This little tale, as follows, is one of three
Talmudic narratives which the poet Coleridge has translated:[82]
_The Jewels._
The celebrated teacher Rabbi Meir sat during the whole of the Sabbath
day in the public school instructing the people. During his absence from
the house his two sons died, both of them of uncommon beauty, and
enlightened in the law. His wife bore them to her bed-chamber, laid them
upon the marriage-bed, and spread a white covering over their bodies. In
the evening the Rabbi Meir came home. "Where are my two sons," he asked,
"that I may give them my blessing? I repeatedly looked round the school,
and I did not see them there." She reached him a goblet. He praised the
Lord at the going out of the Sabbath, drank, and again asked: "Where are
my sons, that they too may drink of the cup of blessing?" "They will not
be afar off," she said, and placed food before him that he might eat. He
was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the
meal, she thus addressed him: "Rabbi, with thy permission, I would fain
propose to thee one question." "Ask it then, my love," he replied. "A
few days ago a person entrusted some jewels into my custody, and now he
demands them of me; should I give them back again?" "This is a
question," said the Rabbi, "which my wife should not have thought it
necessary to ask.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263