If the evil inclination overpowers you to transgress or to do [a sinful action], consider as if you were in the time of the religious persecution (bi-she‘at ha-shemad), you would have experienced suffering or death for the sake of the blessed holy One. “Therefore do maidens love you” (Song of Songs 1-3), to the point of death they love you. If they wanted to murder you or to torture you until death was chosen rather than life, you would have endured it. All the more so regarding this matter, which is not so great, and your desire overcomes you, but you receive a great reward, for it is better for a person to control his desire more than fulfilling one hundred commandments.

Translated by Elliot Wolfson, “Martyrdom, Eroticism and Asceticism in Twelfth Century Ashkenazi Piety,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth Century Europe, 171-220. Edited by J. van Engen and M. Signer, Notre Dame- University of Notre Dame Press, 2001.