Why the Borrower Pays When the Owner Is Absent

The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924)The Stones He Threw From a Field He No Longer OwnedA short, bitter parable preserved as Gaster's exemplum No. 210 teaches the kind of lesson a Jew is meant to carry with him into the street. A man was clearing h

Hebraic Literature (1901)When Rabbis Profited from a Stranger's Honest MistakeSeveral Talmudic stories describe sages who took advantage of a non-Jew's arithmetical error. And they are preserved without varnish, because the rabbis wanted

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on GenesisThe Mob Calls Lot a Foreigner Acting as JudgeThe crowd at Lot's door is done bargaining. (Genesis 19:9), in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan's Aramaic, records the exact accusation they throw at him. "Did not this c

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on GenesisJacob Rebukes His Sons for Endangering the Family"You have made my name to go forth as evil among the inhabitants of the land, among the Kenaanites and Phezerites. And I am a people of small number, and they w

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on ExodusHow Murder Adultery Theft and False Witness Wound the WorldThe Targum Pseudo-Jonathan takes the four short commandments of the second tablet and expands each into a thundering sermon. Every prohibition ends with a cosmi

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on ExodusThe Oath That Settles What No Witness SawHere is a case without witnesses. A neighbor entrusts an animal or a vessel to another, and the thing disappears. No thief is caught. No one can say what happen

Why the Borrower Pays When the Owner Is Absent

Themes

Biblical References

Continue Reading