SATURDAY PRAYER: HOD-YESHIVAT HAVERIM יְשִׁיבָה חברים – BABYLONIAN TALMUD p106

READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT TO DAWM OF SATURDAY

R. Samuel said: Whoever says Josiah sinned is also in error. It is written [II Kings, xxii. 2]:
“And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of David his father
and turned not aside to the right or to the left.” Is this not contradictory to the verse [II Kings,
xxiii. 25], “that returned to the Lord with all his heart.” How is the “returned” to be understood?
He must have sinned in order to return? Nay; from this it must be inferred that after Josiah
attained the age of eighteen, he refunded from his private purse all amounts paid by such as he
had declared guilty (bound to pay) from the time be was eight years old (when he became king).
This is the interpretation of “returned to the Lord.”
However, this differs from Rabh’s following statement: “None is greater among penitents than
Josiah in his time and one in our own time. And who is he? Aba, the father of Jeremiah b. Aba.
Others say Aha, the brother of Aba, father of Jeremiah b. Aba, for the aforesaid teacher said Aba
and Aha were brothers. Said R. Joseph: There is yet another in our own time, and he is Ukban b.
Ne’hemiah, the Exilarch. 2 “Once while studying,” said R. Joseph, “I dozed off and saw in a
dream an angel stretching out his hands and accepting his (Ukban’s) repentance.”