“Covered [me’ulefet] with sapphires” – it77The Torah saps [me’olefet] the strength of people, as it is as hard as the sapphire. Rabbi Yudan and Rabbi Pinḥas: Rabbi Yudan said: If you say that the sapphire was soft, come and see an incident involving a certain person who brought a certain sapphire to Rome to sell it. The purchaser said: In order to assess it, we will test it by breaking a small piece from it.
He placed it on the anvil and began striking it with a hammer. The anvil cracked and the hammer split, but the sapphire remained intact in its place. That is what is written: “Covered with sapphires.” Rabbi Abba bar Mamal said: If a person weakens from [his exertion] in Torah and halakha, ultimately he becomes a magician through them.78He arrives at clear solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
The Rabbis say: Anyone who becomes a magician through the words of Torah, ultimately he will become king through them, just as it says: “There is magic on the lips of a king” (Proverbs 16:10). Donkey drivers came to Rabbi Elazar bar Rabbi Shimon’s father to purchase produce, from the city of Himonaya. He was sitting near the oven; his mother removed bread [from the oven] and he ate it, his mother removed bread [from the oven] and he ate it, until he ate all the loaves.
They said: Alas, there is an evil snake in this one’s intestines, it appears that this one is bringing famine to the world. He heard their voices. When they left to purchase their loads, he took their donkeys and brought them up to the roof. They came and sought their donkeys but did not find them.
They lifted their eyes and saw them placed on the roof. They went to his father and related the incident to him. He said to them: ‘Perhaps you said something offensive to him.’ They said to him: ‘No, sir, but rather, such and such was the incident.’
He said to them: ‘Why did you relate to him begrudgingly and negatively? Was he eating from your [food]; is his sustenance your responsibility? No, it is He who created him, who creates his sustenance. Nevertheless, go and tell him in my name [to return the donkeys], and he will take them down for you.
The latter miracle was more difficult than the first. When he took them up, he took them up one at a time, but when he took them down he took them down two at a time. But once he [concluded] his Torah studies, he could not carry even his cloak, to realize what is stated: “Covered with sapphires.”79Rabbi Elazar was so strong that he could carry donkeys down from the roof two at a time. But his exertion in his studies was so intense that when he finished he could not carry even his cloak.
This demonstrates the previous statement of the midrash that Torah weakens a person, meaning that proper Torah study requires such exertion that the person will emerge exhausted. There was a member of Rabban Gamliel’s household who was able to pick up a box containing forty se’a and take it to the baker.80He would carry a box containing forty se’a of grain, a measurement of volume greater than thirty liters. [Rabban Gamliel] said to him: You have all this great strength and you do not engage in Torah study?
Once he began engaging in Torah study, he began carrying thirty, twenty, twelve, eight se’a. When he finished the Sifra,81The Sifra is the compendium of halakhic midrash on Leviticus, and finishing it was a significant achievement. he could not carry even a box containing one se’a. Some say, he was unable to carry even the scarf with which he wrapped his head. Rather, others would remove it from upon him, as he was unable to do so, to realize what is stated: “Covered with sapphires.”