Rabbi asked what had
kept him so late. Elijah answered, "I have to wake up Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob one after the other, to wash the hands of each, and to wait
until each has said his prayers and retired to rest again." "But," said
Rabbi, "why do they not all get up at the same time?" The answer was,
"Because if they prayed all at once, their united prayers would hurry on
the coming of the Messiah before the time appointed." Then said Rabbi,
"Are there any such praying people among us?" Elijah mentioned Rabbi
Cheyah and his sons. Then Rabbi announced a fast, and the Rabbi Cheyah
and his sons came to celebrate it. In the course of repeating the
Shemoneh Esreh [a prayer consisting of eighteen Collects, which is
repeated three times each day] they were about to say, "Thou restoreth
life to the dead" when the world was convulsed, and the question was
asked in heaven, "Who told them the secret?" So Elijah was bastinadoed
sixty strokes with a cudgel of fire. Then he came down like a fiery
bear, and dashing in among the people, scattered the congregation.
_Bava Metzia_, fol. 85, col. 2.
When love was strong, we could lie, as it were, on the edge of a sword;
but now, when love is diminished, a bed sixty ells wide is not broad
enough for us.
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