Two men died on the same day in the same city. One was a great and righteous sage. The other was a tax collector, a known sinner. Both funeral processions met in the same narrow street, and while the town was honoring the sage's bier, enemies attacked and scattered the crowds. One loyal disciple stayed beside his master's body. When the townspeople returned to finish the burial, in the confusion they took the wrong bier and laid the publican in the sage's tomb with full honors. The sage, meanwhile, was buried disgracefully in the tax collector's plot.
The disciple was broken. For what sin did my teacher deserve this, he asked, and for what merit did a sinner get the funeral of a saint? His Rabbi came to him in a dream. Take comfort, he said. Come, I will show you my honored place in paradise, and also show you the man in Gehenna, the door of which even now creaks in his ears. I once listened to contemptuous talk against the Rabbis and did not rebuke it. For that I was buried without honor. The publican once prepared a banquet for the Roman governor, who did not come, and the food was given to the poor. For that act of unintended charity, he received the honor meant for me.
The disciple pressed further. And how long will the publican burn? The Rabbi answered, Until Simeon ben Shetach dies. Simeon knows that several witches practice their dark trade in Ashkelon, and he idly allows it. When he dies, he will take the publican's place in Gehenna until the witches are removed.
In the morning the disciple hurried to Simeon and reported the dream. Simeon acted at once. He assembled eighty strong young men, chose a rainy day, and marched on Ashkelon. This vivid passage from Sanhedrin 45b, preserved in Harris's 1901 Hebraic Literature, teaches that silence in the face of evil is itself an offense, and that a great man pays for every act he could have stopped and did not.
We may here repeat the story of the execution of the eighty women here alluded to, as that is told by Rashi on the preceding page of the Talmud. Once a publican, an Israelite but a sinner, and a great and good man of the same place, having died on the same day, were about to be buried. While the citizens were engaged with the funeral of the latter, the relations of the other crossed their path, bearing the corpse to the sepulchre. Of a sudden a troop of enemies came upon the scene and caused them all to take to flight, one faithful disciple alone remaining by the bier of his Rabbi. After a while the citizens returned to inter the remains they had so unceremoniously left, but by some mistake they took the wrong bier and buried the publican with honor, in spite of the remonstrance of the disciple, while the relatives of the publican buried the Rabbi ignominiously. The poor disciple felt inconsolably distressed, and was anxious to know for what sin the great man had been buried with contempt, and for what merit the wicked man had been buried with such honor. His Rabbi then appeared to him in a dream, and said, " Comfort thou thy heart, and come I will show thee the honor I hold in Paradise, and I will also show thee that man in Gehenna, the hinge of the door of which even now creaks in his ears.* But because once on a time I listened to contemptuous talk about the Rabbis and did not check it, I have suffered an ignoble burial, while the publican enjoyed the honor that was intended for me because he once distributed gratuitously among the poor of the city a banquet he had prepared for the governor, but of which the governor did not come to partake.* The disciple having asked the Rabbi how long this publican was to be thus severely treated, he replied, " Until the death of Simeon the son of Shetach, who is to take the publican's place in Gehenna. " "Why so?* " Because, though he knows there are several Jewish witches in Askelon, he idly suffers them to ply their infernal trade and does not take any steps to extirpate them." On the morrow the disciple reported this speech to Simeon the son of Shetach, who at once proceeded to take action against the obnoxious witches. He engaged eighty stalwart young men, and choosing a rainy
