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The rabbi said: On the contrary, they are compelled by necessity to acknowledge wisdom in the separation of substance from substance. For the substance of fire did not separate from the substance of air, nor air from water, nor water from earth, by mere degrees of more or less, stronger or weaker — but each has a specific form proper to it which made this fire, this air, this water, this earth.
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Otherwise, one person might say the entire sphere is earth, with some portions less earthy than others; and another might say it is all fire, with what descended being grosser and cooler fire. Yet we observe element meeting element, each preserving its own form and substantiality.
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We see air, water, and earth in the same place, touching without blending — until other causes transform one into another, so that water takes on the form of air and air the form of fire, and then the element merits the name of its partner.
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Substances are differentiated by their forms, not their accidents. This led the philosophers to posit a divinely active intellect (ʿaql faʿʿāl) that bestows these forms, just as it bestows the forms of plants and animals. A grapevine is not distinguished from a date palm by accidents but by forms that make the substance of one different from the substance of the other — individual vines are distinguished from each other only by accidents.
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Substantial forms admit of no more or less: one horse is not more equine than another, nor is one human more human than another, for the definition of horse-ness and human-ness is fully realized in every individual. The philosophers were thus compelled to acknowledge that these forms are bestowed by a divine agency they call the 'Giver of Forms' (wāhib al-ṣuwar).
Section Five
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The Khazar said: By my life, this is faith itself — when the necessity of reason forces us to acknowledge something like this. So what led us to speak of chance? Why not say that He who made this horse and this human through wisdom whose detail we cannot grasp is also He who formed fire as fire and earth as earth, according to the wisdom He saw fit — not by chance of proximity or distance from the sphere?
Section Six
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The rabbi said: This is the religious argument, and its proof is Israel — the miraculous transformations of physical realities wrought for them and the marvels created on their behalf. When this proof is absent, your opponent can argue with you that, say, the grapevine grew there merely because grape seed happened to fall in that spot, and the seed's form was merely a result of chance configurations of celestial rotation.
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Section Nine
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The Khazar said: Though we have strayed somewhat from our purpose, perhaps you could summarize for me the theme of this psalm.
Section Ten
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The rabbi said: It corresponds to the Account of Creation. 'He wraps Himself in light as a garment' alludes to 'Let there be light, and there was light.' 'He stretches out the heavens like a curtain' alludes to 'Let there be a firmament.' 'He lays the beams of His chambers in the waters' alludes to the waters above the firmament; and then to what arises in the atmosphere — clouds, winds, fires, lightning, and thunder — all of which operate by His command.
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He expresses all this through: 'He makes clouds His chariot, walking upon the wings of the wind; He makes His messengers winds, His ministers a flaming fire' — meaning they are His emissaries wherever He wills and for whatever He wills. All of this pertains to the firmament.
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Then the psalm moves to 'Let the waters be gathered and the dry land appear,' through the verse: 'He set the earth on its foundations' — for water by its nature encompasses the earth above, covering it entirely like a garment, plain and mountain alike, as it says: 'the deep covered it like a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.'
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But power and wisdom drew water away from its natural state and confined it to the depths where the seas are, so that here would be a place for life to flourish and wisdom to be manifest. Hence: 'At Your rebuke they flee' — alluding to the waters being confined in the seas and beneath the earth. This is the meaning of 'He who spread out the earth above the waters,' which appears to contradict 'the deep covered it like a garment.'
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The first speaks of water's natural state; the second speaks of divine power and wisdom. As it says: 'You set a boundary they may not cross; they shall not return to cover the earth.' All of this is purposefully designed for the benefit of living creatures — just as a person uses skill and craft to divert water.
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— most of the river waters by dams and similar means, to take from the water what one needs for mills, irrigation, and other uses. Similarly the psalm alludes here: 'He sends springs into valleys, that all the beasts of the field may drink' — once the animals were created — 'and beside them the birds of heaven dwell' — once the birds were created.
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Then the psalm transitions to 'Let the earth bring forth vegetation' through: 'He waters the mountains from His upper chambers' — alluding to a river that rises from the earth for the benefit of Adam and his progeny. The mention of 'causing grass to grow for cattle' is not demeaning to grass, for it serves domestic animals — cattle, sheep, and pack animals.
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The phrase 'and vegetation for human service' — that is, agriculture — serves man to extract the choicest produce for himself, as it says: 'to bring bread from the earth,' paralleling the verse: 'Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing herb' — meaning the choice produce is for man while the stalks and roughage are for the other animals.
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The psalm mentions the three foods produced by agriculture: grain, wine, and oil — all classified as 'bread.' Then it enumerates their benefits: 'wine that gladdens the human heart'; then 'oil to make the face shine'; and 'bread' — by which is specifically meant bread — 'sustains the human heart.'
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Then the psalm turns to the benefit of rainfall for trees with: 'The trees of the Lord are well watered.' And the benefit of tall trees for animals, as it says: 'there where…'
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'…where the birds make their nests.' Just as the high mountains are useful for other animals — as it says: 'The high mountains are for the wild goats; the cliffs are a refuge for badgers.' All of this is contained within the account of the dry land.
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Then the psalm transitions to 'Let there be luminaries' with: 'He made the moon for seasons.' It mentions the benefits of night — that night is purposeful, not accidental. Nothing in its occurrence or its attendant qualities is in vain, even though night is merely the duration of the sun's absence — yet it is nonetheless purposefully designed for benefits.
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As it says: 'You bring darkness and it becomes night' — followed by what comes after regarding harmful animals and their roaming at night and concealment by day. Man and animals domesticated to man are the opposite, as it says: 'Man goes out to his work and to his labor until evening.'
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Thus all land animals have been drawn in under the account of rivers; and under the account of luminaries, mankind was drawn in alongside. All that remains is the account of aquatic creatures, whose conditions are largely unknown to us, and whose inner wisdom is not as manifest to us as it is in the others.
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The psalmist glorifies God upon mentioning those matters whose wisdom is manifest, saying: 'How manifold are Your works, O Lord!' Then he transitions to the sea and its contents, following that with: 'May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in His works.'
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This alludes to 'God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.' And it alludes to the seventh day on which He rested, blessed, and sanctified — once the natural processes that unfold in time were completed, and humanity had attained the rank of the angels, who are independent of natural forces.
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— being intellects whose actions do not require time, just as we see the intellect conceiving heaven and earth in a single instant. That is the realm of sovereignty and the realm of rest — when the soul attaches itself to it, it finds repose. That is why the Sabbath is called a 'foretaste of the World to Come.'
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Let us return to our discussion of the rationalist position: that when the elements mixed in different proportions according to variations of place, climate, and celestial ratios, they became worthy of receiving different forms from the Giver of Forms.
