God of Meir, Answer Me

The Gemara in Avodah Zarah relates that the Romans caught Rav Chananiah ben Teradyon teaching Torah in public and put him to death. One of his daughters was sentenced to a life of shame. Beruriah, another daughter, turned to her husband and said it was a disgrace for her that her sister was held in such a place, and that he must do something to save her.

Rav Meir took a vessel full of dinars and set out. He reasoned that if her sister had not sinned, a miracle would be done for her, and if she had, no miracle would come. Dressed as a Roman horseman, he approached her and tested her, and her answers showed him that she had kept herself pure. He then turned to her guard and said, “Give her to me.” The guard answered that he feared the authorities would punish him. Rav Meir told him to take the dinars, give half to the officials as a bribe and keep half for himself.

“And when the money is gone,” asked the guard, “what will I do?” Rav Meir told him to say, “Elokah deMeir, aneini” (God of Meir, answer me), and he would be saved. The guard doubted that such words could help. “You will see now,” said Rav Meir. There were man-eating dogs nearby. Rav Meir threw a clod of earth at them, and as they rushed to devour him he called out the same words, and the dogs left him alone. The guard was convinced and handed the girl over.

In time the matter reached the king’s court, and the guard was brought to be hanged. As they took him up he called out, “Elokah deMeir, aneini.” They lowered him down, unable to carry out the sentence. When they asked what this meant, he told them the whole story.

The Romans then engraved Rav Meir’s likeness at the entrance of Rome, with orders that anyone who saw a man with that face should bring him in. One day Romans spotted him and ran after him, and he entered a house of ill repute to hide. Some say he escaped because he saw food cooked by non-Jews, dipped one finger into it and tasted it with the other finger, so that the pursuers thought he was eating their food, which they knew Rav Meir would never do. Others say Eliyahu HaNavi came in the guise of a woman of ill repute and embraced him, and the Romans said that if this were Rav Meir he would never act so. Rav Meir rose, fled and reached Babylonia.