24b: Rava's Bed of Death

In the midst of the series of stories about God granting or not granting prayer, we have an interesting piece about a time when Rava went too far. Rava's sentence of death to a man who slept with a Cutite woman upset the palace of King Shapur, who wanted to punish Rava. His mother, who either feared the Jews mystical powers or just had a crush on Rava, tips him off about her son's doubt as to his powers. He therefore upsets nature by compelling rain to come in Tamuz. His father comes to him in a dream to castigate his haughtiness and to warn him to sleep in a different spot. This proves propitious as the next morning his usual bed is marked up by knives. But who ordered the hit?

When I first read it I thought it was by King Shapur's men, but Rashi thinks otherwise. He blames the tyrant Shadim for the attempted whack because Rava solicited a miracle. Since when do shadim care about who solicits miracles?

Perhaps this story is really a condemnation of Rava's sentence of death to the man who slept with the Cutite woman at the beginning of the story. It seems like no coincidence that Rava is almost stabbed to death in his bed while earlier he sentenced a man to death for what he did in bed. It was Rava's ruling that also got him in trouble with the King in the first place, and led to his illegal solicitation of a miracle. In the broader context of the gemarra, maybe this story is telling us that these sorts of decisions ought to be left up to heaven, not those of us here on earth.