382 texts in Kabbalah & Mysticism
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa once preached a sermon on the rabbinic teaching "Receive every man as a friend" — every stranger, every wayfarer, every unknown face at your door. He finishe...
Rav Hisda was one of the leading sages of Babylonian Jewry in the third century, and in his prime he was also one of the wealthiest. One day, late in life, after his fortunes had c...
A potter in the city of Tiberias used to carry fresh water every day to the home of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish — the great sage known as Reish Lakish, whose learning was matched only ...
Mar Ukba was a wealthy Babylonian Jew known for his discreet tzedakah. He used to leave coins under a neighbor's doorsill each night, never waiting to be seen. One day he learned t...
A rabbinic fable: an ass was appointed toll-gatherer on a narrow road, trusted by the king of the region to demand payment from every traveler. A lion and a fox came down the path ...
A man should not be hasty, and above all he should not be angry. The sages held up Hillel the Elder as the standard against which every temper was measured — and his wife's behavio...
Rabbi Judah the Prince — redactor of the Mishnah around 200 CE — and his colleague Rabbi Chiya once found themselves stuck on a point of halakhah. They had forgotten a teaching, or...
Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon was one of the Ten Martyrs executed during the Hadrianic persecutions in the second century CE. Rome had decreed that teaching Torah in public was a capi...
A later midrashic legend reimagines Joab, the great general of King David, on one of his hardest campaigns. He had been hurled by the Israelites into a city called Kinsari, a forti...
Rabbi Abraham of Ashkelon was known in his city for the regularity of his prayers. He never missed the appointed hours; his Shacharit, Minchah, and Maariv were as steady as the sun...
A dying father called his only son to the bedside and left him two pieces of advice: occupy yourself with Torah study, and give generously to tzedakah. The inheritance he handed on...
In the house of Rabbi Elazar a strange filly was born. Every attendant who came near it was killed. Rabbi Elazar, unable to tame or destroy the beast, presented it to the king. At ...
Two brothers hated each other. Their father, growing old, asked each of them privately why. The elder said he did not know the reason — only that the hatred was so deep he would gl...
Rabbi Meir, on his yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, used to lodge with Judah the butcher, whose wife took loving care of him. One year Judah's wife died. Judah remarried, and when R...
A young boy was traveling by ship when a terrible storm overtook them. The other passengers were wealthy merchants. Each one reached into his bag and took out a small