548 texts in Midrash Aggadah
The labourers of R. Nahman b. Isaac removed a small mound, when a man sprang up from underneath. He had been buried long before but did not rot, because he had been patient and mee...
A Min asked the Rabbi whether the Creator of the mountains was also the Creator of the winds (verse in Amos IV. 13). Before the Rabbi could answer the man fell from the roof and di...
Rav Hisda used to hang an open purse at his doorpost so that anyone who needed money could take some without being seen. This detail, preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compil...
Rabbi Patra had a student who struggled to learn. Where other teachers might have given up after ten repetitions, or twenty, or even a hundred, Rabbi Patra taught his student the s...
Rabbi Meir was traveling through Samaria when he encountered a Samaritan who was proud of his lineage. "I am a descendant of Joseph," the man declared — claiming descent from the m...
There was an inn on a certain road where travelers learned, too late, that the hospitality was a trap. The innkeeper welcomed his guests warmly, fed them well, and showed them to c...
Rabbi Ishmael ben Yose was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem — one of the three annual journeys that every Jewish man was commanded to undertake. Along the way, he passed through ...
A philosopher approached Rabban Gamliel with what he considered an unanswerable objection to the practice of charity. "How can you Jews give so freely to the poor?" the philosopher...
After the death of Moses, an emperor — some say it was a Roman ruler centuries later — heard rumors that the greatest prophet who ever lived was buried somewhere on Mount Nebo. He ...
Two men came to pray before Rabbi Eliezer. One prayed at enormous length — pouring out his heart in elaborate, detailed petitions that stretched on and on. The other prayed briefly...
Rabbi Judah HaNasi needed to send a teacher to the town of Simonia. The community there required a sage who could teach Torah, render legal decisions, and guide the people. He chos...
The respect that Dama ben Netina showed his father was legendary among the sages of Israel — and Dama was not even Jewish. He was a gentile merchant in Ashkelon, and his story beca...
Rabbi Tarfon was one of the great sages of the Mishnaic period, a man of wealth, learning, and considerable stature. But his most famous act had nothing to do with scholarship or l...
Rabbi Tarfon loved his mother with a devotion that became legendary among the sages. The Talmud preserves the story of how he honored her, and it is one of the most striking illust...
Rabbi Ishmael's mother loved him with a love so fierce that it made her do extraordinary things. The Talmud records that when her son — the great sage, the High Priest's descendant...
Rabbi Hananya made a statement that puzzled his students: "Some people feed their parents badly and yet inherit Paradise. Others feed their parents well and yet inherit Gehinnom (t...
Two men stand before the heavenly court. Both honored their fathers. Both are judged. One goes to Paradise. The other to Gehinnom (the place of spiritual purification after death)....
A mother had several sons, and the older brothers murdered the youngest. It was a killing born of jealousy — the kind of fratricidal violence that echoes the very first murder in t...
A potter refused to bring water any longer to Rish Lakish in Tiberias unless he prayed that the potter should be with him in Paradise. Rish Lakish promised that he would pray for h...
Rabbi Akiba heard that one of his students had fallen gravely ill. The young man was bedridden, burning with fever, and growing weaker by the day. No one expected him to survive. B...
After the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was consumed by grief. "Woe to us," he cried to his teacher Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. "The place where the sins of...
Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court), once served food to Rabbi Yehoshua with his own hands. He stood and poured wine for his guest as though he w...
Rabbi Yohanan ben Matya instructed his son to hire Jewish laborers and feed them properly. The son went out, hired the workers, and came back with a question that stopped his fathe...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire — appeared to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, one of the greatest sages of the third century, and offered him...
A child was traveling by boat when the prophet Elijah appeared to him — not as the fiery chariot-rider of heaven, but as a fellow passenger, a quiet man with an extraordinary secre...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 75a) records a breathtaking vision of the future Jerusalem: its gates would be made of single pearls, each pearl so enormous that it could be carved into a g...
A pious man was walking along the sea-shore near Haifa when doubt crept into his mind. He had heard the sages' teaching that the gates of the future Jerusalem would be made from si...
R. Shimeon b. Yob ai prevented tribulations overtaking the world and therefore no rainbows appeared to warn it of calamity. The prophet Elijah and R. Joshua b. Levi met him and he ...
f. 141a. R. Shimeon b. Yohai and son hid in a cavern for 13 years fearing Roman persecution. One da}f •they saw a fowler catching birds, who was successful only after a voice from ...
The Roman Emperor sent word to the Jewish sages: "Send me a luminary — your wisest man." The sages debated and chose Rabbi Meir, whose very name meant "one who illuminates." He was...
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua were sailing across the Mediterranean when a terrible storm seized their ship. Winds howled, waves crashed over the deck, and the vessel was driven...
The prophet Elijah — who never died but was taken alive to heaven (2 Kings 2:11) — appears throughout rabbinic literature as a mysterious figure who walks the earth in disguise, te...
A man cleared stones from his own field and threw them onto the public road. A pious man passing by saw this and rebuked him: "Fool, why do you throw stones from a field that is no...
A man earned sixty dinars. He divided them into three equal portions: twenty for food, twenty for his house, and twenty he saved for his children. It was a sensible arrangement — f...
Simeon ben Rabbi forgot to invite Bar Kappara to dinner. The latter wrote on the door: ‘‘After joy death.” Invited afterwards to another dinner, he kept the guests so amused by his...
A Roman official named Hadrakitilios wrote a letter to the Emperor Hadrian about the Jews. "Your Majesty evidently hates the Jews," Hadrakitilios wrote, "because they refuse to con...
Bar Hedya made his living interpreting dreams — and the Talmud (Berakhot 56a) reveals his shameful secret. His interpretations had nothing to do with the dreams themselves. They we...
Ben Dama came to Rabbi Ishmael in a state of great distress. He had experienced a dream so vivid and so disturbing that he could not shake it from his mind. In the dream, he had wa...
A heretic — the Talmud calls him a "Min" — came to Rabbi Ishmael with a series of strange dreams, seeking interpretation. The dreams were vivid, unsettling, full of bizarre imagery...
King Shapur of Persia once asked the sage Shmuel: "Tell me what I will see in my dream tonight." It was a test — could a Jewish sage truly predict what a foreign king would dream? ...
A woman came to Rabbi Eliezer with a dream that troubled her. She described its images, its strange sequences, its unsettling feeling. Rabbi Eliezer listened and then interpreted: ...
Story of R.b. Nahman, who was accused of keeping people away from work for two months, and of detaining them in the village. He fled and was overtaken by the Angel of Death whilst ...
Rabbi Gidal had a practice that scandalized some of his contemporaries. He would sit at the entrance to the women's bathhouse, directing traffic, showing women where to go. Day aft...
Rabbi Yohanan was the most beautiful man in Israel. The Talmud describes his appearance in terms usually reserved for angels — radiant skin, luminous eyes, a face that literally se...
Rabbi Yohanan went to visit Rabbi Elazar, who lay gravely ill in a dark room. The sick sage had been declining for days, his body wasting, his spirit dimming. The room was as dark ...
R. Johanan was one of the last beautiful men of Jerusalem. Rish Lakish, a robber, surprised him in the bath thinking him to be a woman. He was converted to study on the promise of ...
Rabbi Nehemia was a man of simple tastes. He ate plain food, lived modestly, and saw no reason to indulge in luxuries. One day, he invited a well-known gourmand — a man famous for ...
A man came before Rabba and declared: "I am poor, yet every day I eat fattened fowl and drink aged wine." Rabba was skeptical. How could a poor man afford such luxuries? The man ex...
