Ben ‘Azzai said:¹ Whoever keeps four things before his eyes will never sin again, viz. whence he came, whither he goes, what will become of him, and Who will be his Judge. Whence he came: from a putrefying secretion, from a place which the eye cannot see. And whither he goes: to a place of darkness and deep gloom. And what will become of him: worms and maggots. And Who will be his Judge: the Supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. R. Simeon said: He came from a place of defilement, he came from a place of uncleanness and is destined to defile others. He came from a putrefying secretion and goes to a place of worms and maggots, as it is stated, *How much less man, that is worm! and the son of man, that is a maggot!*² R. Eliezer b. Jacob said: Man, that is maggot in his lifetime, alluding to vermin; and the son of man, that is worm in his death. R. Simeon b. Eleazar said: Man is beautiful and splendid, but he brings forth from his inwards something that the eye cannot [bear to] see. To what can this be compared? To a human king who built a large, beautiful and magnificent palace through which a stream of water from a tannery flowed. Every passer-by exclaimed, ‘How beautiful would this palace be but for the stream from the tannery flowing through it!’ So it is with man who resembles [that palace]. Even when he brings forth from his inwards something disgusting which the eye cannot [bear to] see he prides himself before the All-present.³

footnotes: ¹ Cf. Aboth III, 1 (Sonc. ed., p. 26) where a similar teaching is given by ‘Aḳabya b. Mahalalel. ² Job 25, 6. ³ H adds: ‘So if he produced sweet odours and precious oil, how much more would he pride himself over creatures!’ [Cf. ARN, p. 11.]

When R. Eliezer was dying, his disciples came and sat down before him and said to him, ‘Our teacher, teach us a law’. He replied, ‘What shall I teach you? Go forth and be mindful of each other’s honour; and when you pray know before Whom you stand, for through this you will enter into the life of the World to Come’. R. Eleazar b. Azariah said: Five things did R. Eleazar teach us when he was dying, and gladdened us with them more than with what he taught us during his lifetime, viz. the ball, the shoemaker’s last, the amulet, the phylactery, and a round cushion; be mindful of these and immerse them [for purification] just as they are, because they are established laws which were commanded to Moses on Sinai.⁴

footnotes: ⁴ [Cf. ARN, p. 108, where this passage is explained.]

GEMARA. What does Ben ‘Azzai mean by his statement, ‘Whoever takes four things to heart will never sin’? Raba said: The divine attribute of Mercy⁵ has four qualities and so too has Satan. Whoever sets his heart on four things is a sinner, viz. wealth, woman, the evil inclination and strife. It is necessary [to enumerate them all]. If it [only] cited ‘woman’, I might have said that it is because of the prohibition of a married woman, a niddah or a Gentile woman;⁶ therefore it adds ‘the evil inclination’ to include all prohibited unions. If it [only] cited ‘the evil inclination’, I might have said that this only holds good when he is unmarried, but where he has a wife [there need be] no [concern about the evil inclination]. Therefore [it is made clear] that even when he has a wife it is prohibited [to neglect this] lest something forbidden chances to come his way [and he sins]. If it [only] cited ‘the evil inclination’, I might have said that the prohibition holds good only where it concerns his person but not where money [is involved], therefore it adds ‘riches’. And if it [only] cited ‘riches’, I might have said that it is because it concerns money but not if it was connected with strife.⁷ Therefore it was necessary [to enumerate them all].

footnotes: ⁵ A circumlocution for ‘God’. ⁶ V wrongly ‘idolatry’. ⁷ lit. ‘the tongue’.

