930 passages in Modern Compilations & Folklore
Individual passages from Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924), shown in source order. Page 17 of 20.
The Midrash of the Ten Commandments, a medieval midrashic anthology organized around the Decalogue that was popular in Jewish communities from Spain to Yemen in the eleventh and tw...
A Jewish man who was lame heard a rumor that spread through the cities of the ancient world: an idol in a certain temple was healing the lame. Pagans who could not walk entered the...
The folk traditions of Israel contain many tales of encounters between ordinary Jews and the demons that inhabit the hidden corners of the world. The story known as "The Demon and ...
A lame Jew in a pagan city heard a rumor about a local idol. The idol, people said, had been healing lame people. Those who slept in its temple overnight woke with their legs strai...
A man entrusted a single dinar to a woman for safekeeping. She placed the coin in a jar of flour, a common hiding place in the ancient world. And promptly forgot about it. Days lat...
A man left a dinar, a single silver coin, with a woman for safekeeping. She didn't want to forget where she had put it. She dropped it into a jar of flour and went about her day. L...
III. 2. A rich man on his death bed, ordered his son never to take an oath. Swindlers came and robbed him of all his property, claiming debts from his father, he refusing to swear....
Man Who Would Not Swear. Ben Atar, No. 5, f. 23 a. Midr. Decalogue, III, 2. Nissim, Reprinted Sef. Hayashar, Livorno 1862, f. I39bf. Yalk. Exod. II, p. 138. Farhi, O. P. I, f. 26 a...
A rich man lay dying, and he called his son to the bedside. He made him swear one oath, "Never take an oath yourself. Not in court, not in dispute, not for any price." The son agre...
On a Sabbath day, several children fell into a well. The community was thrown into a terrible dilemma: the Sabbath prohibits most forms of work, including the kinds of physical lab...
A group of children in a Jewish village were playing on Shabbat. As the sun rose higher over the day of rest, they wandered too close to the edge of an old well and fell in. The we...
IV. 4. A man called Joseph Mokir Shabba (“honourer of the Sabbath") lived next to a rich Parsee. The latter was told that all his property would go to Joseph. He, therefore, sold a...
Joseph Mokir Shabbat (the Sabbath), "Joseph Who Honors the Sabbath", was a man whose devotion to the Sabbath was so complete that it became the engine of his fortune. The Talmud (S...
There was a man called Yosef Mokir Shabbat, "Yosef the Honorer of the Sabbath." Every Friday he spent whatever he had on the best food available for the Shabbat table. Anything the...
V. 1. A man on his deathbed commanded his son to cast bread upon the waters. He did it daily and one fish caught it regularly and grew very big and persecuted the other fishes. The...
Bread upon the Waters. Yebamot, f. 121b. cf. Baba Batra, f. 74 a to b. Tanh. Numb. Hukkat 1. • • Abot de R. Nathan, ch. 3. Gen. R. ch. 22. cf. Numb. R. 18 § 22. Eccles. R. II, i;V,...
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...
Two robbers had been terrorizing the roads between towns, ambushing travelers, stealing their goods, and leaving them bruised and empty-handed in the dust. The local authorities se...
This brief teaching from the Exempla of the Rabbis sets two sons side by side to expose a hard truth about honoring one's father and mother, a commandment the sages count among the...
VII. 2. R. Meir on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem used to lodge with Judah the butcher, whose wife looked after him. She died and Judah married a second time and entreated by him Meir...
Rabbi Meir used to stop at the house of Judah the butcher whenever he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Judah's wife was a righteous woman who looked after the traveling sage with ...
Rabbi Meir, on his yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, used to lodge with Judah the butcher, whose wife took loving care of him. One year Judah's wife died. Judah remarried, and when R...
Numbers Rabbah (9:9) and the Tanhuma on the portion of Naso expand the Torah's law of the suspected wife, the sotah, whose case is brought before the priest and tested by the bitte...
This brief tale comes from the Exempla of the Rabbis, the collection of rabbinic moral stories gathered and published by Moses Gaster in 1924. It dramatizes a teaching dear to the ...
