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Mar Ukva, a fourth-century Babylonian sage and exilarch, was famous for his habit of secret charity. Every day he would pass by a certain poor man's house and drop a small purse of...
Gaster's exemplum No. 258 preserves a story that has startled every generation of Talmud students, because it involves Rabbi Akiva following his teacher Rabbi Yehoshua into the bei...
Gaster's exemplum No. 273 preserves two short Talmudic stories about how seriously the sages took small signs. In the first, Rav — the third-century Babylonian sage who founded the...
Gaster's exemplum No. 288 preserves a paired story from the Hadrianic persecutions of the second century — the same killing-field that took Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Chanina ben Terady...
Gaster's exemplum No. 303 preserves a Jewish folktale about a father's last clever gift to his son. A wealthy Jewish merchant lay dying in a distant city far from home. He drew up ...
It was prophesied to Rabbi Akiva that his beloved daughter would die on the day of her wedding. Akiva was a student of signs and omens; he believed the prediction. But he also beli...
Gaster's exemplum No. 333 tells a longer, stranger story of Mar Ukva — the same Babylonian exilarch celebrated for his secret charity — before he became the man of secret charity. ...
Gaster's exemplum No. 348 preserves a Jewish folk tale about the strangest accounting in the heavenly court. A wicked man died and was brought before the Holy One for judgment. The...
Gaster's exemplum No. 381 preserves a cascading folktale from the Midrash Aseret HaDibrot, the Midrash on the Ten Commandments, all arranged around the commandment to honor one's f...
Gaster's exemplum No. 399, drawn from the Ben Attar collection of medieval Jewish exempla, preserves a courtroom puzzle about a cunning father's last will. A wealthy Jewish merchan...
Gaster's exemplum No. 414, drawn from Rabbenu Nissim Gaon's 11th-century Chibbur Yafeh Me-HaYeshuah, tells the story of a rich man who decided to conduct an experiment on despair. ...
Gaster's exemplum No. 438, drawn from the Gaster Hebrew manuscripts, tells the story of a stubborn merchant who decided to prove that a person can lose his property any time he wan...
Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta was a sage of the late second century, a younger contemporary of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — known simply as "Rabbi," the compiler of the Mishnah around 200 CE....
A gentile once came to Shammai asking to be made a proselyte, but only on condition that he be taught the Written Torah and not the Oral. Shammai sent him away with sharp rebuke. T...
Two great tannaim weighed the ethics of the courtroom. Rabbi Ishmael taught: when an Israelite and a stranger come before you in judgment, acquit the Israelite by the laws of Israe...
Abraham stands at the headwaters of the Jewish story, and the Talmud gathers around him a flood of legends — score upon score of traditions that stretch far beyond what the Book of...
Four tannaim ascended into the Pardes, the orchard of mystical contemplation, and Rabbi Akiva warned his companions before they entered. "When you come to the pavement of pure marb...
Once Solomon had chained the demon king Ashmedai, he held him captive until the Temple was completed. When the work was done, the king grew curious. "What is your superiority over ...
The sages taught that the Land of Israel was not destroyed until seven royal courts had turned to idolatry. They counted them by name: Jeroboam son of Nebat, Baasha son of Ahijah, ...
In the days of the Mishnah the rabbis regulated even the meals of mourning. At a funeral feast they ordered ten cups of wine to be drunk in the house of the bereaved — three before...
The Roman governor Turnus Rufus loved to bait Rabbi Akiva with theological questions. One day he asked, "Why is the Shabbat distinguished from other days?" Akiva answered with a qu...
Rabbi Abahu once praised Rav Saphra before a group of heretics, calling him a man of great learning. The heretics, impressed, exempted Saphra from tribute for thirteen years. One d...
On the twenty-eighth of Adar the Jewish community received word that the Roman government had passed a cruel decree: Jews were forbidden to study Torah, to circumcise their sons, o...
