930 passages in Modern Compilations & Folklore
Individual passages from Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924), shown in source order. Page 7 of 20.
A woman was entrusted with a single dinar for safekeeping. She placed it in a jar of flour, forgot about it, and later unknowingly baked it into a loaf of bread. When a poor man ca...
A poor person came to a woman's door and gave her a dinar, a silver coin, to hold for safekeeping. She took it and, with characteristic absentmindedness, set it down near the flour...
This exemplum warns that outward piety can mask a corrupt heart. A man entrusted his money for safekeeping to another who appeared to be extremely pious, a person whose religious b...
A man left a gold coin in the safekeeping of a widow during a year of famine, and she hid it inside a jar of flour. Without realizing the coin was there, she baked the flour into a...
A man in need entrusted his entire savings to a neighbor who was famous for piety. The neighbor wore his observance on his sleeve; his neighbors spoke of him with admiration. The m...
A certain man who lived a strict and ascetic life, devoting himself to piety and self-denial, was suddenly accused by his own sister-in-law of having stolen her jewelry. The charge...
A pious man had given his life to discipline, studying Torah, eating little, owning less. His sister-in-law accused him of stealing her jewelry. The charge was false, but the court...
This entry comes from the Exempla of the Rabbis, the collection of brief rabbinic tales gathered and published by Moses Gaster in 1924, and it preserves in miniature one of the mos...
The most dramatic dispute in the history of Jewish law ended with a voice from heaven. And the sages overruled it. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 59b) records the famous argument between ...
A famous debate arose in the academy between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua over the ritual status of a particular oven, called the oven of Akhnai. The technical question has bec...
This exemplum recounts the death and final leave-taking of Rabbi Eliezer the Great, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, one of the towering tannaim and a teacher of Rabbi Akiva. As he lay dying,...
The death of Rabbi Eliezer the Great was one of the most poignant moments in the entire Talmud. The sage who had been excommunicated by his own colleagues, placed under a ban becau...
When Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, called the Great, lay dying, he gathered his students for a last round of teachings that has the quality of prophecy more than of instruction. He l...
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, one of the towering sages of his generation, fell gravely ill, and four of the leading rabbis came to visit him at his sickbed. Three of them spoke word...
When Rabbi Eliezer fell gravely ill, four of the greatest sages came to comfort him. Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Rabbi Akiba each tried to ease his ...
Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, one of the great first-century sages, lay ill in his bed. Four of his colleagues came to visit him, among them Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elaza...
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 to...
When a slave belonging to Rabban Gamliel died, the sage's students came to offer condolences, as was the custom when a member of a household passed away. But Rabban Gamliel refused...
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 im...
R. Pinehas b. Jair, a sage renowned in the tradition for extraordinary piety, held himself to a strictness that set him apart even among the righteous. He would never touch other p...
Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair was one of the strictest ascetics in the Talmud. He never touched another person's bread. He would not allow his donkey to eat untithed fodder, the animal it...
Rabbi Zeira, a sage who left the Land of Israel's traditions deeply imprinted on him and was known for his scrupulous care in matters of fairness, once purchased a field. What he d...
Rabbi Zeira bought a field one morning in the marketplace. A fair price. A closed deal. He walked home satisfied. Then he learned what he had not known when he made the purchase: R...
This tale from the Exempla of the Rabbis, the collection of moral and folk narratives gathered by Moses Gaster, recounts the conversion of a man named Abu Golis, a priest of Damasc...
The tale is told of a certain Abu Golis, a pagan priest in the city of Damascus who later lived in Tiberias. He served an idol and prospered in its shadow, taking what he pleased o...
As Rabbi Jose lay dying, he wept. When those around him asked why a man so learned and so righteous should weep at the end of his days, he gave a surprising answer. His sorrow was ...
On his deathbed, Rabbi Yose began to weep. His students, surprised, asked why. He had been a great scholar, a faithful teacher, a man whose life by any reasonable accounting had be...
This deathbed scene, preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis, portrays the final hours of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, the sage who rescued Torah scholarship after the destruction of...
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai lay dying. He had been one of the greatest of all the sages, the man who, during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, had been smuggled out of the city in a coffi...
This story from the Exempla of the Rabbis, the collection of short moral tales edited by Moses Gaster in 1924, is one of the best known rabbinic teachings on how the living can aid...
Rabbi Akiba was walking through a cemetery when he encountered something terrible, a dead man, naked and blackened, carrying an enormous load of wood on his back. He was running at...
Rabbi Akiva was once walking along a deserted road when he met a ghostly figure, a man pale as smoke, staggering under a load of firewood he had cut himself. "Who are you?" Akiva a...
The daughter of Nakdimon ben Gorion, once among the wealthiest men of Jerusalem before the city's destruction, had fallen into such poverty that she gathered undigested grains from...
After the destruction of the Temple, the wealthy families of Jerusalem were reduced to utter destitution. The Talmud (Ketubot 66b) records the most heartbreaking example: the daugh...
Nakdimon ben Gurion, one of the three wealthiest men of Jerusalem before the Roman siege, had been so rich that, according to tradition, his daughter's dowry alone was twelve thous...
Rabbi Matia ben Heresh, a sage celebrated for the purity of his learning, was assailed by Satan, here the heavenly adversary whose role is to test the righteous and report their fa...
Rabbi Matia ben Heresh, a Tanna renowned for his learning and his unbroken concentration on Torah, was tested when the Accuser came to him in the form of a beautiful woman to draw ...
Rabbi Matia ben Heresh, a second-century Tanna who founded a Torah academy in Rome during the age of the later Roman emperors, was known among his peers for an almost iron constanc...
This brief tale, preserved in the medieval collection that Moses Gaster edited as the Exempla of the Rabbis, turns on the principle that a single act of loyal kindness can hold bac...
Ben Sabar was traveling home one evening when he came upon a young orphan girl weeping by the side of the road. She had no family, no dowry, and no one willing to marry her. Withou...
R. Joshua ben Levi was held to be so righteous that, according to the tale, the angel of death could not simply take him as he takes other mortals. Instead the angel led him toward...
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...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi was one of the great Sages of the third-century Land of Israel, and the Talmud reports that he had a personal acquaintance with the Angel of Death, a rarity e...
The son of Rabbi Reuben the Libellarius was being married. The feast was in full swing. The music was loud, the wine was generous, and the family was radiant. An old stranger came ...
Bride & Angel of Death. Tobit. Tanh. Deut. Haazinu. Midr. Decalogue, No. VII, 3 b. Ben Atar, No. I, Eliah Cohen. Meil Se- daka 434, reprinted B. H. V, p. 152, 154. Farhi, O. P. I, ...
King Solomon had two trusted secretaries, Eliharaf and Ahijah, the sons of Shisha. One morning, as they entered the throne room to begin their duties, they noticed something that c...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 140, tells the tale in a handful of sentences, which is precisely its horror. The two sons of Rabbi Reuben ben Astribulos lived in Tiberias. One day wo...
Elisha ben Abuyah had once been one of the greatest scholars of his generation, a colleague of Rabbi Akiba. Then he turned away from the tradition so completely that the rabbis sto...
