382 texts in Kabbalah & Mysticism
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 225, tells a sad little case study in academic cruelty. Rabbi Dimi of Nehardea had arrived in Babylon with a cargo of figs to sell. It was custom that ...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 240, preserves a story that the Talmud tells at length in Makkot 24b. Rabbi Akiva was traveling with colleagues when they came within sight of Rome. Th...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 255, remembers a forgotten act of judicial courage. King Yannai — the Hasmonean monarch — had a servant who had committed murder. Jewish law is uncompr...
Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi — the editor of the Mishnah — conducted long conversations with the Roman emperor Antoninus. Their friendship is one of the warmest cross-cultural exchanges in ...
Rabbi Hoshaya ben Levi discovered a numerical poem in an old Aggadah book. Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 285, preserves it in four lines. The Torah contains one hundred seventy-five...
Bar Kappara was walking along the seashore when he saw a naked man washed up in the tide. The man was called an Antipatos — a title of rank in the imperial bureaucracy — and he had...
Rabbi Meir was traveling and stopped for Shabbat at an inn. The innkeeper's name was Kidor. Meir did not like the name. It reminded him of a verse in (Deuteronomy 32:20), where God...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 330, tells a folktale of two brothers. One was rich. The other was poor and had many children. The rich brother took one of the poor brother's sons — a...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 345, preserves a late medieval legend about Maimonides (1135–1204) surviving a plot against his life. Cruel decrees had gone out against the Jews. Maim...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), Nos. 360–362, preserves three old parables about what friendship really means. This adaptation focuses on the first — a teaching about the difference betwe...
A rich man lay dying, and he called his son to the bedside. He made him swear one oath — "Never take an oath yourself. Not in court, not in dispute, not for any price." The son agr...
A pious man was digging in his field one afternoon when his spade struck something hard. He uncovered a marble statue — finely carved, half buried in the soil of generations. As he...
Rav — one of the founding figures of the Babylonian Talmud, third century CE — had a difficult wife. Whenever he asked her to cook a particular dish, she would prepare its opposite...
A Jewish merchant had sold his wares in a distant land at great profit. As he prepared to travel home with the caravan, a stranger attached himself to the group. The stranger watch...
When Moses ascended to receive the Torah (Exodus 19), an angel stood at the gate of Heaven and refused him entry. "This is not your place," the angel said. "You are made of earth. ...
The emperor of Rome once put a mocking question to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananyah. "Why is your God compared to a lion? Any knight in my army can kill a lion. What kind of comparison ...
Two men in the Babylonian exile claimed to prophesy in the name of the Lord. Their names were Ahab ben Kolayah and Zidkiah ben Ma'aseyah. Their false oracles are mentioned with dis...
Beruriah, the scholar and teacher married to Rabbi Meir in second-century Tiberias, was famous for being able to hold her own against any opponent in Scripture. A woman belonging t...
During a season of Roman persecution, two disciples of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah disguised themselves in Gentile dress and tried to pass unnoticed through dangerous territory. T...
A famous debate arose in the academy between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua over the ritual status of a particular oven, called the oven of Akhnai. The technical question has bec...
Elisha ben Abuyah had once been one of the greatest scholars of his generation, a colleague of Rabbi Akiba. Then he turned away from the tradition so completely that the rabbis sto...
A man walked into a public eating house and sat down to eat. Before sitting, he neglected to perform netilat yadayim, the ritual washing of the hands that observant Jews perform be...
A man in a Jewish town conceived an intention to commit adultery. He approached a woman who was not his wife and arranged to meet her secretly at a set hour in a set place. The Exe...
Rabbi Hananyah taught a puzzle that his students were expected to unravel. "Some children feed their parents badly," he said, "and still go to Paradise. Others feed their parents w...
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua were aboard a ship when a storm drove them far out into the open ocean. The wind pushed them into waters no Jew had reason to visit. Rabbi Eliezer,...
Rabbi Nehemiah was a humble man and a simple eater. He kept a plain table. He served plain food. One day he invited a man to share his meal, and the man accepted. The guest was a g...
A young man fell in love with a young woman of his town. His feelings were so intense that he became physically ill. He stopped eating. He grew feverish. His family feared he would...
Two astrologers were sent on a delegation to Rabbi Gamliel in the town of Usha. Their mission was to study Jewish law from its source, to examine it in detail, and to report back t...
After Abraham had sent his son Ishmael away to live with his mother Hagar, Ishmael settled in the wilderness and married a Moabite wife. Years passed. Abraham wanted to see how his...
A Roman noblewoman, a matrona, came to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta with a question. She had been reading the book of Genesis, and she was curious about the birth of Rebecca's twins. "Wh...
Elijah the prophet and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi traveled together for a time, and Elijah agreed to be his companion on one condition: the rabbi must ask no questions. Rabbi Yehoshua...
A man named Yochanan sat at the bedside of his dying father. The father made one strange request. "When I am gone, go to the marketplace on a day you choose, and whatever is the fi...
Pinhas ben Yair was a second-century rabbi remembered for an unnerving combination of piety and practical wisdom. He was the son-in-law of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and stories abou...
Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, the great twelfth-century Spanish Jewish scholar, once wanted to know who his equal might be in the world. He was told: Maimonides. He set out at once to fi...
In one Jewish town, the leaders of the community had developed a custom of carrying a Torah scroll with them when they went to meet the king on ceremonial visits. The Torah in its ...
A group of children in a Jewish village were playing on Shabbat. As the sun rose higher over the day of rest, they wandered too close to the edge of an old well and fell in. The we...
A wicked man lay on his deathbed. He had lived a long life of greed. He had never given charity. He had never sent food to a poor neighbor. His door had remained closed against eve...
A woman in a certain town had a reputation for extraordinary piety. She visited every household in which a woman had gone into labor. She prayed by the bedside. She comforted the m...
A pious man on a journey found a cave in the mountains. He entered. Inside was a small pool of water, and behind it, a narrower dark inner chamber. He stepped into the inner chambe...
A pious man in a certain town gave charity every day to the poor. The townspeople hated him for it. They passed a decree that anyone who gave charity would be cast into the sea or ...
A man in a certain Jewish town had produced a good harvest. His cellar filled with casks of oil pressed from his olives and wine fermented from his grapes. The harvest was private....
A Roman emperor once boasted to Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah that he wished to throw a banquet large enough to entertain the God of Israel. The rabbi looked at him gravely and said, ...
A gentile heard about the honor paid to the High Priest in Jerusalem and decided he wanted the office for himself. He came first to Shammai and asked to convert on the condition th...
The students of Rabbi Akiva were traveling along a road when a band of robbers fell in with them. The bandits were watching closely to see which way the students were heading so th...
There was once a farmer who paid his tithes with scrupulous care. Every year, on the appointed seasons, he set aside the priestly portion, the Levitical tenth, and the poor-tithe, ...
When Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, called the Great, lay dying, he gathered his students for a last round of teachings that has the quality of prophecy more than of instruction. He l...
A man had three daughters, and each carried a flaw. The first was a thief who could not keep her hand from what was not hers. The second was lazy and refused the work a household r...
A man was in the habit of rising from his meals without washing his hands properly. He left the table with crumbs and traces of the food on his fingers, indifferent to the small ri...
