The daughter of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa fell into a deep pit, and the entire neighborhood panicked. They rushed to tell the great miracle-worker that his child was in mortal danger, trapped underground with no way to climb out.
The Talmud (Bava Kamma 50a, Yevamot 121b) records Rabbi Hanina's astonishing response. When the first messenger arrived, he said simply: "She is well." When the second messenger came with more urgent cries, he said again: "She is well." When the third messenger arrived, insisting that surely by now the girl must be dead, Rabbi Hanina said: "She has come out."
And indeed she had. The girl emerged from the pit unharmed.
How did Rabbi Hanina know? The sages explain that his confidence was not indifference — it was faith of the most radical kind. Rabbi Hanina lived his entire life on the principle that God does not allow harm to come through the righteous. His donkey famously refused to eat untithed grain. His goats once brought home bears on their horns after being attacked. The natural world itself bent around Rabbi Hanina's holiness.
But the Talmud also adds a cautionary note: Rabbi Yohanan said that this very pit later caused the death of a child — not Rabbi Hanina's child, but another's. "A thing through which a righteous person was saved should not become a stumbling block," the sages taught. The pit was holy because of the miracle — but holiness does not transfer automatically. What saved one may destroy another. Never presume upon miracles.