The question was asked: May one say, ‘Would that I had So-and-so’s money! Would that I had a wife like So-and-so’s wife!’? May one sleep in one bed with his wife who is niddah or not? May one quarrel with a man with whom it is not fit to quarrel? Come and hear and I will answer all these questions. It is stated, *Thou shalt not covet:*⁸ even [by saying,] ‘Would that I had So-and-so’s money!’ To say, ‘Would that I had So-and-so’s money!’ is [the conduct of] a thief or a robber. But [as for the remark], ‘Would that I had as much money as So-and-so!’ why should this be definitely forbidden? He only expresses a wish for himself! But [to say], ‘Would that So-and-so gave me his money!’ constitutes an act of coveting. ‘Would that I had a wife like the wife of So-and-so!’—[by saying this he indicates that] he has already impure thoughts concerning her; but to say ‘Would that the daughter of So-and-so would marry me!’ is certainly permissible. Is not this self-evident? It is necessary [to state this because] he may say to her, ‘Be betrothed to me’ and she may refuse. ‘May one sleep in one bed with his wife who is niddah?’ [It is stated,] And thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is impure by her uncleanness.⁹ He is allowed, however, to eat with her. Whoever approaches his wife¹⁰, which is implied. while she is asleep is as if he approached a ship which is about to be wrecked in the sea.¹¹ Here it is written, And thou shalt not approach, and there it is written, So the shipmaster came to him.¹² is the same as for approach. The context is the danger to the ship in which Jonah was sailing. Some say that he is obliged to bring a sin-offering, as it is written, The soul that sinneth, it shall die.¹³ is הַחׄטֵאת, which is written without the waw and can be read הַחַטָאת, ‘the sin-offering’. Since Ezekiel, in verse 6, mentions [coming] near to a woman in her impurity, by the rule of analogy it is concluded that such a sin can only be atoned by a sin-offering. Some say: It is as if he offered sacrifices to the Golden Calf.¹⁴ occurs, which in Heb. is the same as approached. ‘May one quarrel with a man with whom it is not fit to quarrel?’ It is written, And I contended with them, and cursed them.¹⁵

footnotes: ⁸ Ex. 20, 17, in A.J. 14. ⁹ Lev. 18, 19. ¹⁰ Add with H ‘who is niddah’ ¹¹ He is heading for a sin against the Torah. ¹² Jonah 1, 6. The Heb. for came to ¹³ Ezek. 18, 20. This sentence is omitted in H. The point appears to be this: The word sinneth ¹⁴ H adds Ex. 32, 19, as the proof-text where came nigh ¹⁵ Neh. 13, 25. Nehemiah strove with the Jews who had married heathen women.

We have learnt there:¹⁶ Whoever speculates upon four things, it were better¹⁷, n. 5). for him had he not come into the world, viz.: What is above, what is beneath, what is before, what is after.¹⁸, nn. 6-8. This may be compared with the statement, ‘Not only does he pride himself over his fellow-creatures but also over his Creator’. If being of unclean limbs he rebels against his Creator, how much more so if a perfumed odour filled him! This is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Hiram, king of Tyre,¹⁹ 13). ‘[At the Creation] I looked upon you [observing your future arrogance] and created the excretory organs of man’.²⁰ The question was asked: May one pride himself over the agents²¹ who do unworthy deeds by not responding to them or speaking to them? Come and hear: [It is stated,] Whoso is haughty of eye and proud of heart, him will I not suffer.²² One should respond to them with lax lips but not with levity.

footnotes: ¹⁶ Ḥag. 11b (Sonc. ed., p. 59). ¹⁷ Ḥag. reads ‘pity’ instead of ‘see’ (loc. cit. ¹⁸ These terms have a temporal significance as to what happened before the Creation and what will happen in the hereafter. For another interpretation, cf. loc. cit. ¹⁹ Cf. B.B. 75a (Sonc. ed., p. 302). Ezek. 28 is addressed against the Prince of Tyre, identified in the Talmud with king Hiram. The Prince is tauntingly asked whether he could compare himself with Adam, who enjoyed the material delights of Eden (ibid. ²⁰ To curb human pride. ²¹ Explained by ‘The heart and the eye are the two agents of sin’ (j.Ber. I, 5, 3C). ²² Ps. 101, 5.

‘When R. Eliezer was dying’, etc. As it is written, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.²³ Although you have been told, ‘Love your neighbour’, when you stand before your Master set aside your honour.²⁴ The question was asked: When one is greeted while engaged in reciting the Tefillah, is it permissible to return the salutation? Even the salutation of a king it is forbidden to return,²⁵ but in the case of the Shema‘ he returns the salutation when [the king] comes early to his door.²⁶ 14a (Sonc. ed., p. 81). The meaning is doubtful. Perhaps the intention is to state an extreme case. Should the king come to the house of a subject early, indicating most important business, when the latter is reciting the Shema‘, the greeting may be returned.

footnotes: ²³ Lev. 19, 18. ²⁴ i.e. be humble. V should be emended to יקרבו. ²⁵ Cf. Ber. 30b (Sonc. ed., p. 187). ²⁶ Cf. ibid.

