Beruria, the brilliant wife of Rabbi Meir, was one of the sharpest minds in all of rabbinic literature. And one day, she corrected her husband on a point of theology that has echoed through Jewish thought ever since.
Rabbi Meir was being tormented by a group of wicked neighbors. These were violent, lawless people who made life miserable for everyone around them, and Rabbi Meir had finally had enough. He began to pray — fervently, passionately — for God to destroy them. Let them die, he asked. Let them be wiped from the earth.
Beruria overheard his prayer and stopped him. "What are you doing?" she asked. "On what basis do you pray for their death?"
Rabbi Meir cited the verse from Psalms: "Let sinners cease from the earth" (Psalms 104:35). Surely, he argued, this was a call for the wicked to perish.
Beruria shook her head. "Look again at the text," she said. "It does not say sinners shall cease — it says sins shall cease. The verse calls for the end of sin, not the end of sinners. Pray instead that these people repent. Pray that their wickedness disappears, not that they do."
Rabbi Meir — one of the greatest sages of his generation — accepted his wife's correction. He changed his prayer. And according to the Talmud (Berakhot 10a), the wicked neighbors eventually did repent.
The story became one of the most famous teachings on mercy in Jewish tradition: hate the sin, not the sinner.