ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף יחזקאל 6:4

27. The Rabbi: Just so, O King of the Khazars, by God! This is the truth, the real faith, and everything else may be abandoned. Perhaps this was Abraham's point of view when divine power and unity dawned upon him prior to the revelation accorded to him. As soon as this took place, he gave up all his speculations and only strove to gain favour of God, having ascertained what this was and how and where it could be obtained. The Sages explain the words: 'And he brought him forth abroad' (Genesis 15), thus: Give up thy horoscopy! This means: Forsake astrology as well as any other doubtful study of nature. Plato relates that a prophet, who lived at the time of the king Morinus, said prophetically to a philosopher who was zealously devoted to his art: Thou canst not reach me on this road, but only those whom I have placed as intermediaries between me and mankind, viz. the prophets and the true law. The Book of Yetzirah is constructed on the mystery of ten units equally acknowledged in east and west, but neither from natural causes, nor rational conviction. The following sentences are a Divine mystery: 'Ten Sefirōth without anything else; close thy mouth from speaking, close thy heart from thinking. If thy heart runs away, return to God' (Sefer Yetzirah 1:8); for with reference to this [the prophet] says: 'Running and returning' (Ezekiel 1:15). On this basis the covenant was made.--Their measure is ten in endless progression, (Ezekiel 1:7) the end being linked to the beginning, and the beginning to the end just as a flame which is attached to the coal. Know thou, think and reflect that the Creator is one, without another, and there is no number which thou canst count before 'one.' (Ezekiel 6:4). The book concludes as follows: As soon as Abraham had understood, meditated, discerned and clearly grasped, the Lord of the universe revealed Himself to him, called him His friend and made a covenant with him between the ten fingers of his hand, which is the covenant of the tongue; and between the ten toes of his feet, which is the covenant of circumcision, and He pronounced upon him the word: 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee' (Jeremiah 1:5).

29. The Rabbi: I have already called thy attention to the fact that they were so skilled in real astronomical observations that they knew the revolution of the moon which, according to Davidian tradition, amounts to twenty-nine days, twelve hours and seven hundred and ninety-three fractions. No flaw has been found in it hitherto. They also calculated the solar year, taking care that Passover should not fall till after the Tekūfāh of Nisān, as some of them explained: 'If you see that the equinox of Nisān would be on the sixteenth of Nisān, make the year an embolismic one,' lest Passover fell in the winter season. God's command fixed the feast in the words: 'Observe the month of Abīb.' (Deuteronomy 16:1). The Tekūfāh, as accepted by the people, is not the true one, but only approximate, on account of the division of the year into four seasons, viz. ninety-one days, seven and a half hours. According to this calculation Passover would fall in the winter. This induced the Christians to attack the Jews and to think that the latter had lost the basis of their belief. They themselves are without a basis, since their Easter would, according to their calculation of the commonly known equinox, take place before the beginning of spring. They did not, however, pay attention to the true equinox, which was kept secret and not given up to common knowledge. According to their calculation Passover never falls otherwise than when the sun has reached the head of Aries, though only by one day. For the last thousand years no mistake has occurred, and this agrees with the calculation of Al Battāni, being most correct and accurate. Can the revolutions of sun and moon be calculated otherwise than by a most intimate knowledge of astronomy? The problem of the sentence: 'If the new moon appears before noon, etc. . .' has been discussed before. There exists a book on this special subject, styled Chapters of R. Eliezer,' in which we find dissertations on the extent of the globe and every sphere, the nature of the stars, the signs of the zodiac, constellations, houses, happy omens, good and evil influences, ascensions and descensions, elevations and the extent of their movements. He was one of the best known doctors of the Mishnāh. Samuel, one of the doctors of the Talmud said: 'The roads of heaven are as familiar to me as the streets of Nehardaea'. They devoted themselves to this study only in the service of the Law, because the calculation of the revolution of the moon with the disturbances of her course did not completely tally with the calculation of the time of her conjunction with the sun, viz., the Mōlād. The time when the moon is not visible prior to the Mōlād and immediately after it also, can only be calculated with the help of sound astronomical knowledge. Similarly, the knowledge of the changes of the four seasons can only be properly obtained with the aid of a knowledge of the lowest and highest points and the various ascensions of stars as well as their variations. He who occupies himself with this study must bring to bear on it also the knowledge of spheres. The remarkable knowledge of natural history displayed in the sayings of the Sages, without any intention on their part of teaching this science, is quite astonishing. What books, in thy opinion, must have been at the disposal even of the students among them?