Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 12, scan section 32

therefore leave me in my attic, and you shall not be afraid of me. Said R. Samuel b. R. Na'hmani: I was informed by the mother of R. Jonathan that she was told by the wife of R. Eliezar that no less than eighteen and no more than twenty-two years after his death she kept him in his attic. She used to ascend every day to examine his hair, and found nothing, and when it happened that one hair fell out, blood was visible. One day she found a worm in his ear, and she was dejected. But he appeared to * Rashi explains that while sailing they were in danger of being wrecked by violent storms, and they prayed to be saved because of the merits of Eliezar, and they were saved miraculously, and therefore they made him this present. f There is a custom even now among the orthodox Jews, that when a blood-stain is found on the sheet of a married woman, it is carried to the rabbi to determine if it is that kind of blood for which the woman must be separated for two weeks, and after that time to take a legal bath ; or whether the stain is not that kind of blood for which she must be separated ; as there is a Mishna [in Tract Nida, Chap. II.] that five colors of blood are considered unclean {i.e., for which she must be separated), and the other kinds are not considered blood, and she may have intercourse with her husband without taking the prescribed legal bath. Hence the sixty kinds of blood mentioned in this legend. The number " sixty" seems to be a favored number with them for exaggeration. 2,6 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. her in a dream, telling her : It is nothing to be dejected for, as this is a punishment for allowing a young scholar to be insulted in my hearing, and not protesting against it, as I ought to have done. When two parties had a law-suit, they used to come and stand by the door, and each of them would explain his cause. Thereafter a voice was heard from the attic: You, so-and-so, are just with your claim; or, You, so-and-so, are unjust. It hap- pened one day that his wife w^as quarrelling with a neighbor, and the latter exclaimed : It may occur to you, as to your husband who is not buried. And when the rabbis heard this, they said: When this conduct goes to such a length, it is an insult to the deceased. According to others, R. Simeon b. R. Jo'hai, his father, appeared to one of the rabbis in a dream, and said: There is my little dove among you, and you do not care to bring it to me. And the rabbis decided to employ themselves with his funeral. However, the inhabitants of Akhbria would not let them remove R. Eliezar from his attic, because during all the years R. Eliezar slept in his attic not a wild beast had come to their city. On one eve of the Day of Atonement the inhabit- ants of the city mentioned were troubled, and took away the guard from R. Eliezar's house ; and the rabbis hired some men of the village of Biri, and they took the corpse with the bed and brought it to the rabbis, who removed it to the cave of his fathers. They, however, found the cave surrounded by a snake, and said : Snake, snake, open thy mouth, and let the son enter to his father. And it did so. Rabbi then sent a message to the widow that he would like to marry her, and she answered : An object which was used by a holy man should not be used by an ordinary man. There is a parable: Should the hook which was used by the hero to hang up his weapon be also used by Kulba the shepherd to hang up his knapsack ? Sent Rabbi to her : Let it be granted that he was greater than myself in wisdom. Was he also greater than I in meritorious acts ? And she answered : You admit, then, that he was greater in wisdom than you, of which I was unaware. I am, however, aware that in meritorious acts he was greater than you, as he submitted to chastisements, which you did not. Where is it known that R. Eliezar was greater in wisdom than Rabbi ? When Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel and R. Je- hoshua b. Kar'ha were sitting in the college on benches, R. Elie- zar and Rabbi were sitting before them on the floor, objecting and answering (discussing the Halakhas taught). And once the TRACT BABA METZIA (MIDDLE GATE). 217 sages said : We are drinking the water of the two young men, and we let them sit on the floor ! They prepared benches for them, and they occupied them. Said R. Simeon b. Gamaliel to Rabbi : I possess only one little dove (only one son), and you want me to lose it (he was afraid of an " evil eye," as Rabbi was then too young). And they made him descend to his former seat on the floor. Then R. Jehoshua b. Kar'ha said : Is it right that he who has a father shall live, and he who has not shall die ? {i.e., because R. Eliezar was an orphan, we shall leave him on the bench without fear of an " evil eye," even though he was of the same age as Rabbi). They therefore made R. Eliezar also take his former seat on the floor. Eliezar became dejected, say- ing: They compare me to him. Until that time, when Rabbi said anything, R. Eliezar used to support him ; from that time, however, when Rabbi used to say: I have to object, R. Eliezar would say to him: You mean to object from this and this; here is the answer to your objection, and also to an objection you intend'to raise from this and this, and so you are surrounding us with lots of objections which are of no value. Rabbi became dejected, and came to complain before his father, who answered: You should not be angry, as he (Eliezar) is a lion, the son of a lion, and you are a lion, the son of a fox. And this is what Rabbi said elsewhere: There were three modest men, my father, the children of Bathyra, and Jonathan the son of Saul. My father, as said above, that he compared himself to a fox; the Beni Bathyra, as it is said (Passover, p. 127), that they who were princes themselves have left their places to Hillel, as he was greater in wisdom than they; and Jonathan b. Saul, as it is writ- ten [I. Samuel, xxiii. 17] : " And thou wilt be king over Israel, and I will be next unto thee." [But perhaps Jonathan said so because he had seen that the whole world was sympathizing with David ; and also the Beni Bathyra, because they were compelled to do so, as they could not answer the questions sub- mitted to them ; therefore R. Simeon b. Gamaliel was certainly one of the modest men of the world.] Said Rabbi : I see that chastisements are favored. And he accepted for himself afflictions for thirteen years, six of them with cold chills, and seven of them with scurvy. The riding-master of Rabbi was wealthier than King Sabur. When he used to feed the animals of Rabbi, the voices of the animals were heard for three miles. And he used to do this at the time Rabbi was doing the necessary of men, and he was