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Thus all minerals have their powers, properties, and substances from mixture alone, requiring no divine forms — for divine forms are needed only in plants and animals, to which the soul is attributed. When the mixture became more refined, it deserved a nobler form, through which divine wisdom manifests more fully.
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Thus the plant, which has some measure of awareness and perception and bends toward the earth, feeds on good moist soil and sweet water, and contracts from the opposite — and grows until it produces seed and does its reproductive work, then ceases.
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That seed then seeks to repeat that same work, by virtue of the remarkable wisdom instilled within it, which they call 'nature' — a force concerned with preserving the species, since the individual cannot persist on its own, being composed of things that are constantly changing.
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Whatever has these powers of growth, reproduction, and nutrition — but does not move from place to place — is governed by 'nature' according to the philosophers. In truth, God governs it at a certain level and in a certain kingdom — call that level 'nature,' 'soul,' 'force,' or 'kingdom,' as you will.
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— except by its will, and it commands its parts better than the plant does, which cannot shield itself from what harms it nor move toward what benefits it, being played upon by the wind. Thus the animal has the instruments that move it from place to place.
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The form bestowed upon the animal in addition to its nature is called 'soul.' Souls differ greatly from one another according to the balance of the four temperaments, and according to the wisdom-designers' intention for each particular animal in relation to the world's collective needs.
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Even if we do not know the benefit of most of them — just as we do not know the uses of a ship's parts and consider them useless, while the ship's owner and designer know them well.
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Indeed, just as we are ignorant of the uses of many of our bones and other organs — if they were laid before us we would not know the purpose of each bone and each limb — yet through them we function, and we are certain that if even one were missing, our functions would be impaired and we would need it.
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Likewise, all parts of the universe are known and precisely calibrated with their Creator — 'to which nothing may be added and from which nothing may be taken away.' Since souls must differ, each soul's instruments must match it: the lion is given the dog's instruments of fangs and claws along with courage, while the deer is given weapons of war along with cowardice.
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Every soul yearns to exercise its powers in accordance with what it was prepared for. The temperaments of brute animals are not balanced, so they do not aspire to receive a form beyond the animal soul. But in the human being the temperaments are balanced, and it yearns for an additional form. The divine command was not withheld, and poured upon him an additional form called the material-receptive intellect (al-ʿaql al-hayūlānī al-munfaʿil).
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People too differ, since most have imbalanced temperaments and their intellect tilts accordingly: if toward yellow bile, there is rashness and impulsiveness; if toward black bile, there is melancholy and deliberateness. Character follows temperament.
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When a person is found with balanced temperaments and opposing moral dispositions in his control — like the two pans of a just balance in the hand of the weigher, which he tips wherever he wishes by adding or removing a weight — such a person is inevitably free of heart from excessive desires and yearns for a rank above his own: the divine rank.
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Such a person stands perplexed about what he should do in balancing his temperaments and moral qualities. He gives neither the irascible faculty what it demands, nor the appetitive faculty, nor any other — except in a state of consultation and guidance-seeking, praying that God will inspire him toward right direction.
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Such a person is the one upon whom a divine prophetic spirit is poured if he is worthy of prophecy; or divine inspiration if he falls short of that and is a saint but not a prophet. For God does not withhold anything — He gives to each thing what is its due.
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The philosophers call the bestower of this rank the Active Intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl), making it a sovereign below God, and hold that human intellects, when they unite with it, find in it their paradise and their eternal existence.
Section Eleven
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The Khazar said: Perhaps you could elaborate on this summary briefly.
Section Twelve
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The rabbi said: The soul's existence in an animal is evident from movements and sensations that differ from purely elemental motions, and the cause of these is called 'soul' or 'psychic force.' The psychic force is divided into three: what is shared by animals and plants — the vegetative force; what is shared by humans and other animals — the animal force; and what is specific to humans — the rational force.
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The general generic soul becomes evident through actions, which derive from the forms present in matter — not from matter insofar as it is matter. For the knife does not cut insofar as it is a body, but insofar as it has the form of a knife.
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The soul is a first perfection — a principle, not something proceeding from a principle. Perfection is either perfection for a body or perfection for a substance that is not a body. The soul is the perfection of a natural body — and a natural body is either instrumental or non-instrumental.
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That is, whether its actions are completed by means of instruments or without. The soul is the perfection of a natural, instrumental body that possesses life in potentiality — meaning: it is the source of animal activities in potentiality, and prepared for them.
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It is evident that the soul does not proceed from the mixture of the body's elements. For anything arising from the mixture of simples either has one simple predominating, with the resulting form corresponding to that — or the simples contest each other until none retains its original form, and then a new form arises from their mediation.
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The soul is not of the same class as any of the body's simple components; it can only be a form from outside — like an impress from a seal upon clay composed of water and earth, since the impression is not of the same class as the forms of water or earth.
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The first of the soul's forces is the nutritive force, which is like the principle; the reproductive force is like the end; and the growth force is like the middle, binding principle to end. The reproductive force has priority and precedence, even if it appears later.
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For the reproductive force first takes possession of the matter prepared to receive life, clothes it with the intended form — served by the growth and nutritive forces — then leaves governance to those two until the time of reproduction. Thus the reproductive force is the one served.
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The nutritive force serves; the growth force both serves and is served. The nutritive force has four well-known subsidiary forces serving it. Every being that moves by will is a sensing mover.
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Wisdom gives nothing in vain, nothing harmful, and withholds nothing necessary or beneficial — even creatures with shells. Although they appear stationary, they have contraction and expansion; and if turned over on their backs, they move until they can turn onto their undersides to bring food close.
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The outer senses are well-known. As for the inner senses, the first is the common sense — since what is harmful and what is agreeable are known only through experience, a formative force was necessary to retain the forms of sensible things: this is the common sense.
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The retentive-memorative force preserves the meanings derived from sensible things. The imaginative force retrieves what has faded from memory. The estimative force distinguishes between what imagination correctly derives and what is false.
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The motive force draws near what is needed and repels what is harmful. All animal forces are either perceptive or motive. The motive is the appetitive, of two kinds: a force that moves toward desired things — the concupiscent force — and a force that repels what is abhorrent — the irascible force.
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The perceptive forces are of two kinds: outer, like the outer senses; and inner, like the inner senses. The motive force acts under the judgment of the estimative, employing the imagination. This is the end of brute animality — for the motive force was not given to it to serve the causes of sensation and imagination; rather, sensation and imagination were given to it to serve the causes of motion. The rational being is the opposite: motion was given to it to perfect the rational soul.
