Baba Metzia 83b as translated by Soncino
R. Eleazar, son of R. Simeon, once met an officer of the [Roman] Government who had been sent
to arrest thieves,9 ‘How can you detect them?’ he said. ‘Are they not compared to wild beasts, of
whom it is written, Therein [in the darkness] all the beasts of the forest creep forth?’10 (Others say,
he referred him to the verse, He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den.)11 ‘Maybe,’ [he continued,]
‘you take the innocent and allow the guilty to escape?’ The officer answered, ‘What shall I do? It is
the King's command.’ Said the Rabbi, ‘Let me tell you what to do. Go into a tavern at the fourth hour
of the day.12 If you see a man dozing with a cup of wine in his hand, ask what he is. If he is a learned
man, [you may assume that] he has risen early to pursue his studies; if he is a day labourer he must
have been up early to do his work; if his work is of the kind that is done at night, he might have been
rolling thin metal.13 If he is none of these, he is a thief; arrest him.’ The report [of this conversation]
was brought to the Court, and the order was given: ‘Let the reader of the letter become the
messenger.’14 R. Eleazar, son of R. Simeon, was accordingly sent for, and he proceeded to arrest the
thieves. Thereupon R. Joshua, son of Karhah, sent word to him, ‘Vinegar, son of wine!15 How long
will you deliver up the people of our God for slaughter!’ Back came the reply: ‘I weed out thorns
from the vineyard.’ Whereupon R. Joshua retorted: ‘Let the owner of the vineyard himself [God]
come and weed out the thorns.’
One day a fuller met him, and dubbed him: ‘Vinegar, son of wine.’ Said the Rabbi to himself,
‘Since he is so insolent, he is certainly a culprit.’ So he gave the order to his attendant: ‘Arrest him!
Arrest him!’ When his anger cooled, he went after him in order to secure his release, but did not
succeed. Thereupon he applied to him, [the fuller] the verse: Whoso keepeth his mouth and his
tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles.16 Then they hanged him, and he [R. Eleazar son of R.
Simeon] stood under the gallows and wept. Said they [his disciples] to him: ‘Master, do not grieve;
for he and his son seduced a betrothed maiden on the Day of Atonement.’ [On hearing this,] he laid
his hand upon his heart17 and exclaimed: ‘Rejoice, my heart! If matters on which thou [sc. the heart]
art doubtful are thus,18 how much more so those on which thou art certain! I am well assured that
neither worms nor decay will have power over thee.’ Yet in spite of this, his conscience disquieted
him. Thereupon he was given a sleeping draught, taken into a marble chamber,19 and had his
abdomen opened, and basketsful of fat removed from him and placed in the sun during Tammuz and
Ab,20 and yet it did not putrefy.21 But no fat putrefies!22 — [True,] no fat putrefies; nevertheless, if it
contains red streaks,23 it does. But here, though it contained red streaks, it did not. Thereupon he
applied to himself the verse, My flesh too shall dwell in safety.24A similar thing 25 befell R. Ishmael son of R. Jose.
[One day] Elijah met him and remonstrated with him: ‘How long will you deliver the people of our
God to execution!’ — ‘What can I do’, he replied, ‘it is the royal decree.’ ‘Your father fled to Asia,’1he retorted, ‘do you flee to Laodicea!’
{The Talmud after discussing this story goes off on a tangent but then returns to continue the story on page 84b}
[Reverting to the story of R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon] yet even so,1 R. Eleazar son of R.
Simeon's fears were not allayed,2 and so he undertook a penance. Every evening they spread sixty
sheets for him, and every morning sixty basins of blood and discharge were removed from under
him. In the mornings his wife prepared him sixty kinds of pap,3 which he ate, and then recovered.
Yet his wife did not permit him to go to the schoolhouse, lest the Rabbis discomfort him. Every
evening he would exhort them,4 ‘Come, my brethren and familiars!’ whilst every morning he
exclaimed, ‘Depart, because ye disturb my studies!’ One day his wife, hearing him, cried out, ‘You
yourself bring them upon you; you have [already] squandered the money of my father's house!’5 So
she left him6 and returned to her paternal home.7 Then there came sixty seamen who presented him
with sixty slaves, bearing sixty purses.8 They too prepared sixty kinds of pap for him, which he ate.
One day she [his wife] said to her daughter, ‘Go and see how your father is faring now.’ She went,
[and on her arrival] her father said to her, ‘Go, tell your mother that our [wealth] is greater than
theirs’ [sc. of his father-in-law's house]. He then applied to himself the verse, She is like the
merchant's ships; she bringeth her food from afar.9 He ate, drank, and recovered, and went to the
schoolhouse. Sixty specimens of blood were brought before him, and he declared them all clean. But
the Rabbis criticised him, saying, ‘Is it possible that there was not [at least] one about which there
was some doubt!’ He retorted, ‘If it be as I [said], let them all be males; if not, let there be one
female amongst them.’10 They were all males, and were named ‘Eleazar’, after him.
