"If freedom has wings," taught Reb Idrash, "it also has eyes, a forehead,
genitals. Each time it takes wing, it transfigures a bit of both the
world and man in the excitement of its flowering."

And Reb Lima: "In the beginning, freedom was ten times engraved on the
tables of the Law. But we so little deserved it that the Prophet
broke them in his anger."

"Any coercion is a ferment of freedom," Reb Idrash taught further.
"How can you hope to be free if you are not bound with all our blood
to your God and to man?"

And Reb Lima: "Freedom awakens gradually as we become conscious of
our ties, like the sleeper of his senses. Then, finally, our actions
have a name."

A teaching which Reb Zale translated into this image: "You think it is
the bird which is free. Wrong: it is the flower."

And Reb Elat into this motto: "Love your ties to their last splendor,
and you will be free."

Edmond Jabes _The Book of Questions_ v.I p.115