When Rabbi Judah the Prince — the great redactor of the Mishnah — lay dying at Tzippori, the rabbis gathered around his bed. The people of Israel fasted and prayed. On the day he died, a voice was heard saying, “Whoever was at the deathbed of Rabbi Judah the Prince is promised a share in the World to Come.”
Before he died, he summoned his sons and gave them parting orders. His voice was weak but the instructions were precise:
“Treat your mother with honor. Let the lamp continue to burn in its usual place. Let the table be set where it has always been set. Let my bed be placed where it has always stood. The two Canaanite servants who have served me — let them serve me still, for they have served me in my lifetime and they will serve me in my death.”
He named Shimon his successor in wisdom, and Gamliel his successor as Nasi, head of the Sanhedrin. “Do not let my son Gamliel preside lightly,” he said. “Let him fear the rabbis as the rabbis should fear him.”
Then he raised his ten fingers toward heaven and spoke one last prayer: “Master of the Universe, You know that with all my ten fingers I have labored in the Torah, and I have not tasted the pleasures of this world even with my little finger. Now let there be peace in my resting place.”
A heavenly voice answered: “He shall enter in peace; they shall rest in their beds” (Isaiah 57:2). With that, his soul departed.
The rabbis remembered the way a great teacher dies: setting the lamp, naming the successor, raising the unstained hands.