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Story of the man who tried Hillel ’s patience by asking him irrelevant questions, in the hope of angering him and thereby vanning a wager of 400 zuzim. The first question was: “Why...
Nakdimon ben Gorion was one of the wealthiest men in Jerusalem, and he had made a dangerous bargain. He borrowed twelve wells of water from a Roman nobleman — the Hegemon — promisi...
The tribe of Asher received its inheritance in a strip of land along the northern coast of the Land of Israel, and the blessing that Moses gave them proved spectacularly true: "Let...
R. Johanan b. Zakai was asked by R. Eleazar b. Arach permission to expound some of the mysteries of the creation (Ma’ase Merkaba). R. Johanan dismounted from his ass, as angels mig...
Story of the dispute between R. Shimeon b. Gamliel, R. Meir and R. Nathan. Gamliel was a prince and wanted to make a distinction between himself and the other two scholars when the...
The story of the weasel and the well. Once a young girl, beautifully dressed, lost herself in the desert on her way home. Getting very thirsty and seeing a well with a rope and a b...
Someone once asked Rabbi Akiva a question that seemed simple but carried enormous weight: "How great is the value of the Torah?" Rabbi Akiva did not hesitate. "Each word of the Tor...
The judgment of poor, rich, and young after death when they neglect study. The poor man who pleads want of 75 - means is compared to Hillel who was wont to work all day for a very ...
Eleazar, the son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, inherited more than his father's wisdom. He inherited superhuman strength. One day, Eleazar was sitting at a lavish meal — and when Ele...
Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimeon was not a small man, and the Talmud does not hide this fact. Multiple stories describe his extraordinary physical size, his immense strength, and — as thi...
R. Eleazar b. Shimeon was a very strongly built man and used to carry people across the river upon his shoulders. Once the Prophet Elijah came to him in the form of an old man and ...
R. Eleazar b. Shimeon, who was appointed an official of the government, was accustomed to catch thieves in a very clever way when he found them drinking very heavily in the drinkin...
Rabbi Judah took upon himself the education of the daughter of Rabbi Tarfon, raising her in Torah and wisdom. It was an act of extraordinary devotion — accepting responsibility for...
Rabbi Akiba, the greatest sage of his generation, did not begin his life as a scholar. Until the age of forty, he was an illiterate shepherd who could not read a single letter of H...
Rabbi Akiva sat in judgment over a case that would become one of the most famous legal rulings in all of rabbinic literature. A man had publicly humiliated a woman by tearing the c...
Rabbi Akiba was standing by the shore when he witnessed something terrible. A man — someone Rabbi Akiba knew — fell into the sea. The waves swallowed him instantly. One moment he w...
Benjamin the Righteous served as the guardian of the community charity fund. Every donation that came in, every disbursement that went out, passed through his honest hands. The peo...
During a terrible famine, King Monobaz opened the royal treasury and distributed everything inside it to the poor. Every coin, every jewel, every stored reserve of wealth that his ...
Nahum Ish Gamzu was a man whose name became his philosophy. Whatever happened to him, no matter how terrible, he would say "Gam zu l'tovah" — "This too is for the good." But the re...
Rabbi Shimon ben Antipatros had a reputation that troubled the sages of Israel. Travelers who stayed at his house reported something alarming: their host beat his guests. Not robbe...
A farmer once looked at his fields and made a calculation that seemed clever at the time. The Torah commands that a tenth of every harvest must be given as a tithe. The farmer deci...
There was a man who owned a prosperous vineyard and a cellar full of casks — fine oil and rich wine, the fruits of years of careful labor. He was wealthy by any measure. But he had...
There was a man who paid his tithes faithfully every single year without exception. Rain or drought, abundance or scarcity, he set aside exactly one-tenth of everything he harveste...
A farmer was harvesting his field when he realized he had forgotten a sheaf of grain. It was sitting in the far corner of the field, left behind in the rush of the day's work. His ...
