Bruriah stretched her arms and raised her head from the Torah portion she was studying. As usual on Sabbath afternoons, [her husband] Rabbi Meir was at the study hall giving his regular lesson, and their two sons were up in their room challenging each other with a knotty Talmudic problem.

Bruriah smiled as she listened to her children. She was glad to see her sons' love of Torah and passion for truth, which had been kindled early on by their parents.

She thought back to the previous evening and her husband and children singing "A Woman of Valor" as they did every Friday night. The same verses always made her stop and think:

"Her husband's heart trusts in her... She opens her mouth with wisdom, and a lesson of kindness is on her tongue. Her sons arise and laud her, and her husband praises her." (Proverbs ch. 31)

She often asked herself how well she embodied these words. Surely she had occasionally opened her mouth with wisdom, but had she done so with kindness and compassion? And could her husband truly put his trust in her? Did she think solely of his welfare in his time of need? Was she truly "a woman of valor," worthy of her family's praise?

Bruriah shivered and returned to her reading. Yet something was wrong. The letters blurred before her eyes and refused to make sense. Lifting her head from the book, she noticed that her sons had suddenly become still. That stillness was more disturbing than any noise could have been.

She jumped up and ran to the stairs. The silence pressed in upon her and she could barely breathe. Pulling herself up by the railing, she burst into the upper room.

There, she saw her sons still at the table, still clutching their books, their heads dropped lifelessly before them.

As she stood in shock, the years seemed to fall away. She was [in flashback], once again a young girl, watching the flames leap before her eyes...

Standing near the pit, she could see the kindling quickly catching fire, and there, in the center of the blaze... "Father! Father!" she cried. "What are they doing to you?" She screamed in horror, but her voice was swallowed up by the roar of the Roman crowds surging forward to view the execution. The firewood crackled and tongues of flame licked at her father's flesh. Bruriah could feel the heat singeing her hair.

She gazed at her father's tortured face. Just a few hours earlier, he had been teaching his disciples from the precious Torah scroll he always kept at his side. It was one of the few that the Romans had not yet confiscated. But suddenly the soldiers had rushed in and seized him, calling the public to witness another execution.

In death as in life, Rabbi Chanina ben Tradion was not parted from his beloved Torah, for they had wrapped the scroll around his body. The parchment rapidly caught flame, but his own end was not as quick. To prolong his agony, the executioner had placed wet cloths over his heart.

Bruriah gasped for air. "Father!" she cried. "How can I see you like this? Is this the reward for a life of Torah?"

Out of the flames, Rabbi Chanina managed to reply: "If I were being burned alone, it would be difficult for me to bear. But now that I am being burned together with the Torah, I am confident that the One Who avenges the disgrace of the Torah will avenge my disgrace as well."

Suddenly a great, thunderous roar was heard overhead. Rabbi Chanina's eyes grew wide, yet even as his disciples craned their necks skyward, they saw nothing.

"Rabbi! What do you see?" they asked.

"I see only the parchment consumed; the letters fly up into the air! The flesh is scorched, but the spirit returns home..."

Slowly the flames began to recede, and there before Bruriah were her sons, slumped over their books.

The same words resounded in her mind: "Is this the reward for a life of Torah?" But the same comfort mingled with her grief. In death as in life, they were not parted from the holy Torah. They had been learning up to the very last moment, and had died amid their books. Their souls had accomplished their mission in this world and had now returned home with all the holiness they had gleaned here.

"How foolish we are to rejoice over birth and weep over death," she remembered learning. "When a child is born, we should weep over the perilous voyage ahead of him. What dangers lurk out there? Will he ever reach safe shores? But when a person dies after a life of righteousness, it is cause for joy. He has ventured down to the depths and escaped with precious spoils."

Bruriah knew that she could only grieve for herself, not for her sons, for they had successfully completed their journey. She gathered up her eldest son and cradled his body in her arms. Gently, she laid him on the bed. Then she lifted up her younger son and placed him beside his brother. She gave each one a parting kiss and spread a sheet over them, securely tucking in the covers as she had so often done on cold, windy nights.

Passing by their table, she closed their books. "The letters fly up," she reminded herself. "Only the parchment is consumed..."

Stars were already making their way across the horizon. The Sabbath had ended, and Bruriah knew her husband would be home shortly. Her eyes burned with the sting of unshed tears, but this was not the time to let them flow.

Rabbi Meir took his coat off slowly as he entered the room. "Where are the boys?" he asked, looking around.

"They've gone to study," replied Bruriah.

"But I just came from the study hall and did not see them."

Bruriah responded by handing him a cup of Havdalah wine. Yet the service did not distract Rabbi Meir from his unanswered question.

"Where are the boys?" he repeated.

Bruriah seemed unconcerned. "They went somewhere. They may be back any moment," she said as she poured him a bowl of hot soup.

When he had finished, Bruriah sat beside him. "Before the Sabbath, a man left some valuables in my trust," she said. "He asked me to guard them until he returned. He has now come back and asked for his belongings. Must I return them?"

Rabbi Meir stared at her in astonishment. This was not the kind of question he expected to hear from his scholarly wife. "My dear," he replied at once, "when one guards a deposit, [of course he is] obliged to return it to its rightful owner!"

Bruriah nodded silently and led her husband upstairs. She brought him near the bed and lifted the sheet.

There lay their two sons, without a breath of life.

"My sons! My sons!" Rabbi Meir cried out. Falling into a chair, he sobbed until it seemed his frail body would burst. "My teachers! My teachers!" he wept. "You were my sons in the eyes of the world, but in my eyes you were also my teachers, enlightening me with your Torah!"

"Rabbi," Bruriah whispered, "did you not say that we are obliged to return valuables whenever the rightful owner claims them? Our children were never our own possessions. They were only left with us for safekeeping. God gave them, and now God has taken them back."

Rabbi Meir's sobs began to subside. He looked over at his wife and understood that they had been chosen as the guardians of two precious souls during their short stay on earth. And he knew that they had been proper caretakers, for not only had their sons departed without blemish, they had even attained their unique portions of truth. Surely their souls had returned with the fire of Torah burning brightly within them.

Bruriah had comforted her husband. She had not indulged in her own sorrow until she had prepared him for his loss. In her great wisdom, she had helped him let go of the precious sons who were no longer in his possession.

Rabbi Meir knew that he could always trust in Bruriah. In his grief, he praised her. And he was certain that in the world of truth, their sons were rising up to laud her as well.