to grant him ordination. The Jerusalem Talmud tells a slightly different version of this story, where Bar Kappara prompted Judah's ignorant son-in-law Ben Elasah to ask Judah the following riddle: "High from Heaven her eye looks down; Constant strife excites her frown; Winged beings shun her sight; She puts youth to instant flight; The aged, too, her aspect scout; Oh! oh! the fugitive cries out. And by her snares whoever is lured, Shall never more from sin be cured!" When Judah turned round after hearing the riddle, he discovered Bar Kappara smiling, and exclaimed: "I do not recognize you, old one!" (meaning also, "I do not recognize you as an elder, a sage!"). Bar Kappara understood from this that he would never receive ordination. What the riddle really signifies is not known, despite many attempts to explain it. The most probable view is Abraham Krochmal's, that Bar Kappara intended it as a criticism of Judah's unrelenting severity toward young and old. The verse is notable as an example of Hebrew poetry in Talmudic times; its few lines may be the sole testimony to the activity of the Jews of that time in secular poetry. Its language is classic, but not slavishly so; forceful and pure, yet easy and flowing. Curiously, the one other preserved example of Bar Kappara's poetry is the eloquent words in which he proclaimed Judah haNasi's death to the assembled people of Sepphoris: "Brethren of the house of Jedaiah [an epithet of the inhabitants of Sepphoris], listen to me! Mortals and angels have long been wrestling for the possession of the holy tablets of the Law; the angels have conquered. They have captured the tablets". Bar Kappara's presence in Sepphoris suggests that, despite Judah's attitude toward him, he appreciated his great obligations to his teacher; and that his grief for Judah's death was sincere. Activity in Caesarea His conflicts with Judah haNasi induced him to leave the Galilee for Caesarea. The academy he set up there came to be a serious rival of Judah haNasi's. Among the most important of its scholars were Hoshayah, "the father of the Mishnah", and Joshua ben Levi, the distinguished aggadist, who to a large extent transmitted Bar Kappara's aggadic teachings. The greatest admirers of Judah haNasi and supporters of Judah's patriarchial house, Hanina bar Hama and Johanan ben Nappaha, could not refrain from acknowledging Bar Kappara's greatness. It is related of