m Rabbi Schimeon said: "How
excellent is thy lot! How much joy is this day stored up for thee!"

Rabbi Abba sat down behind his (_i.e._, Rabbi Schimeon's) back, and Rabbi
Eleazar before him (_i.e._, Rabbi Schimeon).

Rabbi Schimeon spake and said: "Surely now is the time of benevolence, and
I desire to enter without confusion into the world to come.

"And verily these sacred things, which hereunto have never been revealed,
I desire to reveal before the Schekhinah;

"Lest they should say that I have kept back anything, and that I have been
taken away from the world; for even until now these things have been
concealed in my heart, so that having entered into these very matters I
may be with them in the world to come.

"But this is my arrangement of you; let Rabbi Abba write, and let Rabbi
Eleazar my son speak openly; but let the rest of the Companions in silence
meditate in their heart."

Rabbi Abba arose from his seat behind him, and Rabbi Eleazar his son sat
down.

He said unto him, "Arise, O my son, for another shall sit in that seat";
and Rabbi Eleazar arose.

Rabbi Schimeon covered himself and sat down; and he commenced, and said,
Ps. cxv. 17: " 'The dead shall not praise IH, _Yah_, nor all they who go
down into silence!'

" 'The dead shall not praise Yah;' so it is certain that it is assuredly
those who are called dead; for He, God, the most Holy One--may He be
blessed!--is called the Living One, and is Himself commemorated among those
who are called living, and not with those who are called dead.

"And the end of this text runneth thus: 'Nor all they who go down into
silence;' for all they who go down into silence remain in Gehenna.

"There is another reason appertaining to those who are called living, for
God the most Holy One--may He be blessed!--desireth their glory."

Rabbi Schimeon said: "How different is this occasion from that of the
former conclave! For into a certain conclave(793) came He, the most Holy
and Blessed God, and His Chariot.

"Now verily He, the Holy One, is here--may He be blessed--and He hath
approached with those Just who are in the Garden of Eden,(794) which did
not occur in the former conclave.

"And God, the Most Holy One--may He be blessed--more promoteth the glory of
the Just than His own glory.

"As it is written concerning Jeroboam, who sacrificed unto and served
other gods, and yet God, the Most Holy One--may He be blessed!--waited for
him.

"But because he stretc