Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala
Religion
Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala
Hebrew literature -- Translations into English
Egypt is a sixtieth of Ethiopia, Ethiopia a sixtieth of the world, the
world is a sixtieth part of the garden of Eden, the garden itself is but
a sixtieth of Eden, and Eden a sixtieth of Gehenna. Hence the world in
proportion to Gehenna is but as the lid to a caldron.
_P'sachim_, fol. 94, col. 1.
They led forth Metatron and struck him sixty bastinadoes with a cudgel
of fire.
_Chaggigah_, fol. 15, col. 1.
In the context of the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of
Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too
characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben
Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the
recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the
holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he
exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in
heaven, no shortsightedness or fatigue?" Then Metatron, thus
discovered, was ordered out and flogged with sixty lashes from a
fiery scourge. Smarting with pain, the angel asked and obtained
leave to cancel the merits of the prying Rabbi. One day--it
chanced to be on Yom Kippur and Sabbath--as Elisha was riding
along by the wall where the Holy of Holies once stood, he heard
a Bath Kol proclaiming, "Return, ye backsliding children, but
Acher abide thou in thy sin" (Acher was the Rabbi's nickname). A
faithful disciple of his hearing this, and bent on reclaiming
and reforming him, invited him to go and hear the lads of a
school close by repeat their lessons. The Rabbi went, and from
that to another and another, until he had gone the round of a
dozen seminaries, in the last of which he called up a lad to
repeat a verse who had an impediment in his speech. The verse
happened to be Ps. l. 16, "But unto the wicked, God saith, Why
dost thou declare my law?" Acher fancied the boy said, and to
Elisha (his own name), instead of and to Rasha, that is, the
wicked. This roused the Rabbi into such fury of passion, that he
sprang to his feet, exclaiming, "If I only had a knife at hand I
would cut this boy into a dozen pieces, and send a piece to each
school I have visited!"
A woman of sixty runs after music like a girl of six.
_Moed Katon_, fol. 9, col. 2.
Rabba, who only studied the law, lived forty years; Abaii, who both
studied the law and exercised benevolence, lived sixty.
_Rosh Hashanah_, fol. 18, col. 1.
The manna which came down upon Israel was sixty ells deep.
_Yoma_, fol. 76, col. 1.
It is not right for a man to sleep in the daytime any longer than a
horse sleeps. And how long is the sleep of a horse? Sixty respirations.
_Succah_, fol. 26, col. 2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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