Rabbi Tarfon was one of the wealthiest men among the sages, but he was famously reluctant to part with his money. He studied Torah with passion, observed every commandment with pre...
R. Tarfon was beaten by his superintendent, who finding him in the vineyard took him for a trespasser, he not telling who he was through his meekness. 79 ~ no. a man overheard a di...
A man with two heads appeared before King Solomon with an unusual legal claim. He was part of a family dividing an inheritance, and he demanded a double portion — one share for eac...
King Solomon wished to build a temple with unhewn stone, as he was not allowed to use iron, that being forbidden by law. So he tried to obtain Shamir which he was told was in the p...
The throne of Solomon was entirely made of gold, having 33 steps upon which were various animals. 12 golden lions, and 2 golden bears stood on each step and over the throne was a k...
Hananya, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, was a respected scholar living in Babylon. And one day he made a decision that nearly split the Jewish world in two. He decided to set the cale...
A pious man owned a vineyard, and the hedge around it had fallen into disrepair. Gaps had opened in the fence, leaving the vines exposed to animals and thieves. The vineyard needed...
A poor tailor paid a dinar for the only fish left in Rome, in honour of the Sabbath. Upbraided by the Hip- par ch he explained the reason and was allowed to go free. He found a pri...
The history of the man in Laodicaea who grew immensely rich, because he left everything best for the Sabbath. He treated R. Hiya to a meal served on silver and gold trays.
The Story of Antoninas andR. [Jehudaha-Nassi] who preferred the cold meals of the Sabbath. The Rabbi explained to Antoninus that the superiority of Sabbath meals over those of the ...
A woman unknowingly baked in a loaf the dinar entrusted to her and gave it to a poor man. She swore that she had made no use of it, saying that if she had done so let one of her ch...
A man entrusted his money to another who appeared extremely pious and who afterwards denied having received it. Elijah appeared and told the first man to go to the wife of the othe...
A man who pursued an ascetic life, was accused by his sister-in-law of having stolen her jewelery; He declined to take an oath to prove his innocence. R.Johanan b.Zakkai prayed to ...
Dispute between R. Eliezer and R. Joshua about levi- tical purity. Appealed to in turn, the Harub tree [uprooted itself], the water turned back, the walls of the Midrash (rabbinic ...
The death and leave-taking of R. Eliezar the Great. He foretold to every one the manner of his death as well as the martyrdom of R. Akiba. He used the parable of the seas being ink...
R. Eliezer was taken ill. Four sages came to visit him and tried to comfort him, but none succeeded so well as R. Akiba, who said that suffering was invaluable for suffering begot ...
Rabbi Eliezer was one of the most formidable scholars in Israel — a man whose rulings could silence an entire academy. So when a slave in his household died and his students came t...
R. Pinehas b. Jair would never touch other peoples' bread. He crossed the river Ginai dryshod, when on his way to ransom captive after he had threatened that the river should other...
R. Zeira bought a field, not knowing that R. Gidel was negotiating for it. He then gave it up to him as a 6* - 84 present but R. Gidel would not accept it; hence it was called “The...
The story of the conversion to Judaism of Abu Golis, a priest of Damascus living in Tiberias. Making a bad use of some money entrusted to him, he lost his sight. His former friends...
R. Jose wept on his death bed because he had not taken sufficient part in the deliberations of the Court of Justice. Israel was like a ship and every member like a beam; if one wer...
R. Johanan b. Zakkai wept on his death bed because he had to appear before a King where no bribe was possible. He lamented over the difficulty of the choice between the two ways, t...
R. Akiba met a dead man gathering sticks for his own burning. in Gehinom. Akiba inquired how he could be saved and acted accordingly; viz., he educated the man’s son until he could...
The daughter of Nakdimon b. Gorian was very poor and picked up grains from dung for food. She was seen by R. Johanan b. Zakkai, who recognised her and married her to one of his dis...
