Commentary for Avodah Zarah 54:9
אמר מר לא עברת על דברי חביריך שהיו אומרים ופורץ גדר ישכנו נחש איהו נמי חויא טרקיה חויא דרבנן דלית ליה אסותא כלל
The Master said: Nor have you transgressed the words of you colleagues who , “He who breaks through a fence, a snake shall bite him”? But a snake did indeed bite him! The snake of the rabbis [did not bite him] which can never be cured.
Daf Shevui to Avodah Zarah
The irony of the story is that the rabbis say to him that he should be happy that he did not break a fence by being healed by a heretic, for such a person will be bit by a snake. But Ben Dama was bit by a snake! The Talmud answers by saying that the “bite of the snake” referred to in that saying is worse than the bite a real snake. The type of snake referred to in that saying is “the snake of the rabbis”—one bit by such a snake cannot be healed even in the world to come.
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