Rabbi Shimon Sent a Demon to Rome Before Praying for the End

Most people think of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai as the man who hid in a cave for twelve years and emerged so spiritually intense that his gaze set crops on fire. That story, from Tractate Shabbat, is famous. What is far less known is what happened on the ship to Rome, before the cave, when the mission was simple: get the imperial decrees against Israel reversed.

The Midrashim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, preserved in the Otzar Midrashim, records a tradition that on the night voyage to the imperial capital, a figure appeared to Rabbi Shimon in a dream. It was Ashmedai, king of the demons, the same being who once tricked Solomon and sat on his throne while the king wandered homeless.

Rabbi Shimon's first response was offense. To Hagar, a servant, God had sent a heavenly angel. To him, a sage and a teacher, He sent the prince of demons? Ashmedai was unmoved. "A miracle is a miracle," he said, and laid out his plan. He would enter the emperor's daughter as a possessing spirit. He would scream Rabbi Shimon's name until they summoned him. He would refuse to leave until every decree against Israel was reversed.

It worked. The princess shattered dishes, convulsed, and screamed one name over and over until her father the emperor had no choice. When Rabbi Shimon arrived, he called to Ashmedai to leave the girl's body. The demon refused until the decrees were formally canceled. The emperor summoned his advisors. One minister, working through twisted logic, argued that every restriction on the Jews actually hurt the empire: forbid the Sabbath and Jews would save money and grow rich enough to rebel; forbid circumcision and most infants would die anyway; forbid purity laws and the birth rate would rise and Israel would multiply against Rome. One by one the decrees were reversed. Ashmedai departed. The emperor gave Rabbi Shimon letters, gifts, and approval. Rabbi Shimon returned to Jerusalem happy.

That should have been the end of the story. But for Rabbi Shimon, it was only the beginning of a question. He had just watched a demon accomplish what diplomacy could not. He had seen the machinery of empire reverse itself not for any principle, but because a minister found reasons that served the emperor's interests. The decrees were canceled. Israel was safer. And none of it had anything to do with justice.

He went into a cave and prayed for forty days and nights.

The gates of heaven opened. A voice called his name. Then the angel Metatron, the Prince of the Divine Presence, descended, touched him, and woke him the way a hand might rouse a man from sleep. What followed was a vision so vast the text can barely contain it. Rabbi Shimon saw kingdoms rising and falling in sequence. He saw the rise of the kingdom of Ishmael, great and terrible. He saw what the tradition calls the Kenites, whom the Midrash reads as a world power that would come at the end of history. He saw Armilus, the figure the tradition names as a false king who would arise to mislead the nations and make war on Israel.

He wept. Metatron asked him why. Rabbi Shimon said: the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will have no escape in those days. The angel's answer was not comfort. It was honest. The matter is difficult. Like meat placed over a fire, he said, you cannot escape the smell. But those who run in time, who hide, will be saved.

The vision continued through every phase of the end. Wars in the east, wars in the west. A king who forbade circumcision and prayer. Three and a half years of intensifying catastrophe. Then the shofar, blown by Michael with Isaac's ram horn extended a thousand cubits. Then Elijah, arriving at the moment of greatest despair, turning to the remnant of Israel scattered in the wilderness and saying: this is the Messiah. Be strong, do not be afraid (Isaiah 35:4). Then, at last, God fighting for Israel directly, "and the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations" (Zechariah 14:3).

The Midrash of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai holds both visions together: the demon in Rome and the angel at the end of history. They are the same story told at two different scales. At the Roman scale, a miracle arranged by the king of demons gives Israel thirty years of relative safety, maybe more. The decrees are canceled. The children survive. At the eschatological scale, Metatron shows one rabbi the full arc of what is coming, and the full arc is terrible and then redeemed, and in between it is exactly as bad as it looks.

Rabbi Shimon asked Metatron one final question, the one that was behind all the others: how will all of Israel be gathered from the four corners of the earth, and under whose hand will they go out? The clouds appeared at the gates of heaven, and the answer began.

The Otzar Midrashim traditions do not present these visions as comfortable. They are not meant to reassure. They are meant to describe: this is the road. It is long and it is painful and there is a demon willing to help and an angel willing to explain and God at the far end of it, fighting the last battle personally. Rabbi Shimon took the whole picture, the demon and the angel and the fire and the shofar, and brought it back with him out of the cave.