The Babylonian Talmud on Children’s Study in the Synagogue

b. Berakhot 17a|b. Ḥagigah 15a–b

220–600

b. Berakhot 17a

Rav said to R. Ḥiyya: [By] what [virtue] do women merit [this reward? R. Ḥiyya answered: They merit this reward] for bringing their children to read [the Torah] in the synagogue, and for sending their husbands to study [Mishnah] in the study hall, and for waiting for their husbands until they return from the study hall.

b. Ḥagigah 15a–b

[Nevertheless, R. Meir] took hold of him [and] brought him to the study hall. [Aḥer] [Elisha ben Abuyah—Ed.] said to a child, [by way of divination,] “Recite your verse [that you studied today] to me.” He recited [the following verse] to him: There is no peace, said the Lord, concerning the wicked (Isaiah 48:22). He brought him to another study hall. [Aḥer] said to a child, “Recite your verse to me.” He recited to him: For though you wash with niter, and take for you much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before Me (Jeremiah 2:22). He brought him to another study hall. [Aḥer] said to a child, “Recite your verse to me.” He recited to him: And you, spoiled one, what are you doing, that you clothe yourself with scarlet, that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain you make yourself fair (Jeremiah 4:30). He brought him to another synagogue, until he had brought him into thirteen synagogues, [where] all [the children] recited to him similar [verses that speak of the hopeless situation of the wicked]. At the last one, he said to him, “Recite your verse to me.” He recited to him: And to the wicked [vela-rasha‘] God says, what is it for you to declare My statutes (Psalm 50:16). That child had a stutter, [so] it sounded as though he were saying to him: Vele-’elisha, [i.e., and to Elisha,] God says. [This made Elisha think the child was deliberately insulting him.] Some say [Aḥer] had a knife, and he tore [the child] apart and sent him to the thirteen synagogues. And others say [that Aḥer merely] said: Had I a knife, I would have torn him apart.

Translation adapted from the Noé Edition of the Koren Talmud Bavli.

Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

From Koren Talmud Bavli, Noé Edition, trans. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019). Accessed via the William Davidson digital edition, sefaria.org. Adapted with permission of Koren Publishers Ltd.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.