Jewish%20thought for Bava Batra 146:11

אמר לי תא אחוי לך מתי מדבר אזלי חזיתינהו ודמו כמאן דמיבסמי

One lifted up [its] wing,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Indicating that that would be his portion in the world to come. ');">²⁴</span> the other lifted up [its] leg.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'flank', 'thigh'. ');">²⁵</span> When I came before R. Eleazar he said unto me: Israel will be called to account for [the sufferings<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The protracted suffering of the geese caused by their growing fatness is due to Israel's sins which delay the coming of the Messiah, or the era denoted by the expression, 'the world to come'. ');">²⁶</span> of] these [geese]. (Mnemonic: <i>Like the sand of the purple blue scorpion stirred his basket</i>.)<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The mnemonic is an aid to the memorisation of the following stories told by Rabbah b. bar Hana. Sand refers to the first story where the smelling of sand by the Arab is mentioned. Purple blue occurs in the second story. Scorpion recalls the scorpions round Mount Sinai in the third story, stirred refers to the story of Korah and his sons in Gehenna in the fourth story, and basket is mentioned in the fifth and last story. ');">²⁷</span> Rabbah b. Bar Hana related: We were once travelling in a desert and there joined us an Arab merchant who, [by] taking up sand and smelling it [could] tell which was the way to one place and which was the way to another. We said unto him: 'How far are we from water?' He replied: 'Give me [some] sand.' We gave him, and he said unto us: 'Eight parasangs.' When we gave him again [later], he told us that we were three parasangs off. I changed it;<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Substituted the sand of one place for that of another, in order to put him to the test. ');">²⁸</span> but was unable [to nonplus] him. He said unto me: 'Come and I will show you the Dead of the Wilderness.'<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' [H] those Israelites who died during the forty years wanderings in the wilderness, on their way to the Promised Land. Cf. Num. XIV, 32ff. ');">²⁹</span> I went [with him] and saw them; and they looked as if in a state of exhilaration.

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