The Midrash (Tanhuma, Teruma) teaches that the merchandise of a Torah scholar is unlike any other merchandise in the world. When a merchant sells a bolt of cloth, the cloth leaves ...
A scholar traveled on a boat with a group of merchants. They pressed him for information, What merchandise have you brought? Where is your cargo stored? He answered vaguely: my goo...
2. A merchant whilst travelling, is asked by an innkeeper to be allowed to go with him. Near a town they meet a blind man. The merchant gives him something; the other refuses sayin...
The Angel of Death came to an inn. And found the innkeeper so stingy, so devoid of charity, that even the angel was disgusted. The story, preserved in medieval Jewish ethical colle...
A merchant on the road was joined by an innkeeper who asked to travel with him. As they walked, they passed a blind man by the roadside. The merchant stopped, opened his purse, and...
The birth of Ben Batira. Or more precisely, the circumstances that led to his birth, is preserved in the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 7:13) as one of the stranger stories in rabbini...
Korah was the richest man who ever lived. And his wealth destroyed him. The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) teaches that three hundred mules were needed just to carry th...
Korah's riches were legendary. And his fall was proportional to his wealth. The Talmud (Pesahim 119a, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:1) and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer describe a fortune...
The Torah says (Numbers 16) that Korah led a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, and that the earth opened and swallowed him. What the Torah does not say, what the midrash fills in,...
A hunter once caught a bird that, astonishingly, spoke with a human voice. The bird begged the hunter to set it free, and in exchange it promised to teach him three pieces of wisdo...
Bird’s Three Advices. Tendlau, Fellmeier, No. 21. Grunbaum, Jud. Dtsch. Chrest. p. 249. Ginzburg, Hagoren, 1923, p. 42. Benfey,Pantschat.I,38o. Barlaam u. Josaphat, v. Wiener, Jahr...
10. Rich man sent his son far away to trade. In his absence, the old man died and left all his property in the hands of a slave. When the son returned, the slave claimed to be the ...
This column of references, gathered by Moses Gaster as Exempla of the Rabbis No. 391 under the heading "Blood Test," points to a famous tale of Solomon's judgment whose Jewish root...
A rich man once sent his only son abroad to trade in distant markets. During the son's long absence the old father died, and he had left his will in the safekeeping of a trusted sl...
11. Ashmedai wished to confuse Solomon's wisdom, so he brought up from the netherworld a man with two heads. Solomon was surprised and so was Benaya, who would not believe it. Aske...
Ashmedai, king of the demons, wanted to humiliate Solomon, whose wisdom was famous in every kingdom. So Ashmedai brought up from the netherworld a man with two heads, a living curi...
12. Rabbi Joshua b. Levi and the prophet Elijah travelled together although the prophet said R. Joshua would see things which he would not understand. The first night they slept at...
Joshua v. Levi & Prophet Elijah. Pesikta, f. 36 a. Nissim, f. 4 b. Maase Hashem, f. 41a to 43 a. Eliah Cohen, Meil Se- daka §439. Heilperin, Seder Hado- rot, s. v. Joshua b. Levi. ...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, a third-century sage of the Land of Israel, was granted a companion on the road that no one else in his generation was offered. Elijah the prophet, the tirel...
13. Rabbi Meir once left synagogue earlier than usual. Wonder at the reason. He had overheard a snake saying, “I am sent to kill R. Judah the Antoti and his whole family because ha...
Rabbi Meir left the synagogue one afternoon earlier than usual. His colleagues noticed. Rabbi Meir was not a man who cut services short. When he finally explained himself, the stor...
A pious man owned a large tree in his garden. The tree was beautiful, its shade deep and cool. And a demon lived in it. This was not unusual in the ancient world. The sages accepte...
A pious man had a magnificent tree in his garden. For years it had been the pride of his land, tall, shady, heavy with fruit. Travelers and neighbors loved to rest beneath it. Some...
This brief tale, preserved among the Exempla of the Rabbis collected by Gaster, tests a pious man's loyalty against the lure of idolatry. While digging in the ground, a pious man u...
