382 texts in Kabbalah & Mysticism
A poor but pious man had three silver pieces — all he had in the world. He took them to the mill, bought flour for his household, and walked home carrying the sack. On the way, at ...
There is a brief, bruising story preserved in Gaster's Exempla (no. 294, 1924) about Rabbi Safra, a well-known legal scholar of the Babylonian tradition. One day he found himself a...
Abraham stepped out of the cave where he had been hidden as an infant, and for the first time saw the world above ground. He looked up and saw the sun climbing, enormous and warm, ...
The wicked kingdom once decreed that the Jews should no longer keep the Sabbath, nor circumcise their sons, nor observe the laws of ritual purity the Torah commands. Three commandm...
A Roman matrona once posed a sharp question to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta. "Your Bible says, 'He gives wisdom to the wise' (Daniel 2:21). But this makes no sense. A wise person already...
When the wicked kingdom destroyed the Temple and carried the people into slavery, the son and daughter of Rabbi Ishmael — both famous for their beauty — were seized and sold to dif...
Among the Ten Martyrs whose deaths Jewish tradition recalls on Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av were Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Patriarch of the Jewish people under Roman occupation, ...
Rabbi Akiva is remembered as the greatest student of Torah in his generation — but he did not begin that way. The Exempla preserves a small story about the door through which he en...
The Roman emperor Antoninus was a friend of Rabbi Judah the Prince — the compiler of the Mishnah, known to tradition as Rabbi. The two men ate together often, and the emperor notic...
Rabbi Akiva was once walking along a deserted road when he met a ghostly figure — a man pale as smoke, staggering under a load of firewood he had cut himself. "Who are you?" Akiva ...
A disciple of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai had left the academy for business and had come back years later a wealthy man. When he walked into the beit midrash in his fine clothes, the...
Hanina ben Dosa, the humble hasid of the first century, was known for prayers that went through the roof. When Rabban Gamliel's young son lay gravely ill, burning with a fever that...
Two men once prayed at length before Rabbi Eliezer. The first stretched his Amidah far beyond the usual length, swaying and adding private petitions until the congregation grew res...
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi had a habit the other sages envied: the prophet Elijah came to him as a companion. The Exempla preserves the memory of one of their walks. Elijah took Rabbi J...
Rabbah bar Nahmani, the great head of the academy at Pumbeditha in the early fourth century, was accused by the government of a crime invented out of jealousy — that he was keeping...
Rabbi Pinhas ben Yair was a sage so scrupulous in his observance that the tradition says even his animals followed the law. Thieves once stole his donkey from his stable, thinking ...
When Herod seized the throne of Judea in the first century BCE, he fell in love with a Hasmonean princess — Mariamne — whose royal blood would legitimize his rule. She despised him...
Abdimos the Gardite once approached Rabbi Meir with one of the largest possible questions. "Tell me," he said, "how was the earth created?" Rabbi Meir did not open a book or begin ...
David and his son Solomon agreed on most things — but not on this one. David, in the Psalms, cried out: "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence" (Psalms ...
In the generation after the Second Temple was destroyed, some men claimed to be descendants of the priestly lines and demanded the privileges of kohanim — including the right to ea...
A pious but desperately poor man owed more money than he could ever earn, and his creditors had him dragged to the debtor's prison, where he was left to rot until his family could ...
A man from the Galilee once traveled to Jerusalem for the three festival pilgrimages. On his way home, rather than carry all his coin across the dangerous roads, he entrusted two h...
An Aramean king ruling in one of the cities of the Land of Israel once assembled the Jews of his domain and issued a decree. If they could prove to him the superiority of Moses and...
A certain king once woke from a disturbing dream and could not remember what it contained. All he remembered was the terror. He called his wise men and demanded they tell him the d...
A man once lived in the capital who was recognized as remarkably clever — but he was also desperately poor. He used to walk the streets crying out, "Why has God dealt so harshly wi...
A rich man once sent his only son abroad to trade in distant markets. During the son's long absence the old father died, and he had left his will in the safekeeping of a trusted sl...
Rabbi Beroka of Be Hozai used to go walking through the crowds of the marketplace in the company of the prophet Elijah, who would point out to him those among the ordinary people w...
In a year of terrible drought, when the rains had not fallen and the fields were cracking, the people of Israel came to Honi the Circle-Maker and begged him to pray for them. Honi ...
An apostate once led the king into a synagogue at precisely the hour when the Torah reader was chanting the verse from Deuteronomy: "How can one pursue a thousand, and two put ten ...
Hiram, king of Tyre, the Phoenician ruler who had once sent cedar and skilled craftsmen to his friend Solomon (1 Kings 5:1), grew so rich that he tried to build heaven for himself....
The Roman Empire had outlawed Torah study. Jews who gathered to learn risked execution. Pappos ben Yehudah, a cautious man, saw Rabbi Akiva publicly teaching Torah in open defiance...
Her name was Tzafnat, daughter of Peniel, and her father had been high priest of Israel. She had grown up in the holiest household in the land, with the aroma of incense in her clo...
King Hezekiah of Judah lay dying. The prophet Isaiah came to his bedside with what should have been the last message: set your house in order, for you shall die (2 Kings 20:1). Hez...
A man had publicly dishevelled the hair of a Jewish woman in the street, a humiliating act in the ancient world, where a married woman's covered hair was a point of dignity. Rabbi ...
A man had entrusted a sum of money to a neighbor, Bar Temalian, for safekeeping. When he came back to collect it, Bar Temalian lied to his face and said, I never received any money...
Nakdimon ben Gurion, one of the three wealthiest men of Jerusalem before the Roman siege, had been so rich that, according to tradition, his daughter's dowry alone was twelve thous...
Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta was famously poor. One Friday afternoon, as the Sabbath was closing in, his wife came to him with the familiar announcement: there was no food in the hous...
Rabbi Joshua came to the academy one afternoon and asked the students what Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah had taught that morning. The young man had been appointed head of the Sanhedrin...
The great sage Rabbi (Yehudah ha-Nasi, the editor of the Mishnah, who lived circa 135-217 CE) sent one of his disciples, Levi ben Sisi, to the town of Simonias in the Galilee to se...
A small boy was traveling in a boat along the coast when the prophet Elijah appeared to him. Elijah was famous for wandering the world in disguise, testing Jews, delivering message...
Rabbi Gidel was a sage of the third century CE, a disciple of Rav in Babylonia, known for his rigor in halakhah. He also had a peculiar habit. He used to sit at the door of the wom...
Rabbi Joshua ben Chanania, one of the greatest sages of the first and second century CE, used to say: In my whole life, no one has ever bested me in argument, except a widow, a chi...
Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh and Rabbi Joshua ben Chanania were once traveling together by ship on a long voyage. Gamliel was the head of the Sanhedrin, the recognized leader of Palest...
A min, a sectarian or heretic, came to Rabbi Kahana with a pointed question. Jewish law permits a husband and wife to lie in the same bed even when she is niddah, in her menstrual ...
A man lay dying. He had ten sons. His wife, in a bitter moment late in the marriage, had once told him that only one of the ten was biologically his. The other nine were fathered b...
A rich man, old and childless, prayed for years for a son. In his advanced age God granted him one. He named the boy Saul, after the first king of Israel, and lavished everything o...
The daughter of Rabbi Meir, one of the greatest sages of the second century CE, had a vision in a dream that her fate was sealed. Twenty-one years of suffering lay ahead. Seven yea...
There were once three poor men, each with a different longing. The first wanted only to be rich. The second wanted to become a great scholar. The third wanted a good wife. The prop...
