Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 6, scan section 73

likened to a nut ? It means to say that, as a nut, although soiled, what is within it is clean : so also, although a scholar has sinned, his study of the law is not rejected. Rabba bar Shila met Elijah and said to him : What is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing? He answered him : He had uttered doctrine in the name of all other rabbis, but in the name of R. Meir He had not uttered. He said to him: Why? Be- cause he learned doctrine from the mouth of A'her. He said to him again: Why? R. Meir found a pomegranate. He ate its inside and cast away its husk. He answered him: He is at this moment saying : Meir my son is speaking and says : At the time that men we're afiflicted, the Shekhina used the following lan- guage : My head and my arm are heavy on me {i.e., I am sorry that the men I have created have to die for their sins). If the S6 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. Holy One, blessed be He, is thus grieved when the blood of wicked men is poured out, how much more when the blood of the righteous man is poured out. Samuel found R. Jehudah when the latter was swinging upon the bolt of a door and weeping. He said to him : Is it a small thing that is written concerning the rabbis [Is. xxxiii. 18]: "Where is he who wrote down? where is he that weighed? where is he that counted the towers"? "Where is he that counted ? " for they counted all the letters that are in the Books of the Law. " Where is he that weighed ? " for they weighed the light and the heavy things which are in the Law. " Where is he that counted the towers?" for they taught three hundred doctrines concerning the tower which flies in the air. And R. Ami said : Three hundred questions were treated by Doeg and Ahithophel concerning the tower which flies in the air. And we learned, however, in a Mishna (Tract Sanhedrin, chap. xi. i): Three kings and four private persons have no position in the world to come, and we — what will there be for us? He said to him : Oh, clever one, there was uncleanness in their hearts. It was said about A'her: Greek melody ceased not from his mouth, as it was said of him (A'her), that at the time when he stood up to go out of the college many books of the Minim used to fall from his lap. Nimus of Gardi * asked R. Meir: Does all wool which goes down to the dyeing-vat come up with the right color? He answered him : All which was clean on its mother's (sheep's) back does so come up ; all which was not clean on its mother's back does not so come up. It is said above : R, Aqiba went into the heavenly garden in peace and came down from it in peace. And it is to him that the scriptural passage may be applied [Song of Songs i. 4] : " Oh, draw me ! after thee will we run." Nevertheless R. Aqiba was also in danger of being thrust away by the angels, but the Holy One, blessed be He, said to them : Leave this elder, for he is worthy to avail himself of My glory. What kept R. Aqiba from being misled, as was A'her? The passage [i Kings xix. 11, 12]: "But not in the wind was the Lord ; and after the wind was an earthquake, but not in the * Nimus of Gardi was a Gentile, and it is stated of him in Midrash that he was one of the greatest men that ever lived among the nations. The modern writers differ very much as to who he was, but we showed in our "Saneiger," p. I93, that he was one of the judges of the Supreme Criminal Courts of Gardum. TRACT HAGIGA (HOLOCAUST). 37 earthquake was the Lord ; and after the earthquake was a fire, but not in the fire was the Lord ; and after the fire was the sound of a soft whisper. And, behold, the Lord passed by " {i. e., from the whisper he understood that there was the Shekhina). The rabbis taught : Six things are said with regard to demons, three in which they are Hke the angels: they have wings, they float from one end of the world to the other, and they know what is about to be ; and three in which they are like men : they eat and drink, they are fruitful and multiply, and they are mortal. Six things are said with regard to men, three in which they are like angels : they have knowledge like the angels, they go with stature erect, and they speak in the holy language ; and three like the beasts : they eat and drink like beasts, and they are fruitful and multiply, and they relieve nature. " Every one luho does not respect , the glory,' etc. What is meant by this? Said R. Joseph : This is the man who coinmits a transgression secretly. This is in accordance with R. Itz'hak, who said : Every one who committeth a transgression secretly is as though he jarred the feet of the Shekhina, as it is written [Is. Ixvi. i] : " Thus hath said the Lord, The heaven is my throne and the earth is my foot-stool." But this is not so, for R. Alea the Elder said (in Tract Moed Katan), that in such a case he may go to a place where he is not known ? (as it will be ex- plained in Moed Katan). This presents no difficulty. The former is the case of a man who has found a means of checking his evil nature ; the other, of one who is not able to do so. R. Jehudah in the name of R. Na'hmani, the interpreter of Resh Lakish, lectured : Every one who gazes upon three things, his eyes grow weak, viz. : upon the bow, and the prince, and the priests. Upon the bow, for it is written [Ezek. i. 28] : " Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain . . . this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord." Upon the prince, for it is written [Num. xxvii, 20]: "And thou shalt put some of thy greatness upon him." * He that gazeth upon the priests — this has to do with the time that the Temple was in existence, when they stood upon their plat- form and blessed Israel in the ineffable name. The same lectured again in the name of the same authority : * Such hagadical statements must not be taken literally, merely in their allegori- cal sense. Some of them we will explain in our introduction to the Hagadah. 38 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. It is written [Mic. vii. 5] : " Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a confidant." It means, if the evil imagination say to thee, Do thou sin and the Lord will forgive, be not per- suaded, as it is written : " Trust ye not in an evil one " ;* and "an evil one" is nothing but the evil imagination, as it is written [Gen. viii. 21]: "The imagination of a man's heart is evil " ; and there is no " guide " but the Lord, as it is written [Jer. iii. 4] : " My father, the guide of my youth art thou." Perhaps one might say, Who witnesseth against me ? The stones of a man's house and the timbers of his house, these witness against him, as it is written [Hab. ii. 11]: "For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the wood