It has been taught: Rabbi said: How much procreation did this wicked [state] prevent in Israel.11On his death-bed he said to his wife, ‘I know that the Rabbis are angry with me, and will not
properly attend to me. Let me lie in an upper chamber,12 and do you not be afraid of me.’ R. Samuel
b. Nahmani said: R. Jonathan's mother told me that she was informed by the wife of R. Eleazar son
of R. Simeon: ‘I kept him lying in that upper chamber not less than eighteen nor more than
twenty-two years. Whenever I ascended there, I examined his hair, and [even] if a single hair had
fallen out, the blood would well forth. One day, I saw a worm issue from his ear, whereat I was
much grieved, but he appeared to me in my dream and told me that it was nothing. ["This has
happened," said he,] "because I once heard a scholar insulted and did not protest, as I should have
done." Whenever two people came before him [in a lawsuit], they stood near the door, each stated
his case, and then a voice issued from that upper chamber, proclaiming, "So-and-so, you are liable;
so and-so, you are free."’ Now, one day his wife was quarrelling with a neighbour, when the latter
reviled [her, saying,] ‘Let her be like her husband, who was not worthy of burial!’ Said the Rabbis:
‘When things have gone thus far,13 it is certainly not meet.’14 Others say: R. Simeon b. Yohai
appeared to them in a dream, and complained: ‘I have a pigeon amongst you which you refuse to
bring to me.’ Then the Rabbis went to attend to him [for burial], but the townspeople of Akabaria15did not let them; because during all the years R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon slept in his upper chamber
no evil beast came to their town. But one day — it was the eve of the Day of Atonement, when they
were busily occupied, the Rabbis sent [word] to the townspeople of Biri,16 and they brought up his
bier, and carried it to his father's vault, which they found encircled by a serpent. Said they to it, ‘O
snake, O snake, open thy mouth, and let the son enter to his father.’ Thereupon it opened [its mouth]
for them. Then Rabbi sent [messengers] to propose [marriage] to his wife. She sent back: ‘Shall a
utensil, in which holy food has been used, be used for profane purposes!’ There [sc. in Palestine] the
proverb runs: Where the master hung up his weapons, there the shepherd hung up his wallet. He sent
back word, ‘Granted that he outstripped me in learning, was he [also] my superior in good deeds?’
She returned, ‘Yet at least he outstripped you in learning, though I did not know it. But I do know
[that he exceeded you] in [virtuous] practice, since he submitted himself to mortification.’
Footnotes to page 83b
(9) [(a) Freebooters (latrones) who overran Judea during the war between the Emperor Severus and his rival Pescennius
[censored] (193-4 C.E.) (Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, IV, p. 207); or (b) ordinary robbers (Krauss. MGWJ, 1894. p. 151).]
(10) Ps. CIV, 20.
(11) Ps. X, 9.
(12) 10 a.m., the usual breakfast hour.
(13) Without using a hammer, so that he did not attract attention.
(14) Let him who gave the advice carry it out.
(15) Degenerate son of a righteous father.
(16) Prov. XXI, 23.
(17) Lit., ‘his inwards’.
(18) Seen to be just. He was doubtful whether the man had really merited hanging. But now he saw that he was, for the
seduction of a betrothed maiden is punished by stoning, and all who are stoned are hung.
(19) An operating theatre(?)
(20) The summer months, corresponding to about June and July.
(21) This was taken as a sign that he had acted rightly and would be proof against decay.
(22) Rashi: unless flesh adheres to it.
(23) Which are a fleshy substance.
(24) Ps. XVI, 9.
(25) Viz., that he became an informer to the State.
Footnotes to page 84b
(1) Notwithstanding that his fat did not putrefy; v. supra 83b.
(2) Lit., ‘his mind was not at rest’, that he had not ensnared innocent men too.
(3) Made of figs (Rashi).
(4) His pains and sores personified.
(5) By illness.
(6) Lit., ‘rebelled’.
(7) The Heb. expression means her father's house after his death.
(8} These seamen had encountered a violent storm at sea, and had prayed to be delivered for the sake of R. Eleazar son
of R. Simeon. This gift then was a thanksgiving offering to him (Tosaf.).
(9) Prov. XXXI, 14. ‘she’ is referred to the Torah; for the sake of his learning, in the merit of which the seamen had been
delivered, his ‘food’ — i.e. wealth — had been brought to him from afar.
(10) I.e., the children of those women whose blood he had declared clean.
(11) R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon having been appointed by the state to track down malefactors, could not come to the
school, where, by his wide knowledge of what is clean or unclean he would have permitted many women to their
husbands.
(12) Instead of being buried.
(13) I.e., that people know that he is dead yet unburied.
(14) It dishonours him.
(15) Josephus (Wars, II, XX, 6) mentions that he fortified a place of that name in Upper Galilee; it was probably
identical with Akhbura, a town to the south of Safed. Neubauer p. 226f.
(16) A neighbouring town. [Either Bira, S.E., or Kfar Bir'im, N.W. of Gush Halab; Klein, Neue Beitrage, p. 39.]
Topic: What Prevented Rabbi Eleazar From Being Buried For At Least 18 Years! (Read 2448 times)