Then, sweeter than the voice of doves among the fig-trees, came the voice of Esther: "Didst thou not bid me, husband, that I should choose and take away from thy house whatsoever I most desired? And I have chosen thee, and have brought thee hither, to my father's home,... loving thee more than all else in the world. Wilt thou drive me from thee now?" And he could not see her face for tears of love; yet he heard her voice speaking on—speaking the golden words of Ruth, which are so old yet so young to the hearts of all that love: "Whithersoever thou shalt go, I will also go; and whithersoever thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. And the Angel of Death only may part us; for thou art all in all to me."...
And in the golden sunlight at the doorway suddenly stood, like a statue of Babylonian silver, the grand gray figure of Rabbi Simon ben Yochai, lifting his hands in benediction.
"Schmah Israel!—the Lord our God, who is One, bless ye with everlasting benediction! May your hearts be welded by love, as gold with gold by the cunning of goldsmiths! May the Lord, who coupleth and setteth the single in families, watch over ye! The Lord make this valiant woman even as Rachel and as Lia, who built up the house of Israel! And ye shall behold your children and your children's children in the House of the Lord!"
Even so the Lord blessed them; and Esther became as the fruitful vine, and they saw their children's children in Israel. Forasmuch as it is written: "He will regard the prayer of the destitute."
[THE DISPUTE IN THE HALACHA]
..Told of in the Book "Bava-Metzia; or, The Middle Gate" of the Holy Shas.... The Lord loveth the gates that are marked with the Halacha more than the synagogues and the schools.
Now, in those days there was a dispute between the Mishnic Doctors and Rabbi Eliezer concerning the legal cleanliness of a certain bake-oven, as is written in the Bava-Metzia of the Talmud. For while all the others held the oven to be unclean according to the Halacha, Rabbi Eliezer declared that it was clean; and all their arguments he overthrew, and all their objections he confuted, although they would not suffer themselves to be convinced. Then did Rabbi Eliezer at last summon a carob-tree to bear witness to his interpretation of the law; and the carob-tree uprooted itself, and rose in air with the clay trickling from its roots, and moved through air to the distance of four hundred yards, and replanted itself, trembling, in the soil.
But the Doctors of the Mishna, being used to marvelous things, were little moved; and they said: "We may not admit the testimony of a carob-tree. Shall a carob-tree discourse to us regarding the Halacha? Will a carob-tree teach us the law?"