Study Avodah Zarah folio 26A with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
to Bei Torta. Along the way, thieves encountered him, and said to him: Where are you going? Rav Menashe said to them: To Pumbedita, which was farther away than Bei Torta. When he arrived at Bei Torta, he separated from the thieves, who had planned to steal from him. They said to him: You are a student of Yehuda the swindler! Rav Menashe said to them: Do you know him so well that you can accuse him of swindling others? May it be God’s will that these people be subject to Rav Yehuda’s ban of excommunication.
The Talmud continues: This curse was effective, as the thieves subsequently went and carried out thefts for 22 years, but they were unsuccessful. Once they saw that their efforts were for naught, they all went and claimed their curse, i.e., they asked forgiveness and requested that the curse be lifted. But there was one weaver among them who did not come to lift his curse, and a lion ate him. The Talmud notes that this explains the adage that people say: With regard to a weaver [girdana] who is not shy [taizan] but impudent, a year is deducted from his allotted years.
תא חזי, מה בין גנבי בבל ולסטין דארץ ישראל.
With regard to these two anecdotes, the Talmud comments: Come and see what the difference is between the thieves of Babylonia and the bandits of Eretz Yisrael. Although thieves are typically less violent than bandits, the thieves in Babylonia reacted to Rav Menashe’s action by denouncing Rav Yehuda, whereas the bandits in Eretz Yisrael praised the wisdom of R' Akiva.