Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yossi, and Rabbi Shimon (ben Yochai) were sitting together, and Yehudah ben Gerim (the son, says Rashi, of proselyte parents) beside them.  In the course of conversation Rabbi Yehudah remarked, “How beautiful and serviceable are the works of these Romans!  They have established markets, spanned rivers by bridges, and erected baths.”  To this remark Rabbi Yossi kept silent, but Rabbi Shimon replied, “Yea, indeed; but all these they have done to benefit themselves.  The markets they have opened to feed licentiousness, they have erected baths for their own pleasure, and the bridges they have raised for collecting tolls.”  Yehudah ben Gerim thereupon went direct and informed against them, and the report having reached the Emperor’s ears, an edict was immediately issued that Rabbi Yehudah should be promoted, Rabbi Yossi banished to Sepphoris, and Rabbi Shimon taken and executed.  Rabbi Shimon and his son, however, managed to secret themselves in a college, where they were purveyed to by the Rabbi’s wife, who brought them daily bread and water.  One day mistrust seized the Rabbi, and he said to his son, “Women are light-minded; the Romans may tease her and then she will betray us.”  So they stole away and hid themselves in a cave.  Here the Lord interposed by a miracle, and created a carob-tree bearing fruit all the year round for their support, and opened a perennial spring for their refreshment.  To save their clothes they laid them aside except at prayers, and to protect their naked bodies from exposure they would at other times sit up to their necks in sand, absorbed in study.  After they had passed twelve years thus in the cave, Elijah was sent to inform them that the Emperor was dead, and his decree powerless to touch them.  On leaving the cave, they noticed some people plowing and sowing, when one of them exclaimed, “These folk neglect eternal things and trouble themselves with the things that are temporal.”  As they fixed their eyes upon the place, fire came and burnt it up.  Then a Bath Kol was heard exclaiming, “What! are ye come forth to destroy the world I have made?  Get back to your cave and hide you.”  Thither accordingly they returned, and after they had stopped there twelve months longer, they remonstrated, pleading that even the judgment of the wicked in Gehenna lasted no longer than twelve months; upon which a Bath Kol was again heard from heaven, which said, “Come ye forth from your cave.”  Then they arose and obeyed it.

Shabbath, fol. 33, col 2.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said that at every utterance which proceeded from the mouth of the Holy One—­blessed be He!—­on Mount Sinai, Israel receded twelve miles, being conducted gently back by the ministering angels; for it is said (Ps. lxviii. 12), “The angels of hosts kept moving.”

Shabbath, fol. 88, col. 2.

A Sadducee once said to Rabbi Abhu, “Ye say that the souls of the righteous are treasured up under the throne of glory; how then had the Witch of Endor power to bring up the prophet Samuel by necromancy?” The Rabbi replied, “Because that occurred within twelve months after his death; for we are taught that during twelve months after death the body is preserved and the soul soars up and down, but that after twelve months the body is destroyed and the soul goes up never to return.”