The Doubled Affliction and the Martyred Sages Comfort

Another interpretation: "If you afflict him at all" (Exodus 22:22) tells that one is not liable until he afflicts and repeats [the affliction]. Now Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael were once being taken out to be killed. Rabban Shimon said to Rabbi Yishmael: "Rabbi, my heart fails me, for I do not know why I am being put to death." Rabbi Yishmael said to him: "Did it never happen in your life that a man came to you for judgment or for a question, and you kept him waiting until you had finished your cup, or until you had fastened your sandal, or until you had wrapped yourself in your cloak? And the Torah said, 'If you afflict him at all,' one who afflicts much and one who afflicts a little." And at this he said to him, "You have comforted me." When Rabban Shimon and Rabbi Yishmael were killed, Rabbi Akiva said to his disciples: "Prepare yourselves for calamity, for had good been destined to come upon us in our generation, none would have received it before Rabban Shimon and Rabbi Yishmael. But now it is revealed and known before the One who spoke and the world came to be that a great calamity is destined to come upon us in our generation, and these have been taken from among us," to fulfill what is said, "The righteous man perishes, and no one takes it to heart; he is gathered away, that he may enter into peace; they shall rest; draw near here, you children of the sorceress."