The Roman official had one cup too many set before him, and his face twisted unnaturally. A Rabbi knew the cure — rearrange the cups so the even number became odd, and the face would right itself. They did. The face returned to normal. Then the official remembered his errand. "The man I want," he said, "is here." He locked the Rabbi up. "If I could save you by losing only my life, I would. But I fear torture. I have to hold you."
The Rabbi prayed in his cell. The walls gave way. He fled to Agma and sat beneath a tree, and there — Rabbah bar Nachmani, one of the greatest minds in Babylonian Talmud — began to meditate. Bava Metzia 86a picks up the scene.
Above him, in the heavenly academy, a debate was raging. The question was a technical one from Leviticus 13:25 — a certain kind of leprous hair: clean or unclean? The Holy One, blessed be He, ruled clean. The entire heavenly academy ruled unclean. Deadlock. "Who shall decide?" they asked. "Rabbah bar Nachmani," came the answer, "for he said of himself, 'In the laws of leprosy and tents I stand alone.'"
The angel of death was dispatched. He could not approach — the Rabbi's lips never stopped reciting Torah. So the angel took the shape of a troop of Roman cavalry thundering through the field. Rabbah, terrified of capture, cried out: "Better to die by him than fall into their hands!" At that instant the heavenly voice asked the question. "Clean," said Rabbah — and with the word his soul departed. A voice rang out from Heaven: "Blessed are you, Rabbah bar Nachmani, for your body is clean, and clean was the word on your lips when your spirit departed."
A scroll fell from the sky into Pumbedita announcing his admission to the heavenly academy. His students went to Agma to bury him. Some men die in battle. Some die in bed. Rabbah died mid-sentence, teaching the angels.