Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/102

82 Rabbis say, "If a prophet becomes enraged, the spirit of prophecy departs from him". They adduce proof for this from the case of Elisha, from whom, when he became enraged, prophecy departed, until his wrath had subsided, at which he exclaimed, "And now bring me a musician!" Grief and anxiety may also cause a cessation of prophecy, as in the case of the patriarch Jacob who, during the days when he mourned for Joseph, was deprived of the Holy Spirit, until he received the news that his son lived, whereupon Scripture says, "The spirit of Jacob, their father, revived", which the Targum renders, "And the spirit of prophecy descended upon their father, Jacob". The sages, moreover, say, "The spirit of prophecy rests not upon the idle, nor upon the sad, but upon the joyous".

When Moses, our teacher, discovered that there remained no partition between himself and God which he had not removed, and when he had attained perfection by acquiring every possible moral and mental virtue, he sought to comprehend God in His true reality, since there seemed no longer to be any hindrance thereto. He, therefore, implored of God, "Show me, I beseech Thee, Thy glory". But God informed him that this was impossible, as his intellect, since he was a human being, was still influenced by matter. So, God's answer was, "For no man can see me and live". Thus, there remained between Moses and his comprehension of the true essence of God only one transparent obstruction, which was his human intellect still resident