This tale, which I began forty-two hours before his death, in the happy certainty that his slight illness would quickly pass, and without the slightest presentiment that I and his wonderful mother would soon have to seek consolation in it. THE AUTHOR BERURIAH I Blessed with all the virtues was Beruriah, wife of the noted Master, Rabbi Mayer. It was at the time that God’s heart was filled with pity for the Jewish people, which had just lost its independence and its freedom, and from under His heavenly throne He summoned her soul, and sent her down to earth. “Go, and rejoice the hearts of the wretched and exiled. Go, and bring gladness to the sad and mournful. Let him that beholds you know that life is worth the living, and understand that he has an Almighty Lord who can create glory, and let him praise and bless my Name.” And therefore was she called Beruriah,—the chosen of God. The Romans, however, called her Valeria,—the blessed one. So beautiful she was, that at the most glorious sunset, the eyes of the worshipful onlookers wandered from the sun to her and from her to the sun, and none could be sure which was the greater beauty or which the greater miracle. But at the consecration of the moon she dare not show herself upon the street, lest the moon take flight before the greater beauty, and pious Jews be helpless quite to bless it. Whenever she walked along the way, all passers-by stood still, lest they fall into a ditch at their feet or stumble across a rock in their path, for all eyes were turned only upon her. And those who toiled heavily were wont to say, when they had beheld her, “The sight was even as balm to our weary limbs. Now will our labours once again seem light.” And those who sat within doors also said, “Was not our house just radiant with a loving glow? Beruriah must have passed beneath our window.” And then the sages introduced a new blessing, with which Jews should hymn the praises of the Lord for having shared His beauty with a mortal. Wise was she, too; so that the old men of her time queried, “Shall we not don women’s garb and surrender our men’s habits to her? For before her we are like old women in whom the little sense they had has long evaporated, while she possesses the wisdom of all our years added together.” And when a husband scolded his wife, saying that women had much hair but little brains, the wife would retort: “And what of Beruriah?” Then the husband would see that he had been hasty, and that his own wife was more clever than he, since she had so cunningly reminded him of Beruriah. Whereupon the sages introduced a new blessing, with which Jews should chant the praises of the Lord for having shared His wisdom with a mortal.