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The Purse in the Pool and the Dream of Blood

A traveler hid in a mountain cave and watched three strangers cycle through a pool until a purse, a theft, and a killing demanded a dream.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Three Men and One Purse
  2. What Sleep Told Him
  3. Mercy Before the Body
  4. Judgment and Mercy Argue

The pious man pressed into the dark throat of the mountain and found a pool, then a second cavern behind it, blacker still. He was turning back when footsteps entered the outer cave. A stranger stripped, plunged, dressed, prayed, and left. A purse slipped from the clothes and stayed on the stone, unnoticed.

The Purse in the Pool and the Dream of Blood Click for full size

Three Men and One Purse

No sooner had the first man gone than a second arrived, saw the purse, snatched it, and ran. A third came after that, undressed, bathed, and began to dress. The first man returned, empty-handed and furious, demanding his purse. The third protested innocence. The first did not believe him. He killed him there by the water.

The hidden traveler watched without power to stop the blow. His stomach turned. He had just seen the world prove that innocence dies and theft walks free. He fell asleep in the inner dark, still shaking.

What Sleep Told Him

In the dream the ledger opened. The third man, who looked innocent in the cave, had once murdered the father of the first. The first man's hand, bloody and wrong by daylight, had finished a debt the court never saw. The second man, the thief of the purse, had only taken back what the first man's father had stolen from his father. Property returned. Blood answered blood. The traveler woke with the taste of iron and the knowledge that he had misread every face.

The mountain did not become kind. It became exact. What looked like random cruelty was a delayed sentence. What looked like pure theft was restoration. The dream did not make murder holy. It made the traveler careful with his eyes.

Mercy Before the Body

Elsewhere the tradition names a different patience. When a man sins, the Holy One does not rush to wound flesh. First the plague of tzaraat (a creeping affliction of walls, cloth, and skin) falls on the house. The stones cry out: turn back. If he hardens, the affliction climbs to the garment. Only then, if he still will not return, does it reach the skin (Leviticus 13-14). House, then cloth, then body. Mercy builds stairs down into judgment so a man can wake on an earlier step.

The cave had no house-stage for the traveler to admire. He saw the last step first. The dream restored the missing warnings of history: old theft, old murder, old silence. Heaven's sequence is not always visible in one hour of mountain light.

Judgment and Mercy Argue

In a later mystical courtroom the Attribute of Judgment and the Attribute of Mercy pull on the same rope over Israel. Judgment quotes sin and demands death for complete rebels. Mercy answers that Jacob must not be shamed forever (Isaiah 29:22). Judgment recalls the sins of the fathers to the fourth generation. Mercy answers that a father must not die for a son's sin. Judgment threatens fever and empty harvest (Leviticus 26:16). Mercy closes with God's own name: "For My sake, for My sake, I will act" (Isaiah 48:11). Judgment with mercy, for the sake of the Name, remains with the people in goodness and in exile.

The cave is that argument in three bodies. Strict measure moves. Compassion still claims the last word, because the dream was given to a living witness, not withheld until he became another corpse by the pool.

He stayed in the cavern until morning light made the outer pool look ordinary again. Water is water. Stone is stone. The blood had been washed or hidden or taken by animals. Nothing in the cave offered a plaque explaining the plot. Only the dream remained, heavy as undigested meat.

The traveler did not appoint himself judge of the three men. He appointed himself student of his own certainty. He had been ready to write the world as random and cruel. Heaven answered with a longer sentence. Longer is not always kinder. It is often simply more precise. Precision can still break a neck. Precision can also return a purse to the line that first lost it two fathers ago.

People want judgment or mercy as a single flavor. The attributes argue because human history is not a single flavor. A house warned before a body is wounded is mercy. A murder answered generations later is judgment that waited. The pious man climbed out of the mountain carrying both, and for the rest of his road he watched strangers with a slower tongue.

If you meet a story that looks like pure injustice, the cave says, do not rush to close the book. Ask what page you are missing. Ask who died before you arrived. Ask who stole before the purse hit the stone. Then, and only then, speak.

