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<b>Kiddushin<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=""><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--></span></span>(81b):[[
</b>Every time R. Hiyya b. Abba fell upon his face6 he used to say,
‘The
Merciful save us from the Tempter.’ One day his wife heard him. ‘Let us
see,’
she reflected, ‘it is so many years that he has held aloof from me: why
then
should he pray thus?’7 One day, while he was studying in his garden,
she
adorned herself and repeatedly walked up and down before him. ‘Who are
you?’ he
demanded. ‘I am Harutha,8 and have returned to-day,’ she replied. He
desired
her. Said she to him, ‘Bring me that pomegranate from the uppermost
bough.’ He
jumped up, went, and brought it to her. When he re-entered his house,
his wife
was firing the oven, whereupon he ascended and sat in it.[<b>to kill
himself – Rashi</b>]
‘What means this?’ she demanded. He told her what had befallen. ‘It was
I,’ she
assured him; but he paid no heed to her until she gave him proof.9
‘Nevertheless,’ said he, ‘my intention was evil.’
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