Rabbah bar bar Hana's journeys were not limited to the sea. An Arab guide led him across the desert to the most sacred and terrifying locations in biblical geography. According to Bava Batra 74a, he saw the dead of Korah, Mount Sinai, and the place where heaven and earth touch.
The Arab brought him to the spot where the earth swallowed Korah's rebels. Two cracks in the ground emitted smoke. The Arab took wool, soaked it in water, placed it on a spear, and lowered it into the rift. When he pulled it out, the wool was scorched. "Listen," the Arab said. From deep in the earth, Rabbah bar bar Hana heard the rebels repeating: "Moses and his Torah are true, and we are liars." Every thirty days, Gehinnom (גהנם) cycles them back to this spot, and they confess again.
Next, the guide showed him Mount Sinai. Scorpions encircled it, standing as tall as white donkeys. Rabbah bar bar Hana heard a divine voice saying: "Woe is Me that I took an oath; and now that I took the oath, who will nullify it for Me?" The Sages later rebuked him: you should have said, "Your oath is nullified." God was lamenting His oath of exile upon the Jewish people—and Rabbah bar bar Hana missed his chance to release them from it.
The Arab also showed him where heaven meets earth. Rabbah bar bar Hana placed his bread basket in a window of the firmament. When he finished praying, the basket was gone. "Are there thieves here?" he asked. The Arab explained: "The heavenly sphere has rotated. Wait here until tomorrow at this hour, and you will find your basket."
The Sages' consistent response to these stories was rebuke. "Every Abba is a donkey, and every bar bar Hana is an idiot." He went to extraordinary places and failed to act on what he found there. As the Psalmist lamented: "How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?" (Psalms 13:2)—the exile continues because those who could end it do not seize the moment.