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The active perceptive faculties — the five senses are well-known, and their objects are well-known. Through their mediation one also perceives shape, number, magnitude, motion, and rest.
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The existence of the common sense is demonstrated by our judgment about honey, for example — when we see it, we judge that it is sweet. This is because we have a force common to all five senses. This force is the formative (al-mutaṣawwira), and it operates both in waking and in sleep.
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Then there is a force that composes and separates what is gathered in the common sense, introducing variation into its images without the forms departing from the common sense. This is the imaginative force (al-mutakhayyila), which can be correct or false. The formative force, however, is always true.
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Then the estimative force (al-wahmiyya) — a judging force that rules that something should be sought and that something else should be fled. The formative and imaginative forces contain no judgment or decision — only representation.
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Then the retentive-memorative force, which preserves meanings perceived by the senses — such as that the wolf is an enemy and the child is beloved. Love, harm, affirmation, and negation belong to the estimative. The retentive-memorative force preserves what the estimative has confirmed.
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The imaginative faculty, when employed by the estimative, is called imagination; when employed by the rational, it is called reflection (al-mufakkira). Representation is in the front of the brain; imagination in the middle; memory in the rear; estimation throughout, predominantly in the region of imagination. All these forces die and perish with the perishing of their instruments.
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Only the rational soul endures — for it can extract from itself the best of these forces in a kind of refinement, and find them inherent in its own essence. This is a summary of what the philosophers say about what falls below the rational soul.
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The material intellect — that is, the intellect in potentiality — resembles prime matter, which is virtually synonymous with non-existence in actuality, yet is everything in potentiality. Within it the intelligible forms arise, either through divine inspiration or through acquisition.
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Those that come through divine inspiration are the primary intelligibles shared by all people who follow the natural course. Those that come through acquisition are by inference and demonstrative derivation — such as the apprehension of logical truths.
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Such as: genera, species, differentiae, properties, individual and compound terms in various forms of composition, and syllogisms that are true and false.
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And propositions that yield conclusions — either demonstrative (necessary), dialectical, rhetorical, sophistical, or poetic. Also: the investigation of natural matters such as matter, form, privation, nature, place, time, motion, celestial bodies, elemental bodies, and absolute coming-to-be and passing-away.
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Also: the generation of things produced in the atmosphere, in minerals, and on the surface of the earth — plants and animals; the true nature of the human being; the soul's apprehension of itself; and the apprehension of mathematical matters — pure arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, and optics.
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And the apprehension of divine matters — such as knowledge of the first principles of absolute existence insofar as it is existence, and what follows from it: potentiality and actuality, principle and cause, substance and accident, genus and species, opposition and similarity, agreement and difference, unity and multiplicity — and the establishment of the first principles of the theoretical sciences, mathematical and natural, from…
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…the logical disciplines, which are accessible only through this science — such as establishing: the First Principle and the universal soul; the manner of origination; the rank of the Intellect from the First Principle; the rank of the soul from the Intellect; the rank of Nature from the soul; the rank of matter and form from Nature; and the rank of the spheres, stars, and generated things from matter and form.
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And why things were created with this gradation, precedence, and posteriority; and knowledge of divine governance, universal nature, and primal providence.
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The rational soul can derive a form from sensation by presenting to itself what is in the formative and memorative faculties, employing the imagination and estimation. It finds that those forms share certain attributes and differ in others.
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Some of those attributes are essential forms, others are accidental. The soul separates them and combines them, deriving genera, species, differentiae, properties, and accidents. Then it composes them in syllogistic fashion, yielding fruitful conclusions.
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With the aid of the Universal Intellect that provides for it. Even though it first employed the sensory forces, it has no need of them for apprehending these meanings in themselves or for composing syllogisms from them — neither in assent nor in conception.
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Just as the sensory forces apprehend through a likeness of the sensible thing, so too the intellectual forces apprehend through likeness.
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…of the intelligible, through abstracting the form from matter and attaching to it. But the sensory force does not act by will as the rational does — it requires the motive force and the assistance of the medium that conveys the forms to it.
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The intellective force, however, thinks by itself and thinks itself whenever it wishes. Hence it is said: the sensory force is passive, and the intellective is active. The actual intellect is nothing other than intelligible forms abstracted within the material intellect itself.
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Hence it is said: the actual intellect is simultaneously thinker and thing thought. Among the distinctive properties of the intellect is that it unifies the many and multiplies the one through composition and analysis.
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Even though the intellect's activity appears to take time when it composes syllogisms through deliberation and reflection, its attainment of a conclusion is not tied to time. Rather, the essence of the intellect is elevated above time.
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When the rational soul turns toward the sciences, its activity is called the theoretical intellect. When it turns toward subduing the animal forces, its activity is called governance, and it is called the practical intellect.
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For some people, the rational force is aided in its connection with the Universal Intellect in a way that transcends the need for syllogism and deliberation, satisfying all requirements through inspiration and revelation. This property is called sanctity (taqdīs), and such a soul is called a holy spirit (rūḥ muqaddas).
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Among the proofs that the soul is a substance and not a body or accident: it is the form of the body and does not divide essentially as the body does, nor accidentally as an accident divides through the division of its substrate. Color, scent, taste, heat, and cold all divide through the division of their substrate, even if they do not divide essentially.
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The intellectual form is nothing but the thing thought. And the thing thought — the human being, for example — does not admit of division, for one cannot conceive of half a human, nor a part of a human as a human, in the way one can conceive of part of a body as a body.
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Similarly, color and body insofar as they are intelligibles do not admit of division. We do not say 'half an intelligible color' and 'half an intelligible body,' as we say 'half of that sensible body' and 'half of the color inhering in it and pointed to.'
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We do not say 'half the rational soul in Zayd' as we say 'half his body,' for the soul has no dimensions, is not located in any direction, and cannot be pointed to.
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Since the soul is neither body nor accident inhering in a body — yet its existence is evident from the acts it produces — nothing remains but that it must be a self-subsisting substance, characterized by the attributes of the angels and the divine substances.
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Its first instruments are the spiritual forms shaped in the middle of the brain from the animal spirit (al-rūḥ al-nafsānī) by means of the imaginative force. They become reflective forms when the soul exercises judgment over them, composes and analyzes them in ways that lead to the production of knowledge.
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Previously, those forms were merely imaginary — when the estimative force governed them, as happens with children and brute animals. Among the proofs of the soul's separability from the body and its independence from it: the bodily forces weaken with intense perception — the eye before the sun, the ear before a loud sound — due to the impairment of their instruments.
