ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף משלי 1:6

Torah legislation, in imposing restrictions, is designed to combat the manner in which the yetzer hara would otherwise gradually succeed to make our mind the tool of our body instead of the other way around. The Torah therefore provides five remedies against the five fronts on which the yetzer hara attacks us. 1) Divine Providence that assists even those who rarely need it, being almost perfect. (such as Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus) 2) Parents and teachers for those on the level of a Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah. (happy the woman who bore him) 3) Torah's injunctions and system of reward and punishment. The way of Rabbi Shimori ben Nataniel. (the G'd fearing person) 4) Telling us of the successful lives of those possessed of loving concern for G'ds creatures. (The way of Rabbi Yossi the pious one) 5) Illuminating our minds by its teachings, as illustrated by Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach. (the bubbling well) Proof that niddah of women and keree of the male are similar in nature, part of the general human condition as such, is found in the fact that the changeover from a state of impurity to a state of purity (based on Torah law) is immediate; there is no waiting period after the condition has passed. Zivah, an abnormal flow of blood from the same source, on the other hand, requires a seven day waiting period, suggesting that a severe impurity requires time for its subject to free himself from it completely. It is interesting that the Torah writes the laws of circumcision on the eighth day adjacent to the purification laws of niddah. The male too is purified through circumcision on the eight day. This is the purification from the impurities absorbed by the human species when the first pair of human beings ate from the tree of knowledge at the serpent's behest. If Israel had been purified by the revelation at Mount Sinai, as our sages tell us, (Yevamot 103) this suggests that the purification process had started already previously, and was only completed by that event. From the point of view of what they have in common, zav flux of the male, and zavah flux of the female, should have been written in the Torah side by side. However, the Torah wanted to point out the power of milah, circumcision, as a purifying factor. Rabbi Yochanan points out that impurity is not the result of death, but that death is the result of impurity. He means that a diseased body ( tum-ah ) causes all that it touches to become diseased, and whether death results depends on the intensity of the emanations from that diseased body. In ancient times, among the gentiles, women who menstruated were shunned and kept in quarantine for fear that they might contaminate. Rachel warned her father not to approach her too closely since she had been menstruating at the time. (Genesis 31,35) The lesson we learn from this legislation is that man's mental state has physical effects.

Having spoken of similes, I proceed to make the following remark:—The key to the understanding and to the full comprehension of all that the Prophets have said is found in the knowledge of the figures, their general ideas, and the meaning of each word they contain. You know the verse: “I have also spoken in similes by the Prophets” (Hosea 12:10); and also the verse, “Put forth a riddle and speak a parable” (Ezek. 17:2). And because the Prophets continually employ figures, Ezekiel said, “Does He not speak parables?” (xxi. 5). Again, Solomon begins his book of Proverbs with the words, “To understand a proverb and figurative speech, the words of the wise and their dark sayings” (Prov. 1:6); and we read in Midrash, Shir ha-shirim Rabba, 1:1); “To what were the words of the Law to be compared before the time of Solomon? To a well the waters of which are at a great depth, and though cool and fresh, yet no man could drink of them. A clever man joined cord with cord, and rope with rope, and drew up and drank. So Solomon went from figure to figure, and from subject to subject, till he obtained the true sense of the Law.” So far go the words of our Sages. I do not believe that any intelligent man thinks that “the words of the Law” mentioned here as requiring the application of figures in order to be understood, can refer to the rules for building tabernacles, for preparing the lulab, or for the four kinds of trustees. What is really meant is the apprehension of profound and difficult subjects, concerning which our Sages said, “If a man loses in his house a sela, or a pearl, he can find it by lighting a taper worth only one issar. Thus the parables in themselves are of no great value, but through them the words of the holy Law are rendered intelligible.” These likewise are the words of our Sages; consider well their statement, that the deeper sense of the words of the holy Law are pearls, and the literal acceptation of a figure is of no value in itself. They compare the hidden meaning included in the literal sense of the simile to a pearl lost in a dark room, which is full of furniture. It is certain that the pearl is in the room, but the man can neither see it nor know where it lies. It is just as if the pearl were no longer in his possession, for, as has been stated, it affords him no benefit whatever until he kindles a light. The same is the case with the comprehension of that which the simile represents. The wise king said, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in vessels of silver” (Prov. 25:11). Hear the explanation of what he said:—The word maskiyoth, the Hebrew equivalent for “vessels,” denotes “filigree network”—i.e., things in which there are very small apertures, such as are frequently wrought by silversmiths. They are called in Hebrew maskiyyoth (lit. “transpicuous,” from the verb sakah, “he saw,” a root which occurs also in the Targum of Onkelos, Gen. 26:8), because the eye penetrates through them.

Likewise, the Rabbis said (Megila 16a): "whoever says a wise thing, even among the gentiles is considered a Sage". They also said regarding bringing analogies to make difficult concepts easier to understand: "he taught it by signs and explained it by analogies" (Eruvin 21b); and the wise man said: "to understand a parable and figure, the words of the wise and their riddles" (Prov. 1:6).