As he was about to realize his lifelong dream of making aliya from Babylon to Eretz Yisrael, the Sage Rabbi Zeira did not wait for the ferry to take him across the river which separated him from the land of his dreams. Instead he made his perilous way across a primitive bridge consisting of a log and an overhead rope.

When he was chided by a heathen onlooker for demonstrating the same sort of impatience that his ancestors showed by accepting the Torah sight unseen, Rabbi Zeira thus explained his haste:

"A place which Moshe and Aaron did not merit to enter, who knows whether I will have the merit to do so if I wait any longer!"

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