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The rational soul is not like this — it grows stronger the more powerful knowledge it apprehends. Similarly: old age afflicts the body but not the soul — the soul grows stronger after age fifty even as the body declines. Similarly: the body's actions are finite but the soul's actions are infinite, since geometric, numerical, and philosophical forms are infinite.
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The proof for the existence of an intellectual substance separate from bodies — which stands in relation to the soul as light stands to sight — and that the soul, when it departs from bodies, unites with it: the soul did not acquire its knowledge through experience.
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For what is acquired through experience does not yield certain judgment — a person cannot conclude with certainty that every human cannot move his ears, the way he concludes with certainty that every human is sentient, every sentient being is alive, every living thing is a substance, and the whole is greater than the part — and other primary intelligibles.
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For our conviction of the correctness of views cannot be validated by learning — otherwise it would regress infinitely. It is therefore from a divine overflow that reaches the rational soul.
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This overflow, were it not to possess the universal intellectual form, could not imprint it upon the rational soul. Whatever possesses an intellectual form within itself is an incorporeal substance. Therefore this overflow is an incorporeal intellectual substance, self-subsisting.
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The soul's apprehension of the form is a perfection for it, achieved only upon union with this intellectual substance. But the body's preoccupations impede that union — complete union is impossible except by rejecting all the body's forces.
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For nothing prevents it from uniting with the intellectual substance except the body. When the soul departs from the body, it remains perfected, attached to the intellectual substance, safe from corruption, united with this noble substance referred to as the 'Highest Knowledge.'
Section Thirteen
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The Khazar said: I see that this philosophical discourse possesses a superiority of precision and verification over all other discourse.
Section Fourteen
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The rabbi said: This is precisely what I feared for you — being seduced by it and finding the soul at rest.
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…toward their views. Because they produced valid proof in mathematics and logic, souls were satisfied with everything they said in natural philosophy and metaphysics, and one assumed that everything they said was demonstratively proven.
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Why did you not begin by doubting their claims about the four elements? Demand of them an account of the world of fire — they claim ethereal fire exists there, with no color, which would prevent the sky and stars from having color.
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And when have we ever perceived elemental fire? We only perceive a hot quality in the extreme — when it inheres in earth it is embers, in air it is a blaze, in water it is boiling water.
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And when have we observed a corporeal fire and air entering into the matter of plants and animals, such that we could conclude it is composed of all four — fire, air, water, and earth? Suppose we do perceive water and earth and their transformation and entry into the matter of plants.
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The air and the heat of the sun assist in generation through quality, not through a body of fire or a body of air. And when have we seen plants resolve into the four elements proper? When a part dissolves into something earth-like it is not earth but ash — good for some medicine.
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The part dissolving into something water-like is not water but a juice or thick moisture — nourishing rather than drinkable water. The part dissolving into something air-like is steam or vapor, not breathable air. And these may themselves transform into animals or plants.
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Yes — after careful examination, we are compelled to speak of heat, cold, moisture, and dryness as primary qualities. The rational soul can also derive a form from sensation.
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…plants, and plants as we said come from seeds, and the water that transforms into similar nourishment with the aid of sun, air, and earth. Yes — and all the stars and celestial ratios also exert influence and assistance in this process. So this is the doubt regarding the elements according to their view.
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According to the religious view, God created the world as it is — with its animals and plants already formed — without needing to first lay down simples and then compose composites. The affirmation of creation in time facilitates every difficulty and smooths every obstacle.
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When you conceive that this world did not exist and then came to be by God's will, when He willed and as He willed, you will not struggle with investigating how bodies were constituted and how souls were attached to them. Nor will your soul recoil from accepting the firmament, the waters above the heavens, and the demons mentioned by the Sages.
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And the traditional accounts anticipated from the Days of the Messiah, the Resurrection of the Dead, and the World to Come. What need have we of this philosophical contrivance for the soul's survival after the body's perishing? The truthful reliable transmitter has established the afterlife for us — whether it will be spiritual or bodily, leave it as it may be.
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If you pursue the logical path to establish or refute opinions about it, you will spend your life without result. And what proof do we have for what we have presented — that the soul is an incorporeal intellectual substance, not located in place, not subject to coming-to-be and passing-away?
[] .
And how would my soul be distinguished from yours, or from the Active Intellect, or from the other causes, or from the First Cause? And why would the soul of Aristotle not merge with the soul of Plato — with each knowing the other's companion, beliefs, inner thoughts, and all the philosophers?
. .
Then why do they not think their intelligibles all at once, as God and the Active Intellect do? Why does forgetfulness afflict them, and why do they need to think through their intelligibles part by part? And why does the philosopher not find himself when asleep, drunk, delirious, struck in the brain, or aged and decrepit?
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…and forgot all his knowledge — is that person still himself, or do we say he is someone else? And suppose he recovered gradually from his illness and began relearning what he knew before, yet when old age arrived he could not grasp the original knowledge.
. . .
Would he then have two separating souls — one leaving, the other remaining? And suppose his temperament changed toward love of domination and appetites — do we say he has one soul for reward and another for punishment? And what threshold of knowledge makes the human soul separate from the body independently?
. . .
If it requires knowledge of all existing things — much remains unknown to even the philosopher among what is in the heavens, earth, and sea. And if a portion suffices, then every rational soul separates from the body, since the primary intelligibles are instilled in all rational souls.
.
And if the soul separates upon conceiving the ten intelligible categories and what lies above them as principles of thought — grasping all existing things logically without investigating their particulars — that is knowledge quickly mastered in a day; but it is impossible for a person to become a king in a day.
. .
And if it requires exhaustive investigation and comprehensive understanding — logical and natural — that is an unattainable thing, and he is inevitably lost according to their view. You have been deceived by corrupt imaginings and have sought from your Creator what He has not made possible for you.
[] .
He did not place the apprehension of it in the instinct of humanity through inference — but placed it in the instinct of the elect, chosen from the purity of creation, with the conditions we have mentioned. They attain those souls that perceive the whole universe, see their Lord and His angels, see one another, and know one another's inner thoughts.
. .
As it says: 'Yea, I know your thoughts also.' We do not know how this is, nor by what means — except that it comes to us through the path of prophecy. And if the philosophers' knowledge of this were truly correct…
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They could not attain it, for they spoke of souls and prophecy while being like the rest of mankind.
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Indeed they excelled in human wisdom — as Socrates used to say to the people of Athens: 'O people, I do not deny your divine wisdom, but I say that I have not mastered it; as for me, I am wise only with human wisdom.'
.
They are excusable, for when they resorted to their syllogisms — owing to the absence of prophecy and divine light among them — they perfected the demonstrative sciences to a degree that has no equal.
