Rabi Elazar ben Pedas was extremely poor. Once, after a blood-letting treatment, he had nothing to eat to regain his strength other than a head of garlic, which he consumed. Overwhelmed by the garlic’s sharpness, he fainted. The rabbis who ran to care for him found him crying and laughing in his unconscious state, and then a spark of fire appeared from his forehead.
When Rabi Elazar was revived, the rabbis asked him: Why did you cry and laugh?
“Hakadosh Baruch Hu was sitting with me,” Rabi Elazar answered them, “and I asked Him: Why do I have to suffer so much in this world? And He told me: Elazar, My son, do you want Me to destroy the whole world and create it anew, and then perhaps you will be born with a mazal of wealth so that you will not be so impoverished? I said to Hakadosh Baruch Hu: You’ll do so much, and still there will be a doubt as to whether I will then be born into a mazal of wealth?
Then I asked Hakadosh Baruch Hu: Have I already lived the majority of my years in this world? Hakadosh Baruch Hu answered me: Yes, you have. I said to Him: If so, then I do not want You to recreate the world.
Rabi Elazar meant that he had cried when he heard that he was still destined to suffer poverty. But when Hakadosh Baruch Hu told him how much reward he was destined to receive in the World to Come, he laughed.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu told me: As reward for the fact that you said, “I do not want...,” I will give you [in the World to Come] thirteen rivers of pure balsam oil, [each one] as large as the river Peras and the river Chidekel, in which you will bathe and walk and take pleasure. I said before Him: Can you not give me anything more? So Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to me: What will I give your friend if you receive more than this? I said before Him: Am I asking of someone who doesn’t have? I am asking of You, and You are capable of everything, and You can give to both me and my friend!
When I said this to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, He tapped me with His finger on my forehead, and this was the spark of fire that emerged from my forehead. And as He did that, He told me lovingly: Elazar, My son, I shot My arrows at you.
(Based on Maseches Taanis 25a)
