Babylonian Talmud

Rodkinson 1918 — source 16, scan section 37

TRACT SANHEDRIN (SUPREME COUNCIL). 355 Johanan: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Noah: Put there diamonds and pearls, that they shall give you light as the middle of the day. " With lower second and third stories shalt thou make it." The lower for manure, the second for animals and the third for man. [Ibid. viii. 7] : " He sent forth a raven." Said Resh Lakish : A victorious answer has the raven given Noah: Thy mas- ter hates me and thou doest the same. Thy master hates, as from the clean he took seven and from the unclean only two, and thou hatest me as thou sends a creature of which you have only two, while from others you have seven. If I would be killed by heat or by cold would not the world be lacking my creation? [Ibid., ibid. 8] : " He then sent forth a dove from him.'" Said R. Jeremiah : Infer from this that clean fowls may be kept in the residence of uprights. [Ibid., ibid. 11]:" And the dove came in to him at the time of evening." Said R. Elazar: The dove said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Lord of the Universe, may my food be bitter like an olive, but I shall receive it from thy hand rather than that it should be sweet like honey, and I shall receive from beings of blood and flesh. " Plucked off tereph." And whence do we know that tereph means food? From [Prov. xxx. 8] : " Let me eat the bread," in which the same term tereph is used. It reads farther on [Gen. viii. 19] : '* After their families." Infer from this that each family was placed separate. R. Hana b. Bisna said: Eliezar, the servant of Abraham, questioned Shem the Great: As all the animals were placed separately, where was your family placed? And he answered: We had great trouble in the ark to feed all the animals. The creature whose habit it is to eat in the daytime we had to feed in the day, and those whose habit it is to eat in the night, we have to feed in the night. A chameleon, my father did not know what its food is. It happened one day that he cut a pomegranate and a worm fell out of it, and the above consumed it, and from that time prepared its food from the worms found in rotten apples. The lion was fed by his fever, as Rabh said: No less than six and no more than twelve months one can live in fever with- out taking any food. The Aurshina my father found that it slept in a corner of the ark; and to his question: Dost thou 356 THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD. need any food, it answered: I saw thou art very busy, and I thought I would not trouble thee. And he blessed her that it shall never die, and this is what it reads [Job, xxix. i8] : " As the chaul (aurshina) shall I have many days." R. Hana b. Levai said : Shem the Great questioned Eliezar, the servant of Abraham : When the kings of the West and East came to fight you, what have you done? And he answered: The Holy One, blessed be He, took Abraham, sat him down to His right, and we, however, took earth, threw it, and they became swords. Straw and they became arrows, as it reads [Ps. ex. i] : " Sit thou at my right hand, until I place thy ene- mies a stool for thy feet," And also [Isa, xH. 2] : " Who waketh up from the east the man whom righteousness met in his steps? He giveth up nations before him, and maketh him rule over kings. That his sword may render them as the dust, as driven stubble his bow." (Here is repeated from Taanith, p. 56, the legend of Nahum of Gim-zu.) " The gemration of dispersion has no share," etc. What had they done? The school of R. Shila said: They wanted to build a tower to ascend to the sky and split it with hatchets, so that the contained water shall pour down. This legend was ridiculed in the West. If they intended to ascend to the sky they ought to have built the tower on a mountain, and not in a valley. Therefore, said R. Jeremiah b. Elazar: They were divided into three parties. The first party said : Let us go there to dwell ; the second : Let us go there and worship their idols, and the third : Let us go there to fight. The party that said, Let us go there to dwell, were scattered all over the world, and the party that said. Let us go there and fight, became demons, devils, etc. And the party that said. Let us go there and wor- ship their idols, were scattered to Babylon, to which it reads [Gen. xi. 9] : " Therefore is the name Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language." Said R. Johanan : From the tower, a third of it was burned, the second was swallowed and a third is still in existence. " Men of Sodom," etc. The rabbis taught : Men of Sodom have no share in the world to come, as the verse cited in the Mishna. And in addition to it, said R. Jehudah : They were wicked with their bodies and sinners with their money. With their bodies, as it reads [ibid, xxxix. 9] : " How then can I do this great evil and sin against God? " and sinners with their money, as it reads [Deut. xv. 9] : " It will be sin in thee." Be- TRACT SANHEDRIN (SUPREME COUNCIL). 357 fore the Lord means blasphemy. " Exceedingly " — all their sins were intentionally. In a Boraitha it was taught the re- verse: wicked with their money, as it reads [ibid., ibid. 9] " And thy eye be thus evil against thy needy brother," and sinners with their bodies [Gen. xxxix, 9] : "And sin against God." "Be- fore the Lord " means blasphemy, and " Exceedingly " means bloodshed, as it reads [II Kings, xxi. 16] : " And also innocent blood did Menasseh shed exceedingly." The rabbis taught: The men of Sodom were exalted because of the overflowing goodness of the Lord. Concerning them it reads [Job, xxviii. 58] : " The earth out of which cometh forth bread, is under Its surface turned up as it were with fire. Her stones are the place whence the sapphire cometh; and golden dust is also there. On the path which no bird of prey knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not surveyed," etc. And they said : As our land supplies us with sufficient bread, why shall we leave in travellers who come only to lessen our money? Let our land forget that there is a foot of stranger, as it reads [ibid., ibid. 4].* He said again: It reads [Ps. Ixii. 2] : " How long will ye devise mischief against a man? Will ye all assault him mur- derously, as though he were a falling wall, a tottering fence?" Infer from this that they used to place a wealthy man under a tottering wall and pushed the wall over him, and robbed him of his money. He said again : It reads [Job, xxiv. 16] : " They break into houses in the dark, in the daytime they lock themselves in : they know not the light." Infer from this that when they saw a wealthy man they used to deposit with him balsam, which usu- ally the depositories placed in their treasure box, and in the night they scent the balsam and rob him.f