Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 8, scan section 23

man greeted R. Elazar respectfully, and said to him : " Peace be with thee, Rabbi ! " The rabbi did not, however, return the greeting, and, moreover, said : " Vain man, how terribly ugly art thou ! Are all thy townsmen as ugly as thou art ? " And the man replied : " That I know not ; but it would be seemly if thou wert to go to the Creator who formed me and say to Him : ' How ungainly is the creature Thou hast made ! ' " Realizing that he had offended against the man, R. Elazar dismounted and, making an obeisance, said : " I have sinned against thee — forgive me, I pray ! " But the man refused, saying : " Nay, I shall not forgive thee until thou shalt go to the Creator and say to Him : ' How ungainly is the creature Thou hast made ! ' " R. Elazar, however, would not leave the man, and followed him on foot until they reached the city where R. Elazar dwelt. As soon as the townsmen per- ceived him they thronged towards him with greetings. " Peace be with thee, Rabbi, Rabbi ! Master, Master ! " The ugly man who preceded R. Elazar asked them whom they were addressing with " Rabbi " and " Master," and they answered : " The man who is following thee." Said he : " If he be a rabbi, may there not be many like him in Israel." And they asked : " Why not? " So he replied that thus and so had he been served by him. They then pleaded with him : " Still forgive him, for he is a great man in the study of the Law." And he said : " For your sakes I will forgive him, but upon the condition that he shall not do likewise again." Immediately following this, R. Elazar went forth and preached : " A man should be soft as a reed and not hard as a cedar." On account of having been compared with man, it was des- tined for a reed that the Scrolls, Phylacteries, and Mezuzoth should be written with it. " When walls fall downy The rabbis taught: "By 'walls' are meant sound walls ; i.e., such as were not expected to fall, * In Tract Derech Eretz, as well as in the commentaries of Rashi and Tosphath, this man is said to have been Elijah the Prophet, who assumed that disguise in order to humble R. Elazar. 54 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. but not such as were tottering." What is meant by " such as are tottering"? Walls that stand on the banks of a stream. As it once happened in Neherdai there was a wall resting on a weak foundation ; and although it had been standing for thirteen years, Rabh and Samuel would never pass by beneath it. One day R. Ada bar Ahabha came to Neherdai, and together with Rabh and Samuel set out to go somewhere. Said Samuel to Rabh : " Let the Master go with me in a roundabout way, so as to avoid the wall." But Rabh replied : " To-day this is not necessary. For R. Ada is with us, and his merits are such that a wall would not fall where he is about to walk ; hence I have no fear." R. Huna had wine in a room which was in an unsafe condi- tion, and the walls of which were momentarily expected to fall. He wished to remove the wine, but was afraid to enter the room. So he got R. Ada bar Ahabha to enter the room with him, en- gaged him in a discussion concerning a Halakha, and while they were arguing R. Huna's men removed the wine. After they left, the walls of the room fell in. When R. Ada realized how he had been used, he became angry. (What R. Ada did to be so eminently favored will be related in Tract Megilla.) Rabha asked Raphram bar Papa : " Canst thou not relate to me the good things which R. Huna did ? " And he replied : " I do not remember anything of his youth ; but when he was of mature age, I know that whenever there was a storm in the city where he lived, which caused any damage to the buildings, he would have himself carried about in a golden palanquin and ex- amine the city, and wherever he noticed an unsafe wall, would order its demolition. Wherever the owner of that building could not afford to have it rebuilt, R. Huna would have it done at his own expense. On every eve of Sabbath he would send his servants to the markets with instructions to purchase all the vegetables, which the marketers had left on their hands, and throw them into the stream, in order that they might not be put on sale again the following week in an unwholesome condition." [Why did he not rather distribute them among the poor than throw them into the stream ? Because the poor would depend upon receiving them free the second time, and would not buy any at all. Then why did he not use them as food for the ani- mals? Because R. Huna held that articles which a man can use as food should not be purchased as fodder for cattle to com- TRACT TAANITH (FASTING). 55 mence with.] ''Whenever the sickness of Shaibatha* occurred in his city, he would examine it and give the sufferers relief; outside of his house he placed a jar of water for the use of all who desired him to relieve them. When sitting down to a meal, he would order a servant to throw open the doors and call out : ' Whoever desires to eat, let him come in and do so.' " Said Rabha : u I could accomplish all that R. Huna did, with the exception of throwing open my doors and inviting everybody to eat ; for there are a great many poor people in Mehuzza, and I could not feed them all." (According to another version, he said that he could not do this on account of the many soldiers and Persians stationed in Mehuzza, who would take advantage of such an invitation and eat him out of house and home.) Ilpha and R. Johanan studied the Law together. They were in very poor circumstances and were in want of food. So they said : " We will lay aside our studies and engage in some re- munerative occupation, thereby carrying out what is written [Deut. xv. 4] : ' Indeed, there should be no needy man among thee.' ' In the meantime they sat down to eat beneath an un- safe wall. So two angels appeared, and R. Johanan heard one of them say to the other : " Let us throw this wall down upon them, for they are about to leave the pursuit of the future life in order to obtain a worldly livelihood." But the other angel replied : " Let them be ; for there is one of them whom the time will succor and who will shortly become great." R. Johanan heard this, but Ilpha did not, and the former asked : " Did Master hear anything?" And Ilpha replied : " Nay ; I heard nothing." So R. Johanan thought : " Because I heard it and Ilpha did not, in all probability I am the one who is referred to as shortly to be- come great." And he said to Ilpha : " I have reconsidered it and will return to the study of the Law, thus fulfilling what is writ- ten in another passage [ibid. 11] : ' For the needy will not cease out of the land.' " Thus R. Johanan returned to his studies and Ilpha engaged in business. By the time Ilpha returned, R.