וְעַתָּה֙ אַל־תִּתְלוֹצָ֔צוּ פֶּֽן־יֶחְזְק֖וּ מֽוֹסְרֵיכֶ֑ם כִּֽי־כָלָ֨ה וְנֶחֱרָצָ֜ה שָׁמַ֗עְתִּי מֵאֵ֨ת אֲדֹנָ֧י יְהוִ֛ה צְבָא֖וֹת עַל־כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
그러므로 너희는 경만한 자가 되지 말라 너희 결박이 우심할까 하노라 대저 온 땅을 멸망시키기로 작정하신 것을 내가 만군의 주 여호와께로서 들었느니라
Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot
When Rebbi Yasa ascended here, he went to a barber. He wanted to bathe in a public bath of Tiberias. He met a scoffer who hit him once on his neck and said: The noose334This is the reading of the Rome manuscript. The Venice print has ענוקא “neck” which cannot be loose or tight, but the noose around the neck can. of this man is loose. There was an admistrator335Ἄρχων, “ruler”; in Imperial Rome a local administrator, praefectus. sitting who was interrogating336Under threat or by the use of judicial torture. (Referring to a Jewish court, the word would mean “punish”.) a robber337Greek λῃστής (also a collateral form ληιστής). The word appears in the Babylonian tradition as לִסְטִים.. He338The scoffer. The next “he, him, he” refer to the robber. went and stood there all laughing opposite him. The administrator asked him: Who was with you? He looked around and said: The one who is laughing here was with me. He339The archon, who fetched the scoffer who then confessed to a murder under the threat of torture. fetched him, interrogated him, and he confessed about one murder. When they both went out, carrying two beams340The beams used for their own crucifixion., Rebbi Yasa passed by going to the bath. He341The scoffer who might have laughed about the trick he played on the scholar but who was caught because the robber thought that he was laughing about the pain inflicted on himself and who took revenge by denouncing the scoffer. said to him: That noose which was loose you already tightened. He answered him: That is the bad luck of this man, is it not written (Is. 28:22): “Now do not scoff, that your fetters should not be tightened.”342And, therefore, Rebbi Yasa was not guilty of the scoffer’s death. Rebbi Phineas, Rebbi Jeremiah, in the name of Rebbi Samuel bar Rav Isaac343Since he was a contemporary of Rebbis Zeïra and Yasa, it is not clear whether this is an independent aggadic interpretation, appended here because it uses the same verse that R. Yasa used, or as the source of Rebbi Yasa/Assi’s interpretation.: Scoffing is hard since its start is pain and its end destruction. Its start is pain since it is written “Now do not scoff, that your fetters should not be tightened,” and its end is destruction as it is written (loc. cit.) “For destruction and finality I heard from the Lord of Hosts344The Divine Names are not correctly quoted; this relieves the scribe from the necessity of writing down a name which cannot be erased. over the entire earth.”