The Righteous Create Beings
Rava says: If the righteous wish, they can create a world, as it is written: But your iniquities have separated [you and your God] (Isaiah 59:2).
Rava created a man and sent him to R. Zeira. The latter spoke to him, but he did not answer. R. Zeira said, “You were created by one of our colleagues. Return to your dust!”
R. Ḥanina and R. Oshaya would sit every Sabbath eve and study the Book of Creation (Sefer yetsira), and a third-grown calf would be created for them, and they would eat it.
Translated by Simcha Gross and Avigail Manekin.
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Credits
b. Sanhedrin 65b, trans. Simcha Gross and Avigail Manekin. Copyright Simcha Gross and Avigail Manekin. Used with permission of the translators.
Published in: Carol Bakhos, ed., The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2, Emerging Judaism, 332 BCE–600 CE (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025).
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