Kaisipang Hudyo sa Job 36:25: HaEmunot veHaDeot

The Fourth piece of evidence is from time. I knew that time consists of three components: past, present, and future. Even though the present is shorter than any other time, I considered it as a point. I thought, "If a person strives to ascend from this point upwards, it is impossible for him because time has no end. What has no end will not allow thoughts to rise above it and pass through it. The rising thought itself will prevent it from going downward, and it will pass through it until it reaches us. If the being does not reach us, it will not exist. Thus, it is necessary to conclude that we, the aggregate of beings, are not beings, and the existent is not existent. When I found myself in existence, I knew that existence passed through time until it reached me. If time did not have an end, existence would not pass through it, and my thought would have remained in existence, continuing forever without delay. I found that the scripture says similarly about a distant time (Job 36:25): 'Every man sees it, a man looks at it from afar,' and he said (Job 36:3), 'I will raise my knowledge from afar.' I was struck by one of the objectors, someone other than those who believe in this argument. He claimed, "Is it possible for a person to ascend from that which has no end to its parts in walking?" Because every step the person takes, whether an ama (cubit) or an ema (cubit), and raises it in his thought, he finds it dividing into parts that have no end. I was perplexed by this objection because the division of the thing into what has no end occurs only in thought, and it is impossible for it to occur in reality because it is finer than the finest action upon it or the division. If the being ascends from this point in thought and passes through it until it reaches us, and if it does not reach us, existence will not be. The matter is contingent on the fact that we, the aggregate of beings, are not beings, and the existents are not existents. If time, which passes, passed that being in thought and not in reality, it is similar to this objection. If the being passed through time in reality until it reached me, this objection is not refuted because it is only in thought. After these proofs, I have other evidence, some of which I wrote in the section on "Bereshit," and some in the explanation of the laws of creation. You will find them in other compositions as well. Despite all this, I say that the responses I provide in this article to those who dispute this view all strengthen and support it. The person must contemplate them and connect from them to this view that is similar to them.