'Why, then,' rejoined the fox, 'not try the dry land
with me, where you and I can live together, as our fathers managed to do
before us?' 'Surely,' exclaimed they, 'thou art not he of whom we have
heard so much as the most cunning of animals, for herein thou art not
wise, but foolish. For if we have cause to fear where it is natural for
us to live, how much more reason have we to do so where we needs must
die!' Just so," continued Akiva, "is it with us who study the law, in
which (Deut. xxx. 20) it is written, 'He is thy life and the length of
thy days;' for if we suffer while we study the law, how much more shall
we if we neglect it?" Not many days after, it is related, this Rabbi
Akiva was apprehended and thrown into prison. As it happened, they led
him out for execution just at the time when "Hear, O Israel!" fell to be
repeated, and as they tore his flesh with currycombs, and as he was with
long-drawn breath sounding forth the word one, his soul departed from
him. Then came forth a voice from heaven which said, "Blessed art thou,
Rabbi Akiva, for thy soul and the word one left thy body together."

_Berachoth_, fol. 61, col. 2.

The badger, as it existed in the days of Moses, was an animal of unique
type, and the learned are not agreed whether it was a wild one or a
domestic. It had only one horn on its forehead; and was assigned for the
time to Moses, who made a covering of its skin for the tabernacle; after
which it became extinct, having served the purpose of its existence.
Rabbi Yehudah says, "The ox, also, which the first man, Adam,
sacrificed, had but one horn on its forehead."

_Shabbath_, fol. 28, col. 2.

Once a Gentile came to Shamai, and said, "Proselytize me, but on
condition that thou teach me the whole law, even the whole of it, while
I stand upon one leg." Shamai drove him off with the builder's rod which
he held in his hand. When he came to Hillel with the same challenge,
Hillel converted him by answering him on the spot, "That which is
hateful to thyself, do not do to thy neighbor. This is the whole law,
and the rest is its commentary." (Tobit, iv. 15; Matt. vii. 12.)

Ibid., fol. 31, col. 1.

When Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and his son, Rabbi Elazar, came out of
their cave on a Friday afternoon, they saw an old man hurrying along
with two bunches of myrtle in his hand. "What." said they, accosting
him, "dost thou want with these?" "To smell them in honor of the
Sabbath," was the reply. "Would no