Yesterday’s story of the ascetic Rabbi Shimon Yochai continues today. Upon emerging from his second isolation in the cave, Rabbi Shimon understood that he had to work with people who worked in the secular world, not consign them all to a fiery death. At the end of yesterday’s Daf our chastened Rabbi Shimon decides to emulate Jacob from Genesis 33:18 (” Jacob arrived safe in the city of Shechem which is in the land of Canaan – having come thus from Paddan-aram – and he encamped before the city.”) The Rabbis interpret this to mean that Jacob established coins, markets and bathhouses for Shchem. I am not sure how this meaning is derived from that verse, but these are basically the things Rabbi Shimon criticized the Romans for establishing in Israel.

At any rate, Rabbi Shimon now wants to make life easier for the citizens of a town. He uses his miraculous powers to determine where on the main road dead bodies are buried. He marks these spots and thus shows the Priests of the city areas to avoid so that they do not become ritually impure. Afterwards an old man who had helped with the marking criticizes Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Shimon does not like it. Rabbi Shimon says, “Even prostitutes braid each other’s hair” implying that the old man has less honor than a prostitute who helps her sisters. Rabbi Shimon fixes his gaze on this man and he dies. Later Rabbi Shimon finds the man who he feels betrayed him to the Romans and similarly executes this person with his gaze.

I am troubled by the stories of Rabbi Shimon. I cannot tell if the Talmud endorses his behavior. Later we will learn about the strict protections a defendant in a death penalty trial receives. Rabbi Shimon’s victims did not receive a trial and I am unsure of what biblical prohibition they transgressed that deserved death. We have seen too many people over the centuries who purported to know what God wants and felt free to consign many people who did not follow this vision to death, with no real check on their power. I don’t understand how Rabbi Shimon was able to sentence people to death in circumstances that a Rabbinic Court could not enact a similar sentence. Ironically, on a completely different subject we will learn in today’s Daf that if we want people to follow our instructions, we need to coach them gently. Rabbi Shimon did not subscribe to this principle.

We get what will be our last Mishnah of Chapter Two. This Mishnah describes the three things we should do late in the afternoon before Shabbat starts. We should make sure we properly tithed from what we will eat on Shabbat, we should make sure we properly set up our Eruv (legal demarcation of where it is permissible to carry on Shabbat), and we should light the Shabbat lights. We also discuss what we cannot do if we are in doubt about whether sundown has occurred (officially starting Shabbat).

We spend a lot of time trying to describe the day, the night and the time between day and night, which could be either or both. The Rabbis wanted a precision about when Shabbat began (at sundown) without the tools to measure to the same degree of precision. Additionally, every person apparently had to make this decision for themselves. We get a lot of descriptions of the transition from day to night and how to tell one from another. Today, I get an email from a number of organizations that tells me the precise time Shabbat starts and ends. Since my iPhone is synced to universal time, I can be certain that my reading of this time is the same as everyone else’s who correctly measures time. I don’t need to rely on my own observation and judgment.