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Jerusalem Children Outsmarted the Sages of Athens

Athenians come to Jerusalem to mock its ruins and are outwitted by small children who turn every trap into a lesson about seeing clearly.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Child Who Divided the Fruit
  2. Salt for the Road
  3. Cheese from a Black Goat
  4. The Athenian Who Mocked the City

Jerusalem was ruined, but its children still knew how to win an argument.

The Athenians arrived expecting to find a city of fools, the kind of people whose city falls and whose pride deserves mockery. They found instead a city of children who played with adult cleverness, answered every riddle backwards, and sent their visitors home smaller than they arrived.

The Child Who Divided the Fruit

Eikhah Rabbah 1:6, a midrash on the Book of Lamentations compiled in the Land of Israel around the fifth or sixth century CE, opens the cycle with a coin and a child.

An Athenian gave a child coins and told him to bring figs and grapes. The child went. When he returned, the Athenian ordered him to divide the fruit. The child placed the damaged and poor fruit in front of himself and the good fruit in front of the visitor.

The Athenian saw what he expected to see: a Jerusalemite child who was street-smart about other people's money. He knew I spent the coins, the Athenian said, so he took the bad ones for himself and gave me the good ones. He nodded, impressed with himself for reading the situation. Then he proposed they draw lots to exchange portions.

The child agreed. He drew the lot. He got back the good fruit he had originally placed in front of the Athenian.

Then the child said: "did you not say we were equal partners? And now by your own game I hold what I was going to give you anyway."

The Athenian had tried to turn generosity into foolishness, and the child had let him think he was winning every step of the way.

Salt for the Road

Eikhah Rabbah 1:7 gives another child a more absurd demand. The Athenian sent the child to buy something he could eat until full and have leftovers to take on the road. The child brought back salt.

The Athenian objected. "Salt is not food."

The child answered: "did you not say bring something you can eat, be satisfied, and carry away? Salt is eaten. Salt satisfies in small quantities. And there is always salt left over. My answer is exact."

The absurdity is the trap, and riddle answers work both ways. An Athenian who asked for the impossible got a child who produced the technically correct answer and refused to be embarrassed about it.

Cheese from a Black Goat

Eikhah Rabbah 1:9 sharpens the same edge into something theological. The Athenian gave a child coins and told him to bring eggs and cheese. When the child returned, the Athenian said: "show me which cheese is from a white goat and which is from a black one."

The child looked at him. "You are an elderly man," he said. "Show me which egg is from a white chicken and which is from a black one."

Rabbi David Luria read the exchange as an allegory: the Athenian was claiming that Jews had become indistinguishable from their surrounding peoples, the way cheese from black and white goats looks the same. The child answered that the soul is like an egg. Whatever the outside looks like, the inside is shaped by what was before it. The inner substance does not change with the color of the container.

The Athenian Who Mocked the City

The last episode in the Eikhah Rabbah cycle scales up the stakes. An Athenian came to Jerusalem and mocked its residents openly and publicly. The Jerusalemites said to each other: "who will bring this man down?"

One man said: "I will bring him back with his head shaved."

He traveled to Athens and was received as a guest by the Athenian. They went walking in the marketplace together the next morning. The Jerusalemite's sandal tore. He paid a cobbler a large coin to repair it. The next day the same thing happened with the other sandal. He gave the cobbler another large coin.

The Athenian said: "are sandals so expensive in your land? Is that why you came with torn sandals?"

The Jerusalemite said: "with us, a cobbler who repairs a sandal also shaves the customer's head."

The Athenian walked into a cobbler shop to repair his own sandal. He came out shaved.

Eikhah Rabbah notes that he returned to Jerusalem: the Jerusalemite brought the Athenian home, as promised, with his head shaved, and by the Athenian's own consent.

JerusalemWisdomChildrenEikhah RabbahHumor
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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Eikhah Rabbah 1:6Eikhah Rabbah

An Athenian came to Jerusalem and encountered a certain child. He gave him coins and said to him: ‘Go bring me figs and grapes.’ He said to him: ‘Well done, you with your coins and me with my feet.’22We are partners in the fruit, as each of us will have contributed to gathering them. When [the child] returned, [the Athenian] said to him: ‘Take it and divide it.’ The child took it and placed before himself the bad ones and he took the good ones and placed them before that man. He said: ‘It is true what they say, that the residents of Jerusalem are extremely wise. It is because he knew that he did not give any coins of his own that he took the bad ones for himself and he placed the good ones before this man. But let us draw lots. If I go and yours comes to me, I will take what is before you. If what is before me comes to you, you will take it.’ They did so together,23They wrote their names on two lots, mixed them up, and each drew a lot. and [the child] took what [the Athenian] had.24The child took what the Athenian had.

