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

The Mission to Rome

Everyone knows the story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the cave. The twelve years of hiding from Rome, the spiritual intensity so concentrated that his gaze set crops on fire when he emerged, the return to the cave for another year until he could tolerate ordinary human life again. That story is told in the Talmud and taught to every student.

Far less known is what happened before the cave. Before the decree made it necessary to hide, Rabbi Shimon made a voyage to Rome to try to reverse the decrees that were destroying Jewish life in the land of Israel. He went on a ship, at night, with a mission that should have been simple: petition the emperor, make the case, come home.

On the night voyage, a figure appeared to him in a dream. It was Ashmedai, king of the demons, the same being who had once tricked Solomon into giving up his throne and had sat in the king's place while Solomon wandered homeless, unrecognized, living on other people's charity.

A Demon Offers His Services

Rabbi Shimon was offended. God had sent an angel to Hagar, a foreign servant woman, when she was in distress in the wilderness. He had sent an angel to the prophet Elijah when Elijah fled Jezebel and collapsed exhausted under a broom tree. But to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a teacher of the Torah, a sage of Israel, He sent the prince of demons?

Ashmedai was unmoved by the complaint. "A miracle is a miracle," he said. He had a plan. He would enter the emperor's daughter as a possessing spirit. He would make her scream Rabbi Shimon's name without stopping. He would refuse to leave until every decree against Israel had been rescinded. When the emperor's court was desperate enough, they would summon Rabbi Shimon, and Rabbi Shimon would command Ashmedai to leave, and the price would be the repeal of the decrees.

Rabbi Shimon agreed.

The Princess and the Court That Could Not Help Her

The princess began to convulse. She shattered dishes. She screamed the same name over and over, a name no one in the Roman court recognized. The court physicians were useless. The priests were useless. The magicians were useless. Nothing they tried touched whatever was inside her. The demon had positioned himself where no Roman expertise could reach him.

They sent for Rabbi Shimon. He came to the palace and stood before the emperor and called to Ashmedai by name: "leave the girl." The demon refused. "Not yet," he said. "The decrees have not been rescinded." Rabbi Shimon turned to the emperor and laid out the terms. The emperor, with his daughter screaming in the next room and every expert he owned already failed, agreed. The decrees were reversed. Rabbi Shimon called to Ashmedai again. The princess went still.

What Happened When the Mission Succeeded

The decrees were reversed. Rabbi Shimon had accomplished what he came to Rome to do. But the Midrashim of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, preserved in the collection called Otzar Midrashim, records something about the aftermath that most retellings omit.

Rabbi Shimon knew that what had been given could be taken back. Emperors were mortal. The men who came after them were not bound by their predecessors' reversals. Whatever protection had been bought in Rome would last only as long as whoever sat on the throne chose to honor it. And so Rabbi Shimon, after his mission succeeded, did not return home celebrating. He understood that the reprieve was temporary and that something more fundamental than an imperial decree needed to change if Israel was to survive.

That understanding was what drove him into the cave. Not the renewed persecution alone, but the knowledge, bought with the voyage to Rome and the bargain with Ashmedai, that no arrangement made with the empire would hold. The only thing worth retreating into was something the empire could not rescind.