Elijah 221
by the fact that he had been granted neither intelligence nor wisdom. Elijah asked him what his calling was. " I am a fisherman," was the reply. " Well, my son," questioned Elijah, " who taught thee to take flax and make nets and throw them into the sea to catch fish ? " He replied : " For this heaven gave me intelligence and insight." Hereupon Elijah: "If thou possessest intelligence and insight to cast nets and catch fish, why should these qualities desert thee when thou dealest with the Torah, which, thou knowest, is very nigh unto man that he may do it ? " The fisherman was touched, and he began to weep. Elijah pacified him by telling him that what he had said applied to many another beside him."
In another way Elijah conveyed the lesson of the great value residing in devotion to the study of the Torah. Dis- guised as a Rabbi, he was approached by a man who prom- ised to relieve him of all material cares if he would but abide with him. Refusing to leave Jabneh, the centre of Jewish scholarship, he said to the tempter : " Wert thou to offer me a thousand million gold denarii, I would not quit the abode of the law, and dwell in a place in which there is no Torah." M
By Torah, of course, is meant the law as conceived and interpreted by the sages and the scholars, for Elijah was particularly solicitous to establish the authority of the oral law,89 as he was solicitous to demonstrate the truth of Scriptural promises that appeared incredible at first sight. For instance, he once fulfilled Rabbi Joshua ben Levi's wish to see the precious stones which would take the place of the sun in illuminating Jerusalem in the Messianic time. A ves- sel in mid-ocean was nigh unto shipwreck. Among a large
