Widening the Road for Esau and the Bandits of Two Lands

Our Rabbis taught: An Israelite who chances upon a Samaritan on the road should keep him at his right hand. Rabbi Ishmael, son of Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka, says: if the man carries a sword, keep him at the right hand; if a staff, at the left. When going uphill or downhill, let it not be that the Israelite is below and the Samaritan above; rather the Israelite above and the Samaritan below, and let him not bend down before him, lest the other crush his skull. If he asks, Where are you going?, widen the road for him in his answer, just as Jacob widened the road for Esau, as it is written, "until I come to my lord, to Seir" (Genesis 33:14), while it is written (below, verse 17), "And Jacob journeyed to Succoth." And there is the case of Rabbi Akiva's students who were walking to Keziv, and bandits met them and asked, Where are you going? They said, To Acco. When they reached Keziv, they turned aside. The bandits asked, Whose students are you? They said, Students of Rabbi Akiva. The bandits said, Happy is Rabbi Akiva and his students, for no evil person has ever met them. Rabbi Menashya was going to Bei Torta, and thieves met him and asked, Where are you headed? He said, To Pumbedita. When he reached Bei Torta, he turned aside. They said to him, You are the student of Judah the swindler! He said, You know him? May those men be under a ban. They went and practiced thievery twenty-two years and did not succeed. They all sought release from their ban; one weaver who did not come to be released was eaten by a lion. This is what people say: A weaver who is not pliant, his ban is poorer than [worse than] his years. Come and see the difference between the thieves of Babylonia and the bandits of the Land of Israel.