Beruriah ברוריה

Bandit neighbours were harassing Rabbi Meir, and he prayed that they should die. Beruriah said: what are you relying on? It is written "let sins cease from the earth" — sins, not sinners. And read on: "and the wicked shall be no more" — that is, when the sins cease, the wicked will be gone too. Pray that they repent. He prayed, and they repented.

Her learning is noted specially: Pesachim says she learned three hundred laws from three hundred teachers in one day. The Talmud records her halakhic opinions, and in one place says that the law follows her; for a woman in this corpus that is unique.

There is also a scene about how she dealt with verbosity. Rabbi Yose the Galilean asked her: "by which road do we go to Lod?" She answered: foolish Galilean, did the sages not say "do not converse overmuch with a woman"? You should have said it briefly — "how to Lod?"

Her life was hard: her father was burned by the Romans together with a Torah scroll, and her sister was carried off. Of her end the Talmud says nothing; a later tradition tells a tragic story, but it is not in the Gemara itself, and it is not offered here as fact.