Chagigah 15b — the Talmud in English

He said to the child: ![](pamud.bmp "

precise column location")

Recite to me your verse!

He said to him,

the child:

“And you, who are plundered

when plunder and calamity come upon you, Radak]

what will you do, when

what benefit will you have if]

you dress in scarlet, when you adorn yourself with golden ornaments, when you tear open your eyes with paint—

in vain will you beautify yourself

even the ornament and beauty of the Torah within you will not benefit you, Maharsha] [for] those who desire you, seeking your life, have rejected you” [those who lusted for you have now rejected you and seek to take your life from you, Metzudot], that is to say: repentance will not benefit him.

He brought him into another synagogue, until he had brought him into thirteen synagogues

he brought him to thirteen study halls],

all of them recited for him verses in this manner, to his detriment

in all the places they recited verses to him to the detriment of Aher]!

To the last one

to the child in the last study hall]

he said to him: Recite to me your verse!

He said to him,

the child:

“But to the wicked God says: What right have you to recite My statutes! And so on”—

And

that child

who recited the final verse

was stammering with his tongue [

he was stammering],

it sounded as though he were saying [

and it was heard as though he had said]:

“And to Elisha God says

what right have you to recite My statutes.”

Aher became angry, and the versions differ in the Gemara as to his reaction:

Some say: A knife was in Aher’s hand

of Aher,

and he cut him

the child [a knife was in Aher’s hand and he cut that child],

and sent him to the thirteen synagogues [

he sent his limbs to the thirteen study halls in which he had been].

And some say:

Aher did not cut the child, but

said: If I had a knife in my hand [

if there were a knife in my hand],

I would have cut him [

I would have cut the child].

When Aher’s soul came to rest [

when Aher died],

they said

in Heaven, in the heavenly court:

“Let him not be judged, and let him not come to the World to Come” [

let us not judge him in Gehinnom, and he shall not come to the World to Come]!

And the reason:

“Let him not be judged”: because he was occupied with Torah [

since he was occupied with Torah].

And

also

“let him not come to the World to Come”: because he sinned.

Rabbi Meir said: It is preferable that he be judged and come to the World to Come [

it is preferable that they judge him and afterward he come to the World to Come].

And Rabbi Meir said of himself:

“When will I die and smoke rise from his grave”

of Aher!

That is to say: the Holy One, blessed be He, should judge him with blazing fire that raises smoke, so that his sins would be atoned for and he would merit the World to Come [Rabbeinu Hananel].

When Rabbi Meir’s soul came to rest,

since Rabbi Meir reached the point of death, he requested mercy for this one, and the Holy One, blessed be He, accepted his prayer. And when Rabbi Meir died [Rabbeinu Hananel]

smoke rose from Aher’s grave [

smoke began rising from Aher’s grave], and the matter was a sign that they had brought him into Gehinnom.

Said

in astonishment

Rabbi Yohanan

at Rabbi Meir’s deeds: Is it indeed

a great feat to burn his teacher in fire [

is it indeed something great that the student should cause his teacher to be punished in Gehinnom]?!

There was one among us, and we could not save him [

one who had gone astray was among us, and we are unable to save him]?!

If I take him by the hand—

who will snatch him from me [

like: from me]!

If I seize him and bring him out of Gehinnom—who will take him from my hand?!

Said

Rabbi Yohanan:

“When will I die, and extinguish the smoke from his grave”,

so that I will cause them to bring him out of Gehinnom.

When Rabbi Yohanan’s soul came to rest, the smoke ceased from Aher’s grave [

and indeed, when Rabbi Yohanan died, the smoke ceased rising from Aher’s grave].

A certain eulogist opened concerning him

Rabbi Yohanan

that eulogist [

a eulogist], and said:

“Even the guardian of the entrance [

the guardian of Gehinnom]

did not stand before you—

our teacher”,

when he came to take Aher out of Gehinnom.

Aher’s daughter came before Rabbi.

She said to him

Rabbi:

“Rabbi, support me!”

He said to her

Rabbi:

“Whose daughter are you?”

She said to him: “I am Aher’s daughter.”

He said to her

Rabbi: And is it possible

that there is still any of his offspring

of Aher

in the world?!

But is it not written: “

The light of the wicked too shall be extinguished,

he shall have neither heir nor grandson among his people, and no survivor in his dwellings”?

She said to him: “Rabbi! Remember his Torah

of my father

and do not remember his deeds.”

Immediately fire descended [

because Torah is called “a law of fire”],

and scorched Rabbi’s bench,

as though she had said: Remember his Torah [Maharsha].

Rabbi wept and said: If this is so for those who disgrace it, how much more so for those who praise it.

And we raise an objection:

But Rabbi Meir—

how did he learn Torah from Aher’s mouth [

how did he learn Torah from his mouth, after he had gone astray]?!

But Rabbah bar bar Hannah said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan:

What is the meaning of that which is written: “For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and Torah should be sought from his mouth, for he is an angel

of

the Lord of Hosts”:

If the teacher resembles an angel of the Lord of Hosts,

only then

should Torah be sought from his mouth; but if not, Torah should not be sought from his mouth.

And since this is so, how did Rabbi Meir learn from Aher’s mouth?!

Said

he answered

Reish Lakish: Rabbi Meir found a verse and expounded it [

he found a verse and expounded that one may learn from the wicked].

As it is written:

“Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,

and apply your heart to my knowledge.”

“To their knowledge”

of the wise

was not said,

for we are dealing with the wicked [Rashi],

but “to my knowledge”,

of the Holy One, blessed be He.

You have thus learned: even from the wicked you can learn, provided that you do not apply your heart to his evil opinions.

Rav Hanina said: From here

one may learn permission to learn from the wicked, as it is written:

“Hear, daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father’s house”

and so on.

