that if a man was numbered among his colleagues for a religious duty, and he did not want to be numbered—of him is said the verse. So we have learned plainly in a Boraitha (Berachoth). Ben Hei Hei again asked Hillel: It is written [Mal. iii. 18]: "And ye shall return and see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that has not served him." What is the difference between the righteous and the servant of God, or the wicked and him who serves not God? Is it not the same? And he answered: Both he who serves God and serves not are really upright men, but when one repeats his chapter of the Law one hundred times he is not equal to him who does it one hundred and one times. Said Ben Hei Hei again: Can the man be called upright who serves not God, because he did not repeat the one hundredth and first time? And he said: Yea, go and learn from the marketplace, where asses are hired: when one hires an ass for ten parsa, he pays one Zuz, but if for eleven, he must pay two.
Elijah said to Ben Hei Hei, according to others to R. Elazar: It is written [Is. xlviii. 10]: "Behold, I have refined thee, though not into silver: I have approved thee in the crucible of affliction."[1] Infer from this when the Holy One, blessed be He, looked for merits given to Israel, he found only poverty. Said Samuel, and according to others R. Joseph: This is what people say: Poverty becomes Israel as a red leather trapping a white horse.
"R. Simeon b. Menassea," etc. If born, yea, but if not, nay? Did we not learn in a Boraitha: Simeon b. Manassea said: If one has stolen something, he can return it and repair his sin; if one has robbed, he can return, and make all good, but he who has had a connection with his neighbor's wife, and disqualified her for his neighbor, this man is destroyed from the world, and is lost? R. Simeon b. Jo'hai said: We do not say, one shall examine a camel, or one shall examine a pig (because they are unfit, and there is nothing to examine). But what is to be examined? A sheep (which is fit for an offering). Perhaps it has received a blemish which makes it unfit—that is, a scholar who has departed from the Law. R. Jehudah b. Lakish said: Of a scholar who separated himself from the Law the verse [Prov. xxvii. 8] said: "As a bird that wandereth away from her nest, so is a man that wandereth away from his place." Of him is also
- ↑ Oni is translated "affliction," but by the Talmud "poverty."
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