‘Five things’, etc.: ‘A round cushion’. Why?²⁷ For it is written, Woe to the women that sew cushions upon all elbows, and make pads for the head of persons of every stature to hunt souls!²⁸ Here cushions are compared with pads [mispaḥoth]: just as a ‘scab’ [sapaḥath] is clean, as it is written, Then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is a scab,²⁹ so too is a cushion clean.³⁰ The Rabbis taught:³¹ When R. Eliezer fell sick, all the wise men of Israel came to visit him. That day was the Sabbath-eve and he was wearing his tefillin. His son entered to remove them from him,³² but he rebuked him and drove him away in anger. [The son] said to the wise men, ‘I believe that my father’s mind is deranged’. Whereupon [R. Eliezer] exclaimed, ‘His mind and that of his mother are deranged but my mind is not’. As he was dying, he put two of his fingers together and said, ‘Woe to me because of these two Scrolls of the Torah!³³ Much Torah have I learnt and much Torah have I taught,³⁴ yet I extracted little from the knowledge of my teachers like a dog lapping from the sea. My disciples have only extracted little from me like a painting-stick from its tube. If all the trees were made into pens and all the seas into ink, they would not suffice to write down all that I expounded. Moreover, I have studied three hundred laws on the subject of a deep bright spot³⁵ and three hundred established laws³⁶ derived from the verse, Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live,³⁷ and no man, excepting ‘Aḳiba b. Joseph, ever questioned me thereon’ [54a]. The master said, ‘Like a dog lapping from the sea’—he compared himself to a dog! He said it with reference to his disciples. And why to his disciples? Because they did not visit him during his illness; and it has been taught: He said concerning them, ‘I will be surprised if they die a natural death’.³⁸

footnotes: ²⁷ Why is not their stuffing removed before immersion? ²⁸ Ezek. 13, 18. ²⁹ Lev. 13, 6. ³⁰ i.e. the stuffing in it need not be removed before the cushion is immersed. ³¹ Sanh. 68a (Sonc. ed., p. 462). [The story is related in ARN, p. 124ff.] ³² Because they are not worn on the Sabbath. ³³ The parallel passage in Sanh. adds: ‘that are wrapped up’, so that they cannot be read. So had it been with his knowledge, none learning from him because he had been excommunicated. Cf. B.M. 59b (Sonc. ed., p. 353). ³⁴ Before the ban. ³⁵ One of the symptoms of leprosy (Lev. 13, 2). ³⁶ i.e. decisions arrived at after discussion. ³⁷ Ex. 22, 17. ³⁸ Sanh. loc. cit.

The Rabbis taught: When a Sage dies, all the people have the duty to mourn for him, as it is written, *Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him;*³⁹ and it is also written, And Samuel died; and all Israel gathered themselves together, and lamented him.⁴⁰ XXV, 1. Since it states all Israel, it is self-evident that they gathered themselves together! First they mourned for him in the cities and people said, ‘Is this [sufficient] honour for Samuel who journeyed from city to city and from province to province to teach us Torah?’, something which no other prophet had done; as it is said, And he went from year to year in circuit to Beth-el and Gilgal and Miẓpah; and he judged Israel in all those places. And his return was to Ramah, for there was his house; and there he judged Israel.⁴¹ VII, 16f. Therefore it states, And all Israel gathered themselves together, i.e. there was a united national mourning. Raba said: Greater was their preoccupation [with mourning] in the case of Samuel than in that of Moses. Of Moses it is written, And the children of Israel wept for Moses,⁴² but here it is written, And all Israel … lamented him—even the women, slaves and minors.

footnotes: ³⁹ 1 Sam. 28, 3. ⁴⁰ ibid. ⁴¹ ibid. ⁴² Deut. 34, 8.

