The story of man falling asleep for many years is found in folk stories of various nations. Among Greek legends, for example, one can find the story of Epimenides, being once sent by his father to find a stray lamb. On his way Epimenides got into a cave, to relax a bit at noon, but he fell asleep and slept for no less than 57 years.
When he woke up, he continued his search for the lamb, thinking that he slept only an hour. After searching in vain, he returned to his father's estate, to be astonished finding out that someone else got a hold of it and that everything there had been completely changed. When he returned to his father house in the city, he found there strangers as well, asking him who he was. Eventually he recognized among them his younger brother, who was then a very old man, from which he learned about the long sleep he had been going through.
The Jewish legend about the long sleep of Honi HaM'agel (in Hebrew - "Honi the Circle-Drawer") has one version in the Jerusalem Talmud and another one in the Babylonian Talmud. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, Honi, who lived at the time of the first Temple's destruction, once went to the field and when it began raining, found a shelter in a cave. After dozing off there, he fell asleep which endured 70 years. At this period the Temple was destroyed and built again.
After 70 years, when Honi woke up, he got out of the cave and saw a completely different world: places once being vineyards and olive orchards were now seeded fields.
He asked the people around: what's new in the world?
They told him: Well, don't you know?
He said: No.
They said: Who are you?
He said: Honi.
They said: We heard that a man bearing this name - once entering the Temple courtyard the courtyard had been filled with light.
So Honi entered the Temple courtyard, and it shone full of light.
He said to himself: "When God will return the captives of Zion, we will be like dreamers".
Comparing the Greek legend to the Jewish legend reveals many similarities between the two, but while the Greek legend doesn't explain why the protagonist slept for specifically 57 years – the Jewish legend supplies a "realistic explanation" for the period spent on sleeping: Honi fell asleep for 70 years, in order to hinder such a tzaddik (in Hebrew - "righteous person") from witnessing the destruction of the Temple, and he woke up only after the Temple had been rebuilt.
Which reminds me of the film "Goodbye Lenin", about the huge efforts of a young man, son of an East Germany devoted communist, to conceal from his mother - who fell into a coma in October 1989 - the "unbearable" historical events that took place in the meantime: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the making of the previous East Germany a capitalist society.
So, when she awakens out of her coma, and in order to prevent her excitement facing the extreme changes - excitement that could undermine the health status, the son makes the mother's environment an East German "nature reserve", exactly as she had in the "good old days".
He asked the people around: what's new in the world?
They told him: Well, don't you know?
He said: No.
They said: Who are you?
He said: Honi.
They said: We heard that a man bearing this name - once entering the Temple courtyard the courtyard had been filled with light.
So Honi entered the Temple courtyard, and it shone full of light.
He said to himself: "When God will return the captives of Zion, we will be like dreamers".
Comparing the Greek legend to the Jewish legend reveals many similarities between the two, but while the Greek legend doesn't explain why the protagonist slept for specifically 57 years – the Jewish legend supplies a "realistic explanation" for the period spent on sleeping: Honi fell asleep for 70 years, in order to hinder such a tzaddik (in Hebrew - "righteous person") from witnessing the destruction of the Temple, and he woke up only after the Temple had been rebuilt.
Which reminds me of the film "Goodbye Lenin", about the huge efforts of a young man, son of an East Germany devoted communist, to conceal from his mother - who fell into a coma in October 1989 - the "unbearable" historical events that took place in the meantime: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, and the making of the previous East Germany a capitalist society.
So, when she awakens out of her coma, and in order to prevent her excitement facing the extreme changes - excitement that could undermine the health status, the son makes the mother's environment an East German "nature reserve", exactly as she had in the "good old days".
According to the Babylonian Talmud, the verse "A song of ascents, when God will return the captives of Zion we will be like dreamers" - made Honi upset, and he wondered if there was anyone who could have spent 70 years in sleeping and dreaming. One day, while walking along the way, he met a man planting a carob tree.
He said to the man: That tree, within how many years will it give fruit?
The man answered: Up to 70 years.
Honi said: Are you sure you will live 70 years?
The man replied: I found a world in which there was a carob tree, since my ancestors planted it for me, so I plant a carob tree - for my children.
Honi sat, ate, and a sleep came over him. When he was asleep, a rock bump hid him and so he slept for 70 years. When he got up he saw a man gathering carobs from the tree once being planted.Honi asked the man: Did you plant the tree?
The man replied: I am the grandson of the man who planted the tree.
Then Honi realized that he had been sleeping for 70 years, and looking around he saw that his donkeys had been fruitful and multiplied to many donkey herds. When he went to his home and asked the people if the son of Honi HaM'agel was there, they said: his son is gone, his grandson is here. When he told them that he was Honi the Circle-Drawer, that could solve any question of study, they didn't believe him and didn't honor him. With grief, his mind "went weak" and he died. And so our sages said: "o havruta o mituta" (in "Aramaic" Hebrew - "either a friend or death").
Thus, while the Jerusalem Talmud version of the legend emphasizes the sustainability of man - the Babylonian Talmud version of the legend emphasizes the inability of a person belonging to certain generation to fit to a different generation.
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