Reish Lakish ריש לקיש
Amora of the Land of Israel, a former gladiator who returned to Torah
The Talmud tells their meeting this way. Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the Jordan when Shimon ben Lakish — a strongman living by the arena and by banditry — leapt in after him. «Your strength belongs to Torah,» said Rabbi Yochanan. «Your beauty belongs to women,» he answered. «Repent, and I will give you my sister, who is more beautiful than I.» He repented, and lost his strength.
He became Rabbi Yochanan's principal interlocutor and the second man of the generation, famous for uncompromising demands: he trusted only one who «kills himself in the tent of Torah». To him belong the sayings that repentance out of love turns deliberate sins into merits, and that the world rests on the breath of schoolchildren studying Torah.
The end was bitter. In a dispute about weapons Rabbi Yochanan said, «a robber knows his trade.» The wound did not heal; Reish Lakish sickened and died, and Rabbi Yochanan did not long survive him.