Incline your ear to hear their Torah, but forget their deeds, and do not learn them.

And we ask: In the end,

the verses contradict one another,

for one verse teaches us that one should not learn from the wicked, while other verses teach that there is no prohibition against doing so?!

And we answer:

It is not difficult,

because:

This—

that the verses permitted learning from the wicked—

applies to

a student who is a person

of great stature,

and knows to take care not to learn from his deeds.

That—

that Scripture prohibited learning Torah from one who does not resemble an angel of the Lord of Hosts—

applies to

a

young student.

When Rav Dimi came

from the Land of Israel to Babylonia,

he said: They say in the West [

in the Land of Israel]:

Rabbi Meir,

who learned from Aher, is like one who

found dates: he ate the fruit, and cast the pit outside [

he found dates, ate the edible outer flesh of the fruit, and threw the pit outside].

Rava expounded: What is the meaning of that which is written: “I went down to the garden of nuts, to see the buds of the valley,” and so on:

Why are Torah scholars compared to a nut?

To tell you: Just as this nut, although it is soiled with mud and excrement

on the outside, on its shell, nevertheless

what is inside it does not become repulsive.

So too a Torah scholar, although he has gone astray, his Torah does not become repulsive.

Rabbah bar Shila found Elijah [

Rabbah bar Shila found Elijah the prophet],

he said to him

Rabbah to Elijah:

“What is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing [

what is the Holy One, blessed be He, doing]?

He said to him

Elijah:

He is saying

the Holy One, blessed be He,

a teaching from the mouths of all the rabbis, but from the mouth of Rabbi Meir He does not say it [

He says words of Torah from the mouths of all the sages, but not from Rabbi Meir’s mouth].

He said to him

Rabbah to Elijah:

“Why?”

Elijah said to Rabbah:

“Because he learns a teaching from the mouth of Aher [

because he learned from Aher’s mouth] after he had gone astray.

He said to him

Rabbah to Elijah: And

“why”

does the Holy One, blessed be He, not say it in his name?! After all,

“Rabbi Meir found a pomegranate, ate its interior, and cast away its peel.”

He said to him

Elijah to Rabbah: The Holy One, blessed be He, listened to your voice, and

now [

at this moment]

He is saying

the Holy One, blessed be He:

“My son Meir says this”:

“When a person suffers [

when calamity comes upon him because of his sin],

what expression does the Divine Presence use [

in what language does it lament him]:

‘My head is in pain, my arm is in pain,”

as a person, when he is weary and exhausted, says: My head is heavy upon me and my arm is heavy upon me [Rashi, Sanhedrin]. And

if so, if the Holy One, blessed be He, suffers over the blood of the wicked that is spilled, all the more so over the blood of the righteous that is spilled.

Samuel found Rav Yehuda hanging on the crossbar of the door and weeping [

he found him hanging himself on the door bolt and weeping].

He said to him

Samuel to Rav Yehuda:

“Sharp-toothed one! Why are you weeping?” [

why are you crying]?

He said to him

Rav Yehuda to Samuel:

“Is what is written about the Sages a small matter [

is what is said about the sages a small matter],

‘Where is the one who counts, where is the one who weighs, where is the one who counts the towers’?”

That is to say: behold, even sages about whom great things were said, nevertheless, when they sin they are punished:

And as was said about them:

“Where is the one who counts”:

who counted all the letters of the Torah.

“Where is the one who weighs”:

who weighed the kal va-chomers of the Torah,

to expound the lenient from the stringent and the stringent from the lenient according to the weighing of the kal va-chomer.

“Where is the one who counts the towers”:

who would study three hundred halakhot concerning a tower flying in the air.

And Rabbi Ami said: Three hundred questions [

three hundred inquiries]

Doeg and Ahithophel asked concerning a tower flying in the air.

And

even so

we learned: Three kings [

Jeroboam, Ahab, and Manasseh]

and four ordinary people [

Balaam, Doeg, Ahithophel, and Gehazi]

have no share in the World to Come.

And since this is so:

we—

what will become of us [

what will happen to us], if such great sages reached this point, who knows where we lesser ones will reach?!

He said to him

Samuel to Rav Yehuda:

“Sharp-toothed one!”

Do not be concerned over what happened with Doeg and Ahithophel, because

there was dross in their hearts,

they had been wicked all their lives.

The Gemara asks:

“Aher—what

what dross was in his heart, that brought him to this point, and his Torah did not protect him?

And we explain:

“A Greek song did not cease from his mouth [

it did not cease from his mouth], and he should have ceased singing because of the destruction of the Temple, as it is written: “They shall not drink wine with song.”

They said about Aher: When he would rise from the study hall

before he went astray,

many books of heretics would fall from his lap.

Nimos the Weaver asked Rabbi Meir:

Did

“all wool that descends into the vat rise” [

does all wool that descends into the dyeing vat rise from it dyed]? That is to say: does the Torah of all who study before sages rise for them to protect them from sin?

He said to him

Rabbi Meir to Nimos:

“Every wool that was clean beside its mother rises [

all wool that was clean when it was shorn has its dye take well], but

all that was not clean beside its mother does not rise.”

That is to say: whoever has fear of sin preceding his wisdom, it rises for him accordingly.

We learned in a beraita:

Rabbi Akiva ascended in peace and descended in peace:

And concerning him Scripture says: “Draw me after you; let us run”,

bring me into the king’s chambers, for he entered in peace into the chambers of the upper palaces [Maharsha].

And the ministering angels also sought to push Rabbi Akiva,

like his colleagues, for it is not fitting to use the sacred Names [Maharsha].

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them

to the ministering angels:

“Leave this elder, for he is fit to use My honor” [

the honor of the Name, Maharsha].