obey
it, and old because it is in the human heart from infancy to old age, and
foolish because it leads man in the way of perdition, which he does not
foresee. The same thing is in Midrasch Tillim.
Bereschist Rabba on Psalm 35:10: "Lord, all my bones shall bless Thee,
which
deliverest the poor from the tyrant." And is there a greater tyrant than
the
evil leaven? And on Proverbs 25:21: "If thine enemy be hungry, give him
bread to eat." That is to say, if the evil leaven hunger, give him the
bread
of wisdom of which it is spoken in Proverbs 9, and if he be thirsty, give
him the water of which it is spoken in Isaiah 55.
Midrasch Tillim says the same thing, and that Scripture in that passage,
speaking of the enemy, means the evil leaven; and that, in giving him that
bread and that water, we heap coals of fire on his head.
Midrasch el Kohelet on Ecclesiastes 9:14: "A great king besieged a little
city." This great king is the evil leaven; the great bulwarks built
against
it are temptations; and there has been found a poor wise man who has
delivered it--that is to say, virtue.
And on Psalm 41:1: "Blessed is he that considereth the poor."
And on Psalm 78:39: "The spirit passeth away, and cometh not again";
whence
some have erroneously argued against the immortality of the soul. But the
sense is that this spirit is the evil leaven, which accompanies man till
death and will not return at the resurrection.
And on Psalm 103 the same thing.
And on Psalm 16.
Principles of Rabbinism: two Messiahs.
447. Will it be said that, as men have declared that righteousness has
departed t
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