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They devoted themselves to this exclusively, and there was no disagreement between any two individuals in those sciences — while there was almost no agreement between any two regarding the opinions they formed beyond that, in the domain of metaphysics.
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Such as the school of Pythagoras, the school of Empedocles, the school of Aristotle, the school of Plato, and others — including the Illuminationists (Ishrāqiyyūn) and the Peripatetics, who belong to the school of Aristotle.
.
They hold views about first principles that reason finds foolish — and reason indeed finds them foolish — such as their explanation that the celestial sphere revolves because it seeks a perfection it lacks, in order to face every direction.
.
And likewise their speculation about the emanations flowing from the First (may He be exalted), and how knowledge of the First necessarily produces a sphere, and knowledge of itself produces a sphere — and so it descended through eleven ranks, with the emanations stopping at the Active Intellect, from which no further sphere or heaven necessarily follows.
. .
These things are less persuasive than the Sefer Yetzirah. And throughout all of this there is only doubt, with no agreement between one philosopher and his colleague — yet they are excusable in any case.
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They are praised for what they produced from their reasoning alone, for they pursued the good, enacted rational laws, and renounced worldly pleasures.
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They are, in any case, to be preferred — since accepting what we possess was never incumbent upon them, whereas we are obliged to accept the direct witness and the widespread tradition that is equivalent to direct witness.
Section Fifteen
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The Khazar king said: Perhaps you could give me some brief points from the doctrines that have been distilled among the theologians — those who are called, among the Karaites, the masters of the science of kalām.
Section Sixteen
. .
The rabbi said: The benefit of this is only the sharpening of discourse and assistance with what is said: 'Be diligent in learning what to answer the Epicurean.' For a sincere and artless scholar — like the prophets, for example — can rarely benefit anyone by way of formal instruction, nor can he respond to a question through the method of kalām.
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The man of kalām displays a brilliance of learning such that the listener comes to prefer him over that sincere, virtuous scholar whose doctrines cannot be turned aside by any force.
. . .
Yet this naturally endowed person can instruct another of similar endowment with the slightest hint. And so those who are naturally disposed to religious observance and to drawing close to God — sparks are kindled in their souls from the words of the righteous, and these become lights in their hearts. It is the one who lacks this natural disposition who needs the science of kalām — and perhaps it will not benefit him; it may even harm him.
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Section Seventeen
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The Khazar king said: I am not pressing you for what is usually debated in such matters. I seek only a fundamental doctrinal point in religion that you would relate to me, for my ear has been pricked and my soul has longed for it.
Section Eighteen
. : . .
The rabbi said: The first thing that must be established is the temporal origination of the world. The argument against the eternity of the world: If the past had no beginning, then the individual beings that existed in former ages up to this moment would be infinite in number. But what is infinite cannot pass into actuality.
. .
How, then, did those infinite beings pass into actuality? Inevitably, the past must have a beginning, and the beings that exist must be finite in number.
[] .
For it is within the power of reason to count thousands and millions and double them indefinitely — this holds in potentiality. But to bring these to the limit of actuality is impossible.
[] . .
For whatever passes into actuality is counted as one, so the number that has passed into actuality must necessarily be finite. As for what is truly infinite — how could it ever pass into actuality?
. .
Therefore, the world must have had a beginning, and the revolutions of the celestial sphere must be finite in number. Furthermore, what is infinite has no half, no double, and no numerical ratio — yet we know that the revolutions of the sun are one-twelfth of those of the moon.
[] . [] [] .
Likewise the motions of the spheres in relation to one another — this one becomes a fraction of that one. But there is no fraction in what is truly infinite. And again: How could what is infinite have reached us, if those created before us were infinite in number?
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. : . .
They would be infinite, and not a single one of them would exist. Section: The world is temporally originated because it is a body. A body cannot be free of motion and rest, which are two accidents that originate in it in succession.
. . .
What newly arises in it is originated, necessarily, by virtue of its arising; and what preceded it is also originated, for had it been eternal it could not have ceased. Therefore both are originated. What cannot be free of originated accidents is itself originated, since it did not precede those accidents. And originated things are originated — therefore the world is originated.
: .
Section: Every originated thing must have a cause that brings it into being. For every originated thing must have a specific moment that distinguishes it, before which and after which other moments can be posited. The fact that it is specified for its moment rather than for what precedes or follows it necessarily points to a specifying agent.
: . .
Section: God is pre-eternal and has always existed. For if He were originated, He would require a cause of origination, and that cause would require another, leading to infinite regress without resolution — or it terminates in an eternal originating Cause who is the First, and that is what we seek to establish.
: . . . .
Section: God is eternal and will never cease to be. For that whose pre-eternity is established admits no cessation, since the origination of non-existence requires a cause just as the origination of existence does. A thing does not cease from within itself but only through its opposite — and He has no opposite and no like.
: . . . . .
Section: God is not a body. For a body cannot be free of accidents, and what cannot be free of accidents is itself originated. Nor can He be called an accident, since an accident subsists in the body that bears it — an accident is an effect of its body, dependent upon and borne by it.
. . : . .
And God (may He be exalted) is not localized and is not specifically directed in one direction rather than another, for that is among the conditions of corporeality. Section: God (may He be exalted) knows all things, great and small, and nothing escapes His knowledge — since it has been shown that He created everything, ordered it, and organized it. As it is said: 'He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed
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. . .
the eye, shall He not see?' And it is said: 'Even the darkness is not dark to You,' and 'For You formed my inward parts,' etc.
: . . . . .
Section: God (may He be exalted) is living. Since knowledge and power have been established for Him, life has been established for Him — but not like our life, which is defined by sensation and motion. Rather, a life whose meaning is pure intellect, which is identical with Him and He with it.
: . . .
Section: God (may He be exalted) is possessed of will. For regarding everything that proceeds from Him, it is possible that its opposite should proceed instead, or its non-existence, or that it proceed before or after the moment it did. His power over both possibilities is equal — therefore there must be a will that directs His power to one of the two rather than the other.
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One might object that His knowledge suffices in place of His power and will, since His knowledge is specific to one of two possible moments and to one of two contraries — and His eternal knowledge is the cause of everything that occurs as it does. This position agrees with the philosophers.
: . . .
Section: His will (may He be exalted) is pre-eternal and corresponds to His knowledge. Nothing new supervenes upon Him and nothing changes in His regard. And He (may He be exalted) is living with an essential life, not acquired.
Section Nineteen
. .
The Khazar king said: This is sufficient for a reminder. What you have told me about the soul and the intellect and these doctrines is surely transmitted from your memory of what others have said. What I seek is only your own taste and personal conviction.
Section Twenty
. .
