The Carbuncle Gates That Only the Faithful May See

"And I will make your battlements of rubies [kadkod]" (Isaiah 54:12). Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Read it as "this and that" [each according to its kind]. Rabbi Levi said: Carbuncle stones. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Stones of carbuncle. Rabbi Yehoshua stood with Elijah, remembered for good, and said to him, "Will my master not show me those carbuncle stones?" He said, "Yes." He showed them to him by a miracle. There was an incident with a ship sailing the Great Sea, and all aboard were gentiles except for one Jewish child. A great storm came upon the sea. Elijah revealed himself to that child and said to him, "Go on my errand to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi and show him those carbuncle stones, and I will rescue this ship for your merit." The child said, "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi is the great one of the generation, and he will not trust me." Elijah said, "Yes he will, he is humble, he will trust you. And when you show them to him, do not show them to him before any other person, but lead him to the cave that is three miles distant from Lod, and show them to him there." At once a miracle was done and the child went out from there in peace. The child went to Rabbi Yehoshua and found him sitting in the great academy of Lod. He said to him, "Master, I have a private matter to tell you." Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi arose. See the humility of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who walked behind him a distance of three miles and did not ask him, "What do you want of me?" When they reached the cave, the child said, "Master, these are the carbuncle stones." When Rabbi Yehoshua saw them, they blazed with their light, and he cast them to the earth and they were hidden away. "Your suns" (Isaiah 54:12), your walls. "And your gates of carbuncle stones" (Isaiah 54:12). Rabbi Yirmiyah in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Yitzchak: The Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to make the eastern gate of the Temple, it and its two wickets, of a single pearl-stone. Rabbi Yochanan was sitting and teaching in the great synagogue of Sepphoris: The Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to make the eastern gate of the Temple, it and its two wickets, of a single pearl. A certain heretical disciple was there and said, "We cannot even find one the size of a small dove's egg, and this man sits and says such a thing!" Some time later, while he was sailing the Great Sea, his ship sank, and he went down to the depths of the abyss and saw the ministering angels chiseling, engraving, and shaping a stone. He said to them, "What is this?" They said, "This is the eastern gate of the Temple, it and its two wickets, of a single pearl." At once a miracle was done for him and he went out from there in peace. The following year he came and found Rabbi Yochanan sitting and teaching this very matter, that the Holy One is destined to make the eastern gate of the Temple, it and its two wickets, of a single pearl. He said to him, "Elder, elder, whatever you can roll out, roll out, whatever you can praise, praise, for had my eyes not seen it, I would not have believed it." He said to him, "And were it not that your eyes saw it, you would not have believed the words I expound in the Torah?" He raised his eyes and gazed at him, and at once the man became a heap of bones. There was an incident with a certain pious man who was walking along the cliff of the sea of Haifa, and he pondered in his heart and said, "Would you say that the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to make the eastern gate of the Temple and its two wickets of a single pearl?" At once a heavenly voice went out and said to him, "Were you not a wholly pious man, the attribute of judgment would already have struck this man. I created the whole world in six days, as it is written, 'In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth' (Exodus 31:17), and you say the eastern gate of the Temple cannot be made of a single pearl?" At once he begged mercy for his soul and said before Him, "Master of the worlds, even so, I only pondered it in my heart and did not utter it with my lips." At once a miracle was done for him and the sea split before him, and he saw the ministering angels chiseling, engraving, and shaping it. He said to them, "What is this?" They said to him, "This is the eastern gate of the Temple, it and its two wickets, of a single pearl."