The Oral Talmud with Benay Lappe and Dan Libenson Episode 99

When Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, would run into each other, a pair of oxen could enter between them (under their bellies), without touching them. A certain Roman noblewoman [matronita] once said to them: Your children are not really your own. They said to her: Theirs are larger than ours. She said to them: All the more so. There are those who say that this is what they said to her: “For as the man is, so is his strength” (Judges 8:21). There are those who say that this is what they said to her: Love compresses the flesh. And why did they respond to her -- after all, it is written: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him” (Proverbs 26:4)? In order not to cast aspersions on the lineage of their children.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: The organ of Rabbi Yishmael, son of Rabbi Yosei, was the size of a jug of nine kav. Rav Pappa said: The organ of Rabbi Yoḥanan was the size of a jug of five kav, and some say it was the size of a jug of three kav. Rav Pappa himself, like the baskets [dikurei] made in Harpanya.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: "I alone remain of the beautiful people of Jerusalem." One who wishes to see something resembling the beauty of Rabbi Yoḥanan should bring a silver goblet from the smithy and fill it with red pomegranate seeds [partzidaya] and place a diadem of red roses upon the lip, and position it between the sunlight and shade. That luster is a semblance of Rabbi Yoḥanan’s beauty. Is that so? But doesn’t the Master say: The beauty of Rav Kahana is a semblance of the beauty of Rabbi Abbahu; the beauty of Rabbi Abbahu is a semblance of the beauty of Jacob, our forefather; and the beauty of Jacob, our forefather, is a semblance of the beauty of Adam the first man. And yet Rabbi Yoḥanan is not included in this list. Rabbi Yoḥanan is different from these other men, as he did not have facial adornment.