359. Rabbi Shimon said, “I wonder about that girded man with the hair,” who is Elijah, why was he not in our Idra when those holy matters were revealed?” In the meantime, Elijah came with three drops of light shining in his face. Rabbi Shimon told him, “What is the reason that my lord was not at the wine feast, which is engraved and set for his lord in the day of Joy?”
360. Elijah told him, “As you live, Rabbi, seven days before you entered your Idra, all those who would come and be with him in the Idra were chosen before the Creator. I was ready there, and I wanted to be before Him in the Idra, but then they tied me by my shoulders and I could not walk, since on that day, the Creator sent me to make miracles for Rav Hamnuna Saba and his friends who were given to the palace of the king. I made a miracle for them, dropping for them the wall of the king’s hall, and they were entangled by the ties of the wall and fell along with it, and forty-five ministers died. I took out Rav Hamnuna and his friends, and cast them to Bikaat Ono and they were saved. I set before them bread and water since they had not eaten for three days, and that whole day when you were in the Idra, I did not part from them.
361. “When I returned, I found the Parsa that all those pillars took, the angels, with three of the friends on it. I asked the angels and they told me that this is the portion of the Lord from the joy of Rabbi Shimon and his friends. Happy are you Rabbi Shimon, and happy is your portion and the portion of the friends who sit before you. Many degrees have been established for you for the next world, many illuminating lights are destined to shine for you.
362. “That day, fifty crowns were crowned to Rabbi Pinhas Ben Yair your father-in-law, and I went with him in all those rivers of mountains of pure persimmon, and he chose his place and was established.” Rabbi Shimon said to him, “The righteous are tied to the origin of the crowns, to the beginnings of months and occasions, and Sabbaths, more than on all other days.”
363. Elijah told him, “Even all those on the outside have an ascent at that time, as it is written, ‘And it shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to bow down before Me.’ Those on the outside, who are not righteous, which is why the text calls them ‘all flesh,’ if they come, the righteous all the more so. ‘From one New Moon to another,’ since then the patriarchs are crowned, the holy Merkava [chariot/structure], HGT of ZA, which ascend and become HBD. “And from one Sabbath to another,’ for then the seventh of the six days is crowned, as then Malchut acquires GAR, as it is written, ‘And God blessed the seventh day.’
364. “And you, Rabbi Shimon, the seventh of the six, will be more crowned and holy than all. Three delights, three meals, which are present in the seventh, the friends, those righteous, are destined to delight in, in the next world by your merit. It is written, ‘And call the Sabbath a ‘delight,’ the holy one of the Lord ‘honorable.’’ ‘The holy one of the Lord’ is Rabbi Shimon, who is called ‘honorable’ in this world and in the next world.”