Talmud zu Rut 1:17

It is related of R. Ḥanina b. Teradion that once some money [to be distributed among the poor on] Purim was mixed up by him with charitable funds [in general]. He sat in confusion and exclaimed, ‘Woe is me! Perhaps I have incurred the penalty of death at the hand of Heaven’. While he was still sitting in a troubled state of mind, the executioner came and told him, ‘Master, it has been decreed against you that you be wrapped in [a scroll of] your Torah and be burnt with it’.⁹¹(91) So GRA. V has ‘wrapped and burnt with your Torah and to Israel your people’. Cf. Semaḥoth VIII, 11. He arose and they wrapped him in his [scroll of the] Torah and surrounded him with bundles of twigs. When the fire caught sight of him, it cooled down and removed itself from him. Whereupon the executioner rose up in amazement and asked him, ‘Master, are you the man condemned to be burnt?’ He replied, ‘Yes’. He then asked him, ‘Why has the fire gone low?’ He replied, ‘I adjured it in the name of my Creator that it should not touch me until I know whether it was so decreed against me in Heaven. Wait one hour and I will let you know’. The executioner was sitting in wonderment and said [to himself], ‘Why should persons who decree death and life for themselves⁹²(92) Through their adherence to the Torah. be subject to the yoke of [the Roman] government?’ He said [to R. Ḥanina,] ‘Arise and go, and whatever the government desires to do to me let it be done’. He replied, ‘You foolish man! Heaven has approved the sentence passed on me, and if you do not kill me God has many slayers, [e.g.] many bears, leopards, lions, wolves, many serpents and scorpions to attack me. Ultimately, however, God will exact from you punishment for my blood’. Thereupon the executioner understood that such was the [divine] method;⁹³(93) That God would hold him responsible although he only acted under the orders o his government. so he jumped up and fell into the fire. From the midst of the fire he shouted,⁹⁴(94) The reading of GRA has been followed. V reads: ‘he arose and then fell upon his face, and as he perished and he made his voice heard from the fire and said’. ‘Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried,⁹⁵(95) Ruth 1, 17. [adding] where you live will I live’. Forthwith a voice from heaven⁹⁶(96) lit. ‘daughter of a voice’, the term for a heavenly proclamation. declared, ‘R. Ḥanina b. Teradion and his executioner are both destined for the life of the World to Come’."
R. Eliezer said:⁹⁷Ber. 27b (Sonc. ed., p. 164). He fails to give him his proper title ‘My master and teacher’. Whoever greets his teacher [with the ordinary salutation] forfeits his life. Ben ‘Azzai said: Whoever greets his teacher [with the ordinary salutation] or responds to his salutation [in the ordinary way] or opposes his school⁹⁸Cf. Sanh. 110a (Sonc. ed., p. 755). forfeits his life. And anyone who repeats a statemen in the name of a Sage from whom he has not learnt it⁹⁹Reading with H lemado (learnt it) instead of ’amaro (said it). causes the Divine Presence to depart from Israel. But whoever repeats a statement in the name of the man who made it brings redemption to the world; as it is stated, And Esther told the king thereof in Mordecai’s name.¹⁰⁰Esth. 2, 22; cf. Meg. 15a (Sonc. ed., p. 89). Who [for this purpose is to be considered] a man’s teacher? Whoever has taught him Mishnah and Shas, but not [only] Scripture. This is the opinion of R. Meir; R. Judah said: One from whom he has derived the greater part of his knowledge. R. Jose said: Whoever has enlightened his eyes in the [study of the] Mishnah. If [his teacher] is blind, he should not say to him, ‘The sun has set’¹⁰¹Thus calling attention to his blindness, which is perpetual darkness. but ‘Remove your tefillin’.¹⁰²Worn only during the day, a delicate and indirect way of telling his teacher that it was no longer day-time. V prints this sentence within brackets to indicate that it is out of place. GRA includes it in Ben ‘Azzai’s statement above and inserts it after ‘opposes his school forfeits his life’