Elazar, son of Shimon bar Yochai, had inherited from his mystical father not only the secrets of Torah but a body of extraordinary strength. The Talmud says his belly was so large that an ox could pass under it — the rabbis were not subtle about his physique — and when he ate, he ate like a man rebuilding a city.
One day, during a massive meal, a group of donkey-drivers walked past and mocked him. Look at this rabbi eating like a giant. They made jokes about his size.
Elazar did not argue. He stood up, walked over to their animals, and — one by one — lifted each donkey up with his bare hands and placed it in the loft above the courtyard.
The drivers looked up at their donkeys stranded in the rafters and realized they had picked the wrong man. They begged his pardon, abjectly.
Elazar came back. He lifted the donkeys down two at a time — faster going down than coming up — and sent the men on their way.
Gaster's Exempla (No. 92, 1924) preserves the scene. A tzaddik, the sages whisper, is not only a scholar. Sometimes he is a man whose body tells you what his learning already knows — that mockery of Torah and of its students eventually finds itself stuck on the ceiling with no way down.