We have learnt there:⁴³ The assembling of the righteous benefits themselves and the world; the scattering of the righteous harms them and the world. The assembling of the wicked harms themselves and the world; the scattering of the wicked benefits them and the world.⁴⁴ When the wicked are uprooted from the world, good comes to the world, as it is stated, And when the wicked perish, there is joy.⁴⁵ When the righteous depart from the world, evil comes to the world, as it is stated, The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart.⁴⁶ Raba said: Do not say that [this refers only] to the men of his generation who knew him but to the whole world; for it is written. And no man layeth it to heart, and it is written there, The whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.⁴⁷ Raba also said: The righteous depart from this world for the sin of neglecting [the study of] the Torah, as it is written, And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel.⁴⁸

footnotes: ⁴³ Sanh. 71b (Sonc. ed., p. 488). ⁴⁴ Because they are no longer able to join together for evil. ⁴⁵ Prov. 11, 10. ⁴⁶ Isa. 57, 1. ⁴⁷ Jer. 12, 11. ⁴⁸ Deut. 4, 44. Higger suggests that the homily is based on the juxtaposition of verses 41-43, which deal with the setting aside of Cities of Refuge for those who killed by accident.

The Rabbis taught:⁴⁹ What reason did the righteous Isaiah see for saying, The righteous perisheth? It means to say that the righteous man is made responsible⁵⁰ for the sins of his generation; as R. Gorion said: When there are righteous in a generation, they are made responsible for the sins of their generation; when there are no righteous in a generation the schoolchildren are made responsible for the generation. The master said: ‘The righteous man is made responsible for the sins of his generation’. He abandoned the [plain] interpretation of the verse and gave it his own interpretation! This is what he meant: People say that [the righteous man] was punished for his own sins, because although he perishes no man layeth it to heart; nevertheless he returned and contradicted⁵¹ them through the Holy Spirit, as it is stated, The righteous is taken away from the evil to come.⁵² [Taken away:] this refers to Aaron, as it is written, As Aaron thy brother was taken away.⁵³. The Heb. verb is the same. What evil was there? And the Canaanite, the king of Arad … heard.⁵⁴ XXI, 1, referring to the attack of the Canaanites on Israel. Aaron’s death saved him from witnessing this misfortune. *And godly men are taken away:*⁵⁵ this refers to Samuel and the elders of his generation who were associated with him. *None considering:*⁵⁶ this refers to Saul and Abner, as it is stated, And no man saw it,⁵⁷ nor knew it, neither did any awake; for they were all asleep.⁵⁸ After this verse⁵⁹ it is written, They rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness.⁶⁰ Raba said: The story is told of a general against whom the people under his authority⁶¹, p. 425. rebelled. Among them were some of his friends; so what did he do? He took them one by one and hid them. Next day he sat in judgment and said, ‘Bring before me the people of the province’. He sentenced some to imprisonment, some to be killed, some to be lashed and some to be hanged.⁶² So, too, is it with the Holy One, blessed be He. When He sees the sins of the generation are grievous upon them, He removes the righteous and after that [commands], But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the harlot⁶³—that is, those of them who are sorcerers and adulterers—and then He gives a respite to that generation. The Rabbis taught:⁶⁴ Isaiah was punished for three things: because he called [Israel] a seed of evil-doers,⁶⁵ sons of the sorceress and the seed of the adulterer; as it is stated, But draw near hither ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the harlot. And whence do we know that he was forgiven? As it is stated, And he touched my mouth with it, and he said: Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is expiated.⁶⁶ VI, 7.

footnotes: ⁴⁹ Shab. 33b (Sonc. ed., p. 155). ⁵⁰ i.e. suffer. ⁵¹ Adopting the reading of H. ⁵² Isa. 57, 1. The meaning is that the righteous is removed from the world to be saved from the punishment destined upon his evil generation. ⁵³ Num. 27, 13. E.V. was gathered ⁵⁴ ibid. ⁵⁵ Isa. 57, 1. ⁵⁶ ibid. ⁵⁷ How near Saul and Abner were to death. ⁵⁸ 1 Sam. 26, 12. ⁵⁹ The homily now reverts to the interpretation of Isa. 57, 1, and also cites the next verse to prove the statement that the righteous through their death are saved from the punishment of their sinful contemporaries and rest in peace. ⁶⁰ Isa. 57, 2. ⁶¹ For the correct reading, cf. Krauss, Lehnwörter ⁶² The translation follows the better text of H. ⁶³ Isa. 57, 3. ⁶⁴ For other sharp criticisms of Isaiah, cf. Yeb. 49b (Sonc. ed., p. 324). ⁶⁵ Isa. 1, 4. ⁶⁶ ibid.