More Honor for Peace Than for Himself

It is told in the Midrash that a woman once attended Rav Meir’s Friday night lecture. She came home very late, after the Shabbos candles had burned down. Her angry husband demanded to know where she had been. When she answered that she had been at Rav Meir’s lecture, he swore that she would not enter the house until she spat in Rav Meir’s face.

As she left, Eliyahu HaNavi appeared to Rav Meir and told him that because of him a woman was being thrown out of her home. When Rav Meir heard the whole story, he went and sat in the beis midrash. As the woman approached, he pretended to have a serious problem with his eye. “Do you know how to cure an eye problem?” he asked her. She stammered that she did not. “Then spit in my face seven times, and it will ease the pain,” he said. Bewildered, she did as he asked. Rav Meir told her, “Go and tell your husband that he asked for one time, and you gave seven.”

His talmidim were astonished. They asked whether the quarrel between husband and wife had to be ended by so great a disgrace to the honor of the Torah. They said they would have brought the man to the beis midrash, had him whipped and forced him to take back his wife.

Rav Meir answered, “Should the honor of Meir be greater than the honor of Hashem? Hashem commanded that His holy Name be blotted out in water to bring peace between a husband and wife. Surely I need not be concerned for my own honor.”