Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/94

so concisely, at the same time elucidating the whole matter with such complete thoroughness, that when one considers the brevity with which they expressed this great and mighty thought in its entirety, about which others have written whole books and yet without adequately explaining it, one truly recognizes that the Rabbis undoubtedly spoke through divine inspiration. This saying is found among their precepts (in this tractate), and is, “Let all thy deeds be done for the sake of God”.^[1]

This, then, is the thought we have been dwelling upon in the present chapter, and what we have said must be considered sufficient for the needs of this introduction.^[2]

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1. Abot, II, 12.
2. That is, the Shemonah Peraḳim, which constitute M.’s introduction to his Commentary on Abot. See Introduction, p. 5.

   H. Deot, III, 3 contains a summary of the contents of the latter part of this chapter.

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