Rabbi Levi said: There are three items whose sound travels from one end of the world to the other, and the creatures are in the middle but do not sense it. They are: The day,23The sun. the rains, and the soul at the moment that it leaves the body. The day, from where is it known? Rabbi Yehuda said: You believe that it [the sun] moves smoothly in the firmament, but actually it is like a saw sawing wood.
The rains, from where is it derived? Rabbi Levi said: “Depths call out to depths in the sound [of your waterways]” (Psalms 42:8). The soul at the moment that it leaves the body, from where is it derived? Because Rabbi Shmuel, brother of Rabbi Pinḥas ben Rabbi Ḥama, was dying in Tzippori, and his colleagues were sitting with him.24Rabbi Pinḥas’ colleagues were sitting with Rabbi Pinḥas.
A [humorous] matter came up and they began laughing. He said to them: How the soul of the brother of that man [the soul of my brother] is hewing cedars and hewing trees,25His soul is departing. and you are sitting and laughing and are oblivious to it.