Rabbi Yehoshua Answers the Heretic's Silent Gestures Before Caesar

(Genesis 33:12) Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was standing in Caesar's house. A certain heretic gestured to him: a people whose Master has turned His face away from them. He gestured back to him: His hand is stretched out over us. Caesar said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah: What did he gesture to you, and what did you gesture to him? He said to him: He gestured to me, a people whose Master has turned His face away from them, and I gestured back to him, His hand is stretched out over us. Caesar said to the heretic: What did you gesture to him? He said to him: A people whose Master has turned His face away from them. And what did he gesture to you? He said to him: I do not know. He said: A man who does not know what was gestured to him gestures with gestures before the king! They took that heretic out and killed him. When Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was dying, the sages said to him: What will become of us regarding the heretics? He said to them: "Counsel is perished from the children, their wisdom is gone stale" (Jeremiah 49:7) — "counsel is perished" from Israel, "their wisdom is gone stale" of the nations of the world. And if you should say it is from here: "And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us go, and I will go before you" (Genesis 33:12).