JusticeProvidenceCaveDreamMercy
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 432Exempla of the Rabbis (Gaster, 1924)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Exempla of the Rabbis, Moses Gaster (1924) · Public Domain

A pious man, travelling, saw a cave in the mountains and on entering, found a pool of water and behind it another small dark cavern. He went thither and was on the point of returning when he saw a man come who undressed and plunged into the pool. Then he dressed, said his prayers and went away. Whilst undressing his purse fell to the ground where it remained unnoticed. No sooner had the first man left, than a second man came in, saw the purse, picked it up and ran away. Immediately after a third man came in, who also undressed and bathed. While he was dressing the first man came back and asked for the purse; he had meanwhile noticed his loss. In spite of the third man's protestations of innocence, the first man killed him.

169,

The pious man in the inner cavern wondered at what he saw He fell asleep and was told in a dream that the third apparently innocent had murdered the father of the first one, who had thus avenged his father's death. This last had stolen the purse from the father of the second who had thus come back again to his property.

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Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria 14:1Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tazria

Translation of the source text.Midrash Tanchuma (Buber), Public Domain, on Sefaria · CC-BY-SA

Another interpretation: "When a person has on the skin of his flesh" (Leviticus 13:2). It is hard before the Holy One, blessed be He, to stretch out His hand against this person. Rather, He forewarns him and strikes his house, as it is said, "And I will put a plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession" (Leviticus 14:34). If he repents, well and good; but if not, He strikes his garment, as it is said, "And the garment in which there is a plague of leprosy" (Leviticus 13:47). If he repents, well and good; but if not, they come upon his body, as it is said, "When a person has on the skin of his flesh" (Leviticus 13:2).

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Sefer HaKanah 45:5Sefer HaKanah

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Sefaria Community Translation · CC-BY

God is often remembered as a unified force, but some Jewish mystical texts paint a picture of inner dialogues, even disagreements, between God's attributes. the tradition turns to one such fascinating debate, drawn from the Sefer HaKanah, a Kabbalistic text attributed to Rabbi Nehemiah ben Shlomo.

The scene? A cosmic courtroom, where the Attribute of Judgement and the Attribute of Mercy are locked in a theological tug-of-war regarding the fate of the Jewish people.

It starts with the Attribute of Judgement quoting the prophet Micah (1:5): "For the transgression of Ya'akov, and for the sins of the house of Israel." Judgement argues that there shouldn't be complete sinners, because complete sinners should, well, die. Pretty harsh. But then, the Attribute of Mercy steps in, quoting Isaiah (29:22): "No more shall Ya'akov be shamed, no longer his face grow pale." Mercy insists that the people shouldn't be perpetually humiliated by their sins.

The Attribute of Judgement isn't backing down that easily. It concedes that minor sins shouldn't bring shame, but then throws in a zinger: "Remember the sins of the fathers onto the sons unto the fourth generation!" The idea here is that future generations will somehow inherit or take on the burdens of their ancestors' transgressions.

Mercy, however, has a counter-argument ready, citing the principle that "the father should not die for the son's sins!" This suggests a kind of spiritual separation of responsibility, where neither generation should be held accountable for the other’s actions. It's a crucial point about individual accountability versus collective guilt.

Judgement retorts with a stern warning, drawing from Leviticus (26:16): "I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you, consumption and fever.. you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it." Ouch. This is described as the anger and attribute of ani (א-נ-י), which can be interpreted as God referring to God's self. It represents the divine wrath that brings judgement.

But Mercy has the final word, quoting Isaiah (48:11): "For my sake, my sake I will do, lest My name be dishonored! I will not give My glory to another." Mercy’s argument is that judgement must be tempered with compassion, for the sake of God's own reputation. God will administer judgement with mercy, for the sake of His name, remaining with the people in both their goodness and their exile.

What does this all mean? This divine debate, as depicted in the Sefer HaKanah, isn’t just a theological exercise. It's a reflection of the internal tension within the divine itself, and within ourselves. It highlights the constant struggle between justice and compassion, between holding people accountable and offering them a path to redemption. And perhaps, most importantly, it suggests that God, in a way, argues with Himself for us.

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