The rabbi said: Only a willful sophist who says what he does not believe can deny the reality of genuine possibility. For you see from his preparation for what he hopes and fears — evidence that he believes the matter is genuinely possible and that preparation for it is beneficial.
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. . .
Preparation is equally necessary for one who prepares, and leaving off preparation is equally necessary for one who does not prepare. He has thereby acknowledged intermediate causes and that subsequent events depend on them. And he will find will among the intermediate causes — if he is fair and not willfully obstinate.
. .
He will acknowledge that he finds himself left free between himself and his will in matters that are genuinely possible — he may perform them if he wishes, or leave them if he wishes. And this belief does not place anything outside the governance of God (may He be exalted); rather, everything returns to Him in various ways.
: .
I say that all effects are attributed to the First Cause in two ways: either as a primary intention, or by way of causal chain.
: .
An example of the first type: the manifest order and arrangement in animals, plants, and the celestial spheres — which no reflective rational person can attribute to chance, but only to the intention of a wise maker who places everything in its proper position and gives it its due.
: . .
An example of the second type: the burning of this fire, for example, of this piece of wood. For fire is a subtle, hot, active body, and wood is a porous, passive body — and it is the nature of the subtle active body to act upon what is passive to it.
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If you trace the causes of these actions and reactions, you will find them accessible to your understanding — and perhaps you will find the causes of those causes, until they terminate in the spheres, then in the causes of the spheres, and then in the First Cause.
. [] . : .
So the one who says that all things come from the decree of God is right. And the one who speaks of choice and chance is also right, without anything thereby escaping the decree of God. If you wish, you may approximate this concept through the following fourfold division: effects are either divine, or natural, or accidental, or volitional.
: .
The divine: the First Cause executes them directly and necessarily, with no cause other than the will of God (may He be exalted). As for the natural effects: they proceed from intermediate causes that have been prepared
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...prepared for them and bringing them to their utmost perfection, provided no obstacle intervenes from any of the other three types. As for the accidental: it also proceeds from intermediate causes, but coincidentally rather than naturally, without order or intention, and it has no preparedness for the perfection it reaches, at which it stops.
. . [] .
As for the volitional: its cause is the human will in the moment of choosing. And choice is among the intermediate causes. Choice has causes that form a chain back to the First Cause — but not a necessary chain, because genuine possibility exists.
. . .
The soul is left free between a view and its opposite, and may pursue whichever it chooses — so praise or blame for that choice is warranted, which is not the case for any of the other intermediate causes. For an accidental cause is not blamed, nor is a natural cause.
. .
Do those who deny genuine possibility not feel anger at someone who deliberately harms them? And do they submit to someone who steals their clothes and leaves them to freeze in the cold as they would submit to a cold north wind blowing on a cold day?
[] . .
Or do they claim that such anger is a false power implanted to no purpose, so that a person should be angry at one thing rather than another? The same applies to praise, approval, love, hatred, and the like.
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For choice qua choice has no necessary cause, since were that choice itself necessary, human speech would become as necessary as his heartbeat.
. . . . . . .
And this amounts to denying the self-evident... so long as you are under the sovereignty of reason and not overcome by other dispositions. And if every event were a primary intention of the First Cause, it would be created at that very instant along with the moments — and it would be valid to say of the entire world at every moment that the Creator is creating it now.
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And the obedient one would have no advantage over the disobedient, since both would be obedient, doing only what they were impelled toward and driven to perform.
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...grave absurdities attach to this belief, the worst of which is the denial of the self-evident, as we have said. As for the scandal attaching to one who affirms genuine choice — on the grounds that this removes some things from the decree of God (may He be exalted) — it is refuted by what has already been stated.
. .
For it does not remove them from the decree of God in general; rather, it returns them to Him by way of causal chain. Then there follows another objection: that affirming genuine choice removes those things from His knowledge.
. . .
For pure possibility is, by its nature, unknowable. The theologians have explored this question, and they concluded that knowledge of it is incidental, and that knowledge of a thing is not the cause of that thing's existence. So God's knowledge of contingent events is not denied, even though they remain genuinely possible — they could occur or not occur.
. .
For if knowledge were the cause of existence, then certain people would have to be in the Garden of Eden on account of God's knowledge that they are righteous, without ever having obeyed — and others would be in Gehinnom on account of His knowledge that they are sinners, without ever having transgressed.
[] . .
And a person would have to feel satiated without eating, because God knows he will be satiated at such-and-such a moment — which would eliminate intermediate causes. And if intermediate causes were eliminated, the existence of intermediate created beings would be annulled.
. . : .
Thus the phrase 'And God tested Abraham' is entirely appropriate — it was to bring his obedience from potential to actual, so that it might become the cause of his reward, as it says: 'Because you have done this thing... I will greatly bless you.'
. . .
And since ordinary people are uncertain whether events are divine or belong to some other category, and since it is possible in principle that all events are divine, the masses attribute everything to God — for that is more reliable and more strengthening to faith.
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But the discerning person must distinguish one people from another, one individual from another, one time from another, one place from another, and one set of accompanying circumstances from another.
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He finds that divine events manifested themselves for the most part in a specific land — the Holy Land — among a specific people — the children of Israel — and in that specific era.
[] . .
And along with the accompanying circumstances — obligations and practices — the desired outcome was manifest in their observance, and the dreaded outcome was manifest in their violation. Natural and accidental causes availed nothing when transgression occurred, nor did they harm when the commandments were fulfilled.
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For this reason, the children of Israel became an argument in every faith against the heretics who hold the view of Epicurus the Greek — his claim that all things occur by chance, with no purposive intention evident in them.
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His followers are called the Hedonists, since they hold that pleasure is the desired end and is the good in an absolute sense.
. .
What the one who follows the law seeks from the Lawgiver is to be favored by Him and to direct his choices toward Him (may He be exalted), seeking divine inspiration if he is a saint, or miracles and wonders if he is a prophet — or a favored community with the accompanying circumstances mentioned in the Torah: specific times, places, and deeds.
. .
He need not worry greatly about natural and accidental causes, knowing that their harm is warded off from him. As for the righteous, they prosper through those very causes and are then secured from their ill effects.
: — . — . — .
I say that David (peace be upon him) presented three types of the causes of death when he said: 'For God may strike him' — that is the divine cause. 'Or his appointed day will come and he will die' — that is the natural cause. 'Or he will go down into battle and be cut off' — that is the accidental coincidental cause.
He omitted the fourth type — namely the volitional — because no rational person freely chooses death. As for Saul, who killed himself, it was not
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[] .
...a free choice of death, but rather aversion to the torment of his enemy and the humiliation the enemy would inflict upon him.
