4,331 texts · Page 80 of 91
Matia b. Haresh was tempted by Satan in the form of a beautiful woman. He blinded himself rather than see her and fall a victim to temptation. The angel Raphael cured him afterward...
The story of Ben Sabar who helped an orphan to be married. On his journey home he was met by the angel §5 of death. He went to the R. Shaffan b. Laish and was saved from death thro...
R. Joshua b. Levi met the angel of death, who brought him to the wall of the Garden of Eden. R. Joshua took the angel’s sword and jumped into the garden. He returned the sword at t...
Story of the son of R. Reuben the Libellarius to whom the angel of death appeared in the form of an old man at the wedding festivities. He was treated with great respect on the adv...
(147.) R. Akiba began his life as a very poor man and ended it as a very rich one. He had a large crown made for his wife set with many precious stones, and when his children asked...
Skipping one small ritual cost a man his entire identity. According to a tale preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis, a 1924 compilation by Moses Gaster drawn from medieval Jewish ...
A man used to neglect to wash his hands after meals and another, observing the traces of the last meal on his fingers, went to that man's wife. He mentioned the food last partaken ...
R. Hanina b. Dosa who had preached on the text, “Receive every man as a friend" carried a Hegemon on his shoulders to his house; he washed his feet, fed him well and then carried h...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was one of the most miracle-working sages in all of Jewish history. He lived in grinding poverty — the Talmud says that each week he survived on a single meas...
R. Hanina b. Dosa told his wife that heaven would provide for the Sabbath meals, and bade his daughter light a wick in a vessel filled with vinegar; it burned. The oven which his w...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa once placed his foot directly over the hole of a deadly scorpion — and it was the scorpion that died. This brief but astonishing tale, preserved in the Exempl...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was deep in prayer, standing perfectly still, his eyes closed, his lips moving in silent communion with God. He did not notice the venomous adder that had sli...
The son of Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai fell desperately ill. The great sage, who would one day preserve Judaism itself by establishing the academy at Yavneh after the destruction of t...
R. Hanina b. Dosa prayed for the son of R. Gamliel and foretold the hour when the fever would leave him. It came true and he knew it from the fluency with which he was able to reci...
R. Joshua asked the students what R. Elazar b. Azaf yah taught. They replied that he taught that all without exception must attend school and service, for all that would attend wou...
R. Gamliel was proud and harsh and forced R. Joshua to stand up in the college during his lecture. Those present, greatly irritated, forced R. Gamliel to resign. R. Elazar b. Azary...
Eliezer b. Hyrkanos went to Jerusalem to study whilst his father and brothers fled with their goods from the attack of the Roman soldiers. He starved and was discovered by R. Johan...
Of all those who comforted R. Johanan b. Zakkai on the death of his son, Elazar b. Arach was pre-eminent; he said, “Thou hast but restored in a perfect condition that which was ent...
R. Janai and R. Johanan watched two Jews of whom two astrologers had said that a snake would kill them. They came home unharmed as no astrology was of any avail against Jews.
A man made an appointment with a woman and she purposely sent his own wife as a substitute. He did not recognize her and when he repented afterwards of his sin she told him that he...
A Greek bought a young Jewish girl as a slave. He brought her up in his house. When she grew up, the Master of Dreams ordered him to send her away,. Threatened with death in case o...
The labourers of R. Nahman b. Isaac removed a small mound, when a man sprang up from underneath. He had been buried long before but did not rot, because he had been patient and mee...
A Min asked the Rabbi whether the Creator of the mountains was also the Creator of the winds (verse in Amos IV. 13). Before the Rabbi could answer the man fell from the roof and di...
Rav Hisda used to hang an open purse at his doorpost so that anyone who needed money could take some without being seen. This detail, preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compil...
Rabbi Patra had a student who struggled to learn. Where other teachers might have given up after ten repetitions, or twenty, or even a hundred, Rabbi Patra taught his student the s...
Rabbi Meir was traveling through Samaria when he encountered a Samaritan who was proud of his lineage. "I am a descendant of Joseph," the man declared — claiming descent from the m...
There was an inn on a certain road where travelers learned, too late, that the hospitality was a trap. The innkeeper welcomed his guests warmly, fed them well, and showed them to c...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Yose was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem — one of the three annual journeys that every Jewish man was commanded to undertake. Along the way, he passed through ...
A philosopher approached Rabban Gamliel with what he considered an unanswerable objection to the practice of charity. "How can you Jews give so freely to the poor?" the philosopher...
After the death of Moses, an emperor — some say it was a Roman ruler centuries later — heard rumors that the greatest prophet who ever lived was buried somewhere on Mount Nebo. He ...
Two men came to pray before Rabbi Eliezer. One prayed at enormous length — pouring out his heart in elaborate, detailed petitions that stretched on and on. The other prayed briefly...
Rabbi Judah HaNasi needed to send a teacher to the town of Simonia. The community there required a sage who could teach Torah, render legal decisions, and guide the people. He chos...
The respect that Dama ben Netina showed his father was legendary among the sages of Israel — and Dama was not even Jewish. He was a gentile merchant in Ashkelon, and his story beca...
Rabbi Tarfon was one of the great sages of the Mishnaic period, a man of wealth, learning, and considerable stature. But his most famous act had nothing to do with scholarship or l...
Rabbi Tarfon loved his mother with a devotion that became legendary among the sages. The Talmud preserves the story of how he honored her, and it is one of the most striking illust...
Rabbi Ishmael's mother loved him with a love so fierce that it made her do extraordinary things. The Talmud records that when her son — the great sage, the High Priest's descendant...
Rabbi Hananya made a statement that puzzled his students: "Some people feed their parents badly and yet inherit Paradise. Others feed their parents well and yet inherit Gehinnom (t...
Two men stand before the heavenly court. Both honored their fathers. Both are judged. One goes to Paradise. The other to Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)....
A mother had several sons, and the older brothers murdered the youngest. It was a killing born of jealousy — the kind of fratricidal violence that echoes the very first murder in t...
A potter refused to bring water any longer to Rish Lakish in Tiberias unless he prayed that the potter should be with him in Paradise. Rish Lakish promised that he would pray for h...
Rabbi Akiba heard that one of his students had fallen gravely ill. The young man was bedridden, burning with fever, and growing weaker by the day. No one expected him to survive. B...
After the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was consumed by grief. "Woe to us," he cried to his teacher Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. "The place where the sins of...
Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), once served food to Rabbi Yehoshua with his own hands. He stood and poured wine for his guest as though he w...
Rabbi Yohanan ben Matya instructed his son to hire Jewish laborers and feed them properly. The son went out, hired the workers, and came back with a question that stopped his fathe...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire — appeared to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, one of the greatest sages of the third century, and offered him...
A child was traveling by boat when the prophet Elijah appeared to him — not as the fiery chariot-rider of heaven, but as a fellow passenger, a quiet man with an extraordinary secre...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 75a) records a breathtaking vision of the future Jerusalem: its gates would be made of single pearls, each pearl so enormous that it could be carved into a g...
A pious man was walking along the sea-shore near Haifa when doubt crept into his mind. He had heard the sages' teaching that the gates of the future Jerusalem would be made from si...
