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Rav Huna's Four Hundred Casks All Turned to Vinegar Overnight

Four hundred casks of Rav Huna's wine soured without explanation, and the sages told him to look inside himself before looking inside the cellar.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Discovery in the Cellar
  2. The Vineyard and the Workers
  3. The Reckoning the Sages Proposed
  4. Afflictions of Love and Afflictions of Judgment

The Discovery in the Cellar

Rav Huna woke one morning and walked down to his cellar and found that four hundred of his casks of wine had turned sour overnight. This was not a setback. This was ruin. His entire stock, his entire year of production, a fortune built on Babylonian vineyards, had become vinegar between sunset and dawn with no explanation that his cellar-master could provide.

Word spread among the sages. Rav Yehudah, the brother of Rav Salla the Holy, arrived with other rabbis to visit. Their opening was direct: "Let the master examine himself carefully." Rav Huna bristled. He asked what they thought he had done. "Shall we instead," they answered, "suspect the Holy One of executing judgment without justice?" The logic was pitiless. The loss was not random and it was not bad luck. When a man of Rav Huna's standing suffers a calamity of this magnitude, the tradition assumes the calamity is a response to something. The question is only what.

The Vineyard and the Workers

Rav Huna knew exactly what. He had owned the vineyard for years and hired laborers to work it. Every harvest, the grapes were pressed and the wine flowed, and Rav Huna refused to give the workers who had made it possible even a single cup. The wages had been agreed in advance; legally, he owed them nothing extra. But a custom had grown up among Jewish vineyard owners to share a cup with the men who worked the harvest. It was not law. It was decency. Rav Huna had withheld it, consistently, every year.

There is a version of the story that adds a different element: Rav Huna had a sharecropper with whom he shared the labor of the vineyard. The agreement was that each would take a portion of the crop. Rav Huna had been deducting the cost of the vine-shoots that the worker used each year, subtracting them from the worker's portion. The worker had no recourse; the vineyard owner controlled the accounting. The worker had been underpaid systematically across multiple harvests.

The Reckoning the Sages Proposed

Rav Huna admitted the withholding. The sages offered him a way forward. If you restore what you owe them, the casks will recover. Rav Huna accepted. He made arrangements to compensate the workers. The tradition records that some versions say the vinegar turned back into wine and some say it was sold as vinegar but at a price high enough to cover the total loss, which amounted to the same recovery in the end. What the story insists on is the precision of the mechanism: the loss was exactly the size of the debt, and the return was triggered by the repayment.

Afflictions of Love and Afflictions of Judgment

The sages who came to Rav Huna's cellar carried a larger argument about suffering with them. Not all suffering is punishment, they held. Some suffering is yissurin shel ahavah, afflictions of love, tests or refinements that God sends to people God loves, not as punishment but as purification. The vinegar was not of that kind. It had a cause and a remedy, and both were accessible to Rav Huna the moment the sages asked him to look inward.

The contrast with other suffering was pointed. A sage who suffers and can identify no specific cause may be undergoing afflictions of love. A sage who suffers and can identify exactly what he failed to do is in a different situation. Rav Huna's vinegar was not mysterious. He knew what it was about before the sages arrived. His hesitation was not ignorance but defensiveness, the natural resistance of a wealthy and respected man to being told by his colleagues that four hundred casks of wine constituted a divine invoice for what he owed the workers who had made them.

Rav HunaWineVinegarRepentanceEthicsWorkersDivine Justice
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

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

Berakhot 5bHebraic Literature (1901)

Rav Huna once woke to find that four hundred of his casks of wine had soured into vinegar. This was not an inconvenience. This was ruin.

Word spread. Rav Yehudah, the brother of Rav Salla the Holy, some say it was Rav Adda bar Ahavah, came to visit, accompanied by other rabbis. Their opening was blunt. "Let the master examine himself carefully."

Huna bristled. "What, you suspect me of wrongdoing?"

"Shall we instead," the rabbis answered mildly, "suspect the Holy One, blessed be He, of executing judgment without justice?" The logic was pitiless: something has gone wrong in your wine, and nothing goes wrong in the universe that heaven has not noticed. So look.

Huna folded his arms. "If you have heard something, tell me."

"We heard that the master has been withholding the vinedresser's share of the prunings."

Huna flared. "What does that thief leave me? He has already stolen the whole crop!"

And the rabbis answered with a proverb that cut through his defense: "There is a saying, whoever steals from a thief comes out smelling of theft."

Huna stood silent. Then he said: "I promise to give him his share."

And the Talmud (Berakhot 5b) preserves two endings. Some say the vinegar turned back into wine. Others, more soberly, say that the price of vinegar rose that week until it matched the price of wine. Either way, the loss was undone the moment the withholding stopped.

Righteousness, the sages taught, does not absolve you from the fine print. Even a holy man owes the gardener his prunings.

Full source
Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis No. 177The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924)

Rav Huna, the third-century head of the Babylonian academy at Sura, owned a vineyard and hired laborers to work it. One harvest day he refused to share wine with the men who were working under the sun for him. It was not generosity he owed them, the wages had been agreed. But a custom had grown up among Jewish vineyard owners to give workers a cup from the very casks they had helped to fill.

That night, when Rav Huna went to check his cellar, he found that four hundred of his casks had turned sour at once. The loss was enormous. He understood immediately what had happened. His own miserliness, a cup withheld at the height of the labor, had spoiled an entire year's production.

He did teshuvah. He went back to the laborers, apologized, gave them wine from his reserves, and undertook to share his casks openly from then on. When he returned to the cellar, the casks that had turned to vinegar had turned sweet again. Four hundred casks of wine, ruined by a small refusal and restored by a small repentance.

Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (1924, No. 177, additions) preserves this episode as a micro-drama of the economic dimensions of teshuvah. Heaven does not always punish miserliness with lightning. Sometimes it simply lets the consequences ripen. Or sour, in the cellars we already own.

Full source
Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 177Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

Rav Huna was a wealthy man who owned vast vineyards and employed many laborers to tend them. But he had a flaw. When the harvest was finished and the grapes had been pressed and the wine was flowing, Rav Huna refused to share any of it with the workers who had made it possible. They labored in the heat all day and received not a single cup.

Then came the catastrophe. Four hundred barrels of Rav Huna's wine, his entire stock, representing a fortune, turned sour. All at once, without explanation, every barrel curdled into vinegar. A year's worth of wealth, destroyed overnight.

Word spread quickly. The other rabbis came to see him, and they did not mince their words. "Examine your deeds," they told him. "This did not happen by accident."

Rav Huna was stricken. He looked inward and recognized his sin. He had been stingy with the very people who depended on him. He repented sincerely, vowing to treat his laborers with generosity going forward.

The moment his repentance was genuine, the vinegar turned back into wine. All four hundred barrels. The Talmud in Berakhot (5b) preserves two versions of what happened next, some say the wine was restored to its original quality, while others say the price of vinegar rose so sharply that Rav Huna was able to sell it for the same amount he would have earned from wine. Either way, the lesson was identical: God watches how the powerful treat the powerless, and He responds with precision. Withhold from your workers, and your wealth will sour. Repent, and even vinegar can become sweet again.

Full source