Pemikiran Yahudi Ayub 12:20: Akeidat Yitzchak & Derashot HaRan

The Torah states that man became a human being after G'd had imbued him with nishmat chayim, which Onkelos renders as "a talking spirit." Clearly, he refers to the internal spirit, the thought process leading to speech. Kohelet 1,16, "I spoke with my heart," reflects the same idea. Speech is a mechanical process, merely reflecting and relaying the thought process that has preceded it. Adam had already possessed the power to reason. What G'd had added was the means to communicate his thoughts. Scripture provides ample proof for this interpretation. When G'd said to Moses "who gave man a mouth, or who made him dumb, deaf, seeing or blind?" (Exodus 4,11), it is clear that the power to express thoughts is part of the definition of being a human being. A deaf/mute is not obligated to keep the commandments of the Torah since he is not able to communicate his thoughts or have thoughts communicated to him. He is an incomplete human being.

But between the two faculties, each with its respective objects, there is a great difference. For the intellective faculty is always uniformly stimulated by its objects, these objects being eternally enduring. The relatively greater or lesser arousal from time to time is a function neither of the objects themselves nor of the intellect — for the relationship between the intellect and its objects is eternally fixed — but rather of the respectively varying sway of the imagination over the intellect. The imagination, however, is different, for it changes in accordance with changes in its objects, as well as with changes in its senses, growing stronger or weaker relative to the lusts of the senses as the latter wax or wane in strength. This explains why imagination grows stronger and exercises a greater sway over intellect in youth than it does in old age. And this would seem to be the intent of the statement of our sages (Kinnim 6): "R. Shimon b. Akashya said: 'Elderly ignoramuses, the older they grow, the more their minds are tossed about, as it is written (Job 12:20): "He removes the speech of the trusty and takes the understanding of the aged" — but elderly Torah scholars, the older they grow, the more settled their minds become, as it is written (Ibid 12): "With the old, there is wisdom, and, with length of days, understanding."'" The meaning here is not that elderly Torah scholars increase in wisdom the older they grow, for it is possible that this is not so. In view of the fact that the intellect requires bodily vessels, it is possible that when one grows very old and these vessels grow correspondingly weak, the intellect will weaken accordingly. Therefore, the Tanna does not say "wisdom increases in them" (though this is the version in chapter "Hashoel" [Shabbath 152a]), but rather, "the more settled their minds become." That is, elderly Torah scholars, who, in their youth, abandoned the lusts of the world and chose the path of good — the older they grow, the more settled their minds become. They grow more at peace with themselves and their minds acquiesce more and more in their earlier abnegation. For in their youths, though they acquiesced in the abandonment of the lusts and luxuries of the world, it is impossible that their youthfulness should not sometimes have swayed them towards their enjoyment. And though their intellects would counter this tendency and prevent them from indulging themselves, it is impossible that they should not have desired these things somewhat and that their minds could have been completely settled, caught as they were between these two contending forces. But the older they grow and the weaker their lusts become, and the more they see that all their imaginings in respect to the things of this world are transitory and evanescent, vanishing between their very fingers, then their intellects need no longer wage a counter-offensive, and their minds are at rest. But the very opposite is the fate of the elderly ignoramuses. For in their youths they were enticed by the lusts of the world, and their minds were settled at that time, giving little heed to the objections of the intellect. But the older they grow, the more the world slips away from them and they from it. They see that all they desired and chose in their youths is void and vacuous and that they have inherited only falsehood. As a result, their minds are not settled in respect to what they had acquiesced in. In spite of this, however, because they had not learned righteousness and had grown accustomed to evil ways, it is not in the power of their intellects to remove them completely from the path that they had trodden until now. Therefore, the older they grow, the more they are buffeted about between two paths. This is the intent of our sages in "their minds are tossed about." The analogy is to a tempest-tossed vessel caught in the middle of the sea, contending waves moving it in different directions. The mariners are powerless to keep it to an even course, but sometimes it veers in one direction and sometimes in another. The same is true of those who are enticed by the lusts of this world as they grow older. In their youths their minds were at rest, and in their old age they are tossed about. For it is the nature of the imagination to see only what is before its eyes. It does not see the future, and it images the immediate good as continuous and never-ending.