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Eikhah Rabbah 1:7Eikhah Rabbah

This story belongs to a celebrated cycle in Eikhah Rabbah, the midrash on Lamentations, where Athenians, standing for the cleverness of Greek learning, come to Jerusalem and are repeatedly outwitted, even by its children. The point is not cruelty toward strangers but a defense of the holy city's wisdom in the generation before its destruction. Jerusalem may have fallen, the midrash insists, but it was never a city of fools.

An Athenian came to Jerusalem and encountered a certain child. He gave him a few coins and said, "Go and bring me something so that I can eat, be sated, and have leftovers to take on the road." The child went and brought him salt. The Athenian objected: "Did I tell you to bring me salt?" The child answered, "Did you not say to me: bring me something so that I can eat, be sated, and have leftovers to take on the road? By your life, there is enough here for you to eat, be sated, and have leftovers for the journey."

The trick turns on the coins. The money was nowhere near enough to buy the quantity of food the Athenian demanded. So the child bought salt, which was cheap and went a long way. A pinch of salt seasons a satisfying meal, leaves a person sated, and the rest can be carried off without spoiling. The commentator Etz Yosef spells out the logic, and the lesson rides on it. The Jerusalemite did not fail the impossible order; he read it precisely and met every word of it, exposing the visitor's demand as the foolish thing rather than the answer. Wit, in this telling, is itself a form of dignity that outlasts conquest.

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Eikhah Rabbah 1:9Eikhah Rabbah

An Athenian came to Jerusalem and encountered a certain child. He gave him coins and said to him: ‘Go and bring me eggs and cheese.’ When [the child] returned, [the Athenian] said to him: ‘Show me which is the cheese from a white goat and which is from a black goat.’ [The child] said to him: ‘You are an elderly man. You show me which is an egg from a white chicken and which is from a black one.’27Rabbi David Luria interprets this allegorically: The Athenian argued that although the Jews used to be distinct from the gentiles due to their religious beliefs and conducts, they had become indistinguishable, just as cheeses from a black goat and a white goat are indistinguishable. The child answered that the correct metaphor is the eggs from a black chicken and a white chicken. Even if they look the same, their potential is vastly different, and when their chicks hatch, that difference will become evident to all.

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Eikhah Rabbah 1:13Eikhah Rabbah

An Athenian came to Jerusalem, and he greatly mocked the residents of Jerusalem. They said: ‘Who will go and bring him to us?’ One person said to them: ‘I will go and I will bring him with his head shaved.’ The Jerusalemite went to Athens and was received by that man. In the morning, the two of them went out to stroll in the marketplace. One of [the Jew’s] sandals tore. He said to the cobbler: ‘Take this coin31It was a valuable coin. and repair this sandal.’ He repaired it for him. The following day, the two of went out to stroll in the marketplace and [the Jew’s] other sandal tore. He said to him:32He said to his Athenian host. ‘Take this coin and go have the cobbler repair this sandal of mine.’ He said to him: ‘Are sandals so expensive in your place?’33Is that the reason you came with tattered sandals, and are willing to pay so much to repair them? He said to him: ‘Yes.’ He said to him: ‘How many dinars?’ He said to him: ‘Some are nine and some are ten dinars, and when they are inexpensive, some are seven and some are eight dinars.’ He said to him: ‘If I come to you with this merchandise will you sell it for me?’ He said to him: ‘Yes, but do not enter the city without my knowledge.’When [the Athenian] performed his labor he purchased a stock of sandals. He travelled, ascended to Jerusalem, and sat at the gate of the city walls. He sent after [the Jew] and he came. When [the Jew] came, he said to [the Athenian]: ‘We made an agreement among us that no person may enter to sell his merchandise unless his head is shaved and his face blackened.’ He said to him: ‘What harm is there to me if I shave my head, provided that I sell my merchandise.’ After he shaved his head, [the Jew] took him and seated him in the middle of the marketplace. When a person would come to purchase sandals from him, he would say to him: ‘How much does a pair of these sandals cost?’ [The Athenian] would say to him: ‘Some are ten and some are nine dinars; however, I will not take less than eight dinars.’ When [the purchaser] would hear this, he would knock him on his head with a sandal, go, and not make the purchase. He said to [the Jew]: ‘Did I treat you so badly when you were in my place?’ He said to him: ‘From now on, do not mock [tefalei] the residents of Jerusalem.’ 34This linguistic note, which is added to the text of the midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), employs the term examination in the sense of critique.

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