: [] .
The same fourfold division applies to speech. The speech of the prophets at the moment of their being clothed with the Holy Spirit is, in all its words, a direct divine intention — the prophet has no ability to alter a single word of it.
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Natural speech consists of gestures and signals that correspond to the meanings one wishes to express, which the soul produces spontaneously without prior convention.
. [] .
Conventional languages are composed of both the natural and the volitional. Accidental speech is the speech of the insane at the moment of their madness — it is not organized into meaning and does not arrive at any purposive end.
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Volitional speech is the speech of a prophet outside the time of prophecy, or the speech of a rational, deliberative person who composes a discourse and chooses his words according to what he deems fitting for his purpose.
. .
All these types of speech can be attributed to God (may He be exalted) by way of causal chain, not as His primary intention. Otherwise, the babbling of a child, the speech of the deranged, the rhetoric of the orator, and the poetry of the poet would all be speech of God Most High — far be it from Him.
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As for the argument of the negligent against the prudent — that what will be has already been foreknown by God, so there is no point in striving — this is no argument. It is equivalent to saying that what will be must necessarily be; to which one says: yes, but that does not prevent you from acting on the better judgment.
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So arm yourself against your enemy and gather provisions against your hunger, when it is clear to you that your safety or your destruction comes about through intermediate causes — and among them, and most prominently, is your own resolution and determination.
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. . .
Safety that occurs in a place of danger is called rare. Destruction that occurs in a place of safety is called something outside the natural order. Therefore prudent action is obligatory.
. .
This very belief of mine is among the causes of prudence for one who holds it, while the belief that contradicts it is among the causes of negligence. Yet everything returns by way of causal chain to God (may He be exalted).
. .
As for what occurs by sheer divine decree — namely miracles and wonders — that suffices without intermediate causes. Sometimes it resorts to them, as Moses (peace be upon him) sustained himself against hunger for forty days without any preparation of provisions.
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When a person acts prudently with respect to intermediate causes, after entrusting to God with sincere intent whatever is hidden from him, he will succeed and not be disappointed.
. . .
As for the primary intention of God — that was manifest in the events of the children of Israel throughout the duration of the Shekhinah's abiding among them. And preaching diminishes the transgressor's sin, for it is well-known that preaching affects the soul in every case, and that the soul of the sinner is moved by hearing a rebuke, even if only slightly.
:
The first of the premises on which this view rests: acknowledgment of the First Cause and that He is a Maker
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...a wise Maker whose acts contain no futility — all of them are ordered by wisdom, and no disorder can befall them.
: . .
The second premise: acknowledgment of intermediate causes — not as true agents, however, but as causes in the manner of matter or instruments. For semen and blood are the matter of the human being; the organs of generation bring them together; and the spirits and vital powers, as instruments, operate by the will of God until his form is complete.
: . . .
The third premise: God gives every matter the best form it is capable of receiving, and the most fitting. He (may He be exalted) is generous — His grace, wisdom, and governance withhold nothing from anything. His wisdom displayed in a flea or a mosquito, for example, is no less than His wisdom displayed in the order of the celestial spheres.
: . .
The fourth premise: acknowledgment that existence has higher and lower ranks, and that what possesses perception, awareness, and sensation is higher than what does not — by virtue of its proximity to the rank of the First Cause, which is Intellect in itself.
. . .
And even the lowliest person who follows the Law of God (may He be exalted) is of a higher rank than the noblest unbeliever. For the Law that comes from God imparts to souls the conduct and bearing of the angels — and that is something not attainable through human acquisition alone.
The proof of this is that consistent performance of the works of that Law elevates one to the degree of prophetic inspiration — which is the rank closest
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...of the human to the divine. Therefore the transgressing follower of the Law is better than the unbeliever — for God's Law has imparted to him a royal bearing by which he is nobler in rank than the angels.
: . .
The fifth premise: the souls of listeners are moved by the admonitions of preachers when what is preached is of an acceptable character. Preaching the truth is always beneficial — even if the sinner does not desist from his evil deed, a spark is kindled in his soul from that preaching, showing him that the deed is evil.
: . .
The sixth premise: the person finds within himself the capacity to do or refrain from evil in matters that are genuinely possible for him. Where he finds himself unable, it is only because of the absence of intermediate causes or his ignorance of them.
: . .
An example: a poor, foreign man without political connections aspires to lead a group — he is unable. But were the intermediate causes present and he knew how to handle them, his aspiration would be realized.
. .
More than that: he moves his own limbs as he wishes and speaks what he wishes. And more still: his thought and imagination can conceive of what is far and near, whenever and however he wishes — because he possesses mastery over his intermediate causes.
. . .
For this reason, it does not happen that the weak defeats the strong in chess — so one does not speak of fortune and misfortune in a chess match as one does of a battle between two fighting commanders, because all the intermediate causes of the chess game are present in full, and the knowledgeable player always wins by using them.
And he need not fear a natural cause that might intervene, nor an accidental cause — except rarely, on account of inattention,
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. . .
And inattention is a form of ignorance, as we said. In any case, everything is attributed to the First Cause through the mode we have described. As for the primary intention of God — that was evident in the events of the children of Israel throughout the duration of the Shekhinah's abiding among them.
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Conclusion of the Book · Section Twenty-One
: .
The rabbi said: This and its like are matters worthy of investigation — and so too is the nature of God's judgments upon His servants, and their dependency on what the prophet tied them to: 'visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children for those who hate Him, and showing lovingkindness to thousands for those who love Him and keep His commandments.'
. .
The conditions of repentance; and what comes through trial by way of ordeal and testing, and by way of retribution for a prior sin, and by way of compensation in this world, and by way of compensation in the world to come.
. . .
And the intermingling of these modes with others — some of which are obscure and some clear — is likely to be revealed upon investigation. Most of the causes bearing on 'the righteous man who fares ill and the wicked man who fares well' lie here. And what remains unrevealed is surrendered to the knowledge and justice of God (may He be exalted).
. . [] .
And when, in his investigation, he arrives at the Primal Essence and what attributes are necessarily His — he stands in awe before it and perceives that before it is a veil of light that blinds the eyes, making it inaccessible to our perception on account of the deficiency of our eyes and our intellectual vision — not on account of any hiddenness or deficiency in it. For it is more dazzling, more evident, and more manifest to those possessing prophetic vision than to require proof.
And the highest we can attain in distinguishing
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[] . .
...is to distinguish, among natural phenomena, whatever could not have been caused by any of the natural forces, and to attribute it to a non-corporeal, that is, divine power. As Galen says of the formative power — he gives it precedence over all other powers and holds that it does not arise from the humoral mixture but rather from a divine command.