A Roman legend told how the daughter of a certain emperor had so admired the beauty of Rabbi Ishmael's face that after his martyrdom his skin was removed, embalmed, and kept among ...
Several Talmudic stories describe sages who took advantage of a non-Jew's arithmetical error — and they are preserved without varnish, because the rabbis wanted the argument to be ...
A strange episode is preserved in the Talmud: a witch once transformed a man into an ass. He found himself in the marketplace on four legs, mounted like any beast of burden. One of...
A Roman emperor challenged a sage about the verse in Amos (3:8): The lion hath roared, who will not fear? "Where is this excellence?" the emperor scoffed. "A single horseman kills ...
When Sennacherib the Assyrian emperor came against Jerusalem, his pride was as tall as his army. The midrash tells how God humbled him in a sequence of ordinary-seeming errands. Fi...
Shechem son of Hamor once assembled a troupe of girls with tambourines to play outside the tent of Dinah, and when she "went out to see them" (Genesis 34:1), he carried her off. Fr...
The prophet Isaiah promised a strange future (Isaiah 66:23): It shall come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worsh...
Rabbi Judah was asked a difficult question about divine justice: how can body and soul be judged together when one is mortal and the other eternal? He answered with a parable. A ki...
A garland of proverbs preserved in rabbinic tradition, each short enough to carry in a pocket and long enough to last a lifetime. Unhappy is the one who mistakes the branch for the...
When Nebuchadnezzar led Israel into the Babylonian captivity, he demanded that the Levites — the Temple singers — perform the Songs of Zion for his court. The Levites had spent the...
The midrash taught that the arba minim — the four species shaken on the festival of Sukkot — are not a random bouquet. Each one maps to a part of the human body, so that when a Jew...
A Roman emperor once asked Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah a question designed to be unanswerable: do the dead truly return to life? "They have become dust," the emperor said. "How can d...
A pagan once approached Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai — the sage who had smuggled himself out of besieged Jerusalem inside a coffin and refounded Judaism at Yavneh — and said bluntly,...
A heretic — a min in the Talmud's vocabulary — once confronted a simple Jew named Gaboha ben Pesisa and mocked him. "Woe to you, you living who say that the dead rise again. You wi...
After the Bar Kokhba revolt the Roman Empire passed a decree that struck at the heart of Jewish continuity: any sage who ordained a student to the rank of rabbi, and any student wh...
The sages taught that on the day of judgment, every soul will be asked why it did not devote itself to Torah. Three common excuses will be raised — poverty, wealth, and youth — and...
Rabbi Tarfon was a wealthy sage who believed in personal tzedakah but preferred to hold his money close. Rabbi Akiva came to him one day and asked for a considerable sum, promising...
Jewish law draws a careful line around the rituals of mourning — the seven days of shiva, the tearing of garments, the torn clothes and covered mirrors — and reserves them for the ...
A woman attended the lectures of Rabbi Meir and came home late. Her husband, furious, demanded to know where she had been. When she told him she had been listening to Torah, he gav...
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa once preached a sermon on the rabbinic teaching "Receive every man as a friend" — every stranger, every wayfarer, every unknown face at your door. He finishe...
Rav Hisda was one of the leading sages of Babylonian Jewry in the third century, and in his prime he was also one of the wealthiest. One day, late in life, after his fortunes had c...
A potter in the city of Tiberias used to carry fresh water every day to the home of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish — the great sage known as Reish Lakish, whose learning was matched only ...
Mar Ukba was a wealthy Babylonian Jew known for his discreet tzedakah. He used to leave coins under a neighbor's doorsill each night, never waiting to be seen. One day he learned t...
A rabbinic fable: an ass was appointed toll-gatherer on a narrow road, trusted by the king of the region to demand payment from every traveler. A lion and a fox came down the path ...
A man should not be hasty, and above all he should not be angry. The sages held up Hillel the Elder as the standard against which every temper was measured — and his wife's behavio...
