사무엘하 2:21의 미드라쉬

(Ib. b) R. Amram the pious, whenever the servants of the exilarch troubled him, would on the next day, get sick with chills. They would then say to him: "What [medicine] does the master want to be brought to him?" He thought to himself: "Whatever I will order of them, they will bring the opposite." He therefore said to them: "Bring me meagre roasted meat and wine mixed with a lot of water." The consequence was that they brought him fat roasted meat and strong wine. When Yolsa [the wife of R. Nachman and the daughter of Exilarch] was informed [that R. Amran became sick] she ordered him into a bath house, put into a bath tub of water and left him there until the water became boiling hot. R. Joseph, when he would get a cold, would work with a hand mill in order to warm himself. R. Shesheth in such a case would occupy himself carrying logs and remarked: "Great is work that it warmeth its performer." The exilarch said unto R. Shesheth: "Why does not the master partake of a meal with us?" Whereupon he replied: "Because your servants are suspicious of feeding you with limbs cut off from a living beast [which is prohibited]." The Exilarch said to him: "How can you prove this?" Whereupon he said: "I shall show you right now." He asked his own servant to go and bring him a leg of an animal. The servant did so. He then said to the exilarch's servants that they should prepare for him a whole animal, cut in slices. They brought him an animal with three legs. Whereupon he said to them: "This has only three legs." The servants went and cut off a leg of another animal which they brought to him and placed it together with the three-legged animal. R. Shesheth then ordered his servants to bring also the one leg he formerly brought to him, and when his servants did so, he said to the exilarch's servants: "Is this an animal with five legs?" The exilarch then said to him: "If so, then let the master's servant prepare of food for him." "Be it so," replied R. Shesheth. The servants set a table before him, and they brought meat and with the meat they placed a very little ankle bone with the intention that R. Shesheth, being blindfolded, would swallow it and thereby choke himself. R. Shesheth, however, felt the bone with his fingers, took it out, and wrapped it in his cloak. His servant, observing that he wrapped something in his cloak, said: (Fol. 68) "A silver cup was stolen from us." They began to search for the silver cup and came upon a cloak in which the bone was wrapped. Taking it out of his cloak, they said to him: "See, the master did not want to eat; he merely wanted to trouble us." Whereupon R. Shesheth said to them: "I did want to eat but as soon as I tasted it, I felt an odor of leprosy in that meat." The servants attempted to deny the fact that they had slaughtered an animal during that day which was afflicted with leprosy. R. Shesheth, however, insisted that they should investigate a certain spot because R. Chisda said: "A black spot on a white skin or a white spot on a black skin is a sign that the animal is sick with leprosy." Consequently they investigated it and found that it was indeed so. When he was about to leave the servants dug out a pit, covered it with a matting and they said to him: "Let the master lay himself down in his bed." R. Chisda warned him that something was wrong. Whereupon R. Shesheth said to a child: "Recite me the passage you have studied today with your teacher." The child read to him (II Sam. 2, 21) Turn thee aside to thy right side, or to thy left. R. Shesheth immediately understood that there was some trick prepared for him and he said to his servant: "What dost thou see?" "I see a matting is spread out," replied his servant. He then said to his servant: "Turn aside and avert the matting." After he had left the place R. Chisda said to him: "Whence did you know that they were to play a trick against you?" R. Shesheth replied: "Firstly, because thou hast warned me and secondly, because the passage which the child recited recalled my attention to it; thirdly, because the servants of the exilarch are suspected to me of being dishonest."