Rabbi Elazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, once condemned a man to death for a petty reason — the man had called him "Vinegar, son of Wine," a sly way of saying he was the bad son of a righteous father.
Only later did it emerge that the executed man had, unbeknownst to anyone, committed a capital crime. Technically, justice had fallen into place. But Rabbi Elazar's conscience did not accept the technicality. He knew he had killed a man out of wounded pride, not out of judgment.
Sixty Woolen Cloths a Night
He took on a peculiar penance. Every night, sixty woolen cloths were spread beneath him, and every morning they were found soaked with the sweat of his suffering. His body was prostrated by the self-inflicted affliction. His wife, using her own inheritance, tried to nurse him back to health — keeping him home from the study hall, worried the debates would finish what the penance had begun.
Eventually she lost patience and left him to his fate. He was then cared for by sailors who believed they owed him their lives, and at last he rose one morning after a night's perspiration and walked straight to the academy.
Sixty Rulings Against the Room
At that session, sixty doubtful legal questions came before the assembly. Rabbi Elazar decided every one of them against the unanimous opinion of his colleagues. In time, providence itself vindicated him — each ruling proved correct.
The story in Bava Metzia 83-85 holds two truths in tension. His wife was right that his body needed rest; he was wrong to let pride harden into a verdict. But his suffering had also scoured him into the kind of clarity that could see sixty cases past the consensus of the room. The Sages did not flatten the paradox. They preserved it, bloodied cloths and all.