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In the case of miracles, we see the transformation of material realities, the breach of customary natural order, and the bringing into existence of things that did not exist — without any prior device or technique.
. . [ ]. . .
That is the distinction between what was wrought at the hand of Moses (peace be upon him) and what the Egyptian sorcerers performed through their devices — which, if examined closely, would yield the trick. As Jeremiah said: 'They are vanity, the work of delusion; in the time of their visitation they shall perish' — meaning: examine them and probe them and they dissolve like a fraudulent thing. But the divine act — whatever you examine of it, you find it like refined gold.
. . .
When we reach this rank, we say that there is necessarily something non-corporeal that governs all corporeal things. Our minds are incapable of investigating it — so let us contemplate its acts and refrain from describing its essence, for if we could fully comprehend its reality that would be a deficiency in it.
: . . . . .
What led the philosophers to multiply divine beings was their accounting of the celestial motions — they enumerated and tallied them at more than forty. They saw that each motion had a cause distinct from the cause of the others, and their reflection led them to conclude that these motions are volitional, not compelled nor natural. So they held that each motion must derive from a soul and each soul from an intellect — and that intellect is a separate transcendent being free of matter.
. . . . . .
They called those intellects God, angels, secondary causes, and other names. The last and lowest of their ranks — the one nearest to us — is the Active Intellect, which they claimed governs this lower world. Then below it: the potential intellect, then the soul, then nature, then
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. . .
...the natural and animal powers. And the powers of each individual limb. All of this is a refinement useful for verbal sharpening, not for establishing truth. And whoever surrenders himself to it is in any case a heretic.
: . .
As for the Karaites' proof from David's charge to his son — 'And now, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him' — and their inference from it that one must know God with true knowledge, and that only then does service of Him become obligatory:
.
Rather, he urged him to follow the tradition of his father and forefathers in accepting the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob — the One whose providential care accompanied them and who fulfilled His promise to them of abundant progeny and the inheritance of the Land of Canaan.
Section Twenty-Two
. : . .
It then came about that this rabbi resolved to depart from the land of the Khazars, bound for Jerusalem (may it be rebuilt). The Khazar king found his parting unbearable, and addressed him on the matter, saying: What do you seek today in the Land of Israel, when the Shekhinah is absent from it? Drawing close to God is attainable in every place through sincere intention and fervent longing. Why should you subject yourself to the dangers of land and sea and diverse nations?
Section Twenty-Three
: . . . : .
The rabbi said: The Shekhinah that is perceptible to the eye — that is what has been lost. For it is revealed only to a prophet or to an accepted community in the specific holy place. That is what is awaited in the words: 'For with eye to eye shall they see when the Lord returns to Zion.' And in our prayer we say: 'May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.'
.
As for the hidden, spiritual Shekhinah — it accompanies the genuine Israelite who is pure in deeds, clean of heart, and sincere in his intention toward the God of Israel. And the Land of Canaan is peculiarly belonging to the God of
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. . .
...Israel, and deeds are complete only within it. Many of the laws of Israel lapse for one who does not dwell in the Land of Israel. And the intention cannot be purified, nor can the heart be cleansed, except in the places one believes to be especially consecrated to God.
. . . .
And if that were merely imagined and symbolic — how much more so given that it is reality, as has been shown. Longing toward it is aroused and the intention is purified within it — especially for one who approaches it from afar, and especially for one who has accumulated sins and seeks forgiveness.
. : . .
And since there is no longer a path to the sacrifices that were divinely ordained for each and every sin — whether willful or inadvertent — one takes comfort in the teaching of the Sages: 'Exile atones for iniquity.' Especially when the exile is to a place of divine favor.
. .
As for the risk over land and sea — it is not the kind of risk forbidden by 'You shall not test the Lord.' Rather, it is the risk of a man who has merchandise and hopes to profit from it.
. .
And if he were to risk more than this, driven by his longing and hope of forgiveness, he would be excused for exposing himself to dangers — having taken stock of himself, given thanks for the years already lived, been content with them, and dedicated the remainder of his days to pleasing his Lord.
Section Twenty-Four
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The Khazar king said: I used to see you as someone who loves freedom — yet now I see you adding further servitude, obligating yourself with laws that will be binding when you dwell in the Land of Israel but are not binding upon you here.
Section Twenty-Five
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The rabbi said: What I seek is freedom from servitude to the many — whose approval I pursue yet cannot attain, even were I to exhaust my entire life in the effort. And even if I attained it, it would avail me nothing. I mean
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[I flee] the service of people and the pursuit of their favor. But I seek the service of One whose favor can be attained with the least effort — and it is beneficial both in this world and the next. That is the favor of God, exalted: for serving Him is freedom, and self-humbling before Him is true honor.
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Section [26]. The Khazar said: If you believe all that you have described, then God, exalted, already knows your intention — for a pure intention is with God, the Knower of intentions and the Revealer of hidden things.
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Section [27]. The rabbi said: This is true only when action is impossible. But a person who is free to act is left between his hopes and his deeds — and such a person is blameworthy when he does not bring the manifest reward toward the manifest deed.
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That is why it was said: 'And when you blow the trumpets you shall be remembered before the Lord your God' (Num. 10:10), and 'a memorial of blowing' (Lev. 23:24) — not that God needs reminding or alerting, but because deeds require completion, and only then do they deserve reward.
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Just as the meanings of prayer require verbal expression in the most perfect form of supplication and entreaty. When both intention and deed are fulfilled as they should be, reward follows accordingly — and this becomes, in human terms, something like a reminder; 'the Torah speaks in the language of men.'
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But if the deed falls short of [the intention, or the intention falls short of] the deed, the effort has been in vain — unless what was impossible has been excused. Presenting the intention and offering an excuse for the deed is beneficial to some degree, as when we declare in our prayer: 'Because of our sins we were exiled from our land,' and similar formulae.
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And in rousing people and moving them to love that sacred place there is reward, and a strengthening of the awaited event — as it says: 'You will arise and show mercy to Zion, for the time to be gracious to her has come, the appointed time has arrived; for Your servants cherish…' [Ps. 102:14–15]
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'Your servants cherish her stones and hold her dust dear' — meaning that Jerusalem will only be rebuilt when Israel's longing for her becomes complete longing: until they cherish even her very stones and her dust.
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Section [28]. The Khazar said: If it is so, then what holds you back is sinfulness, and your assistance is a noble one. May God help you, and be for you a protector and guardian, and be pleased with you by His grace. And peace.
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The book is complete, with the help of God, exalted, and His gracious assistance. And to the Grantor of assistance, praise without end.