Kabbalah Library

81. While the friends were sitting and engaging in Torah with one another, they heard a voice saying, “Arise, upper ones! The lower ones are asleep, for sleep is in the holes of their eyes; arise! The Creator wants to vex the world, and those supports, the pillars on which the world is supported, are shaking. Here is the sound of the crying of a fawn, who is crying over one lion who is always inscribed on the holy throne.”

82. Rabbi Nehorai said to Rabbi Yitzhak, “Did you hear something?” He told him, “I heard, and I say about this, ‘I heard, and my stomach is upset.’” Rabbi Nehorai said, “It must be that the Creator wishes to sentence His world, and before He casts a sentence, that voice awakens and always declares in the world. The highest of the high are bound to depart from the world now, and everything is clear to us except what the herald said, “the sound of the crying of a fawn, who is crying over one lion,” I do not know who it is.”

83. Rabbi Nehemiah said, “They did not know this for a while, but after a few days, the matter was revealed in the world. Why was the weeping? It is the weeping of Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha, a High Priest, who was weeping by the head of our rav Shimon Ben Gamliel, who was killed by the kingship, and this weeping will not depart from the king’s throne until the Creator takes vengeance against the rest of the nations.”

84. Rabbi Rehumai said, “When the Creator judges the world, whom does He judge first? He first judges the greatest of the generation, and afterwards, He judges the world. How do we know this? From the words, “And it came to pass, in the days when the judges judged.” The judges judged first, and then, “There was famine in the land.” It is also written, “to pass the judgment of His servant and the judgment of His people Israel.” The judgment of His servant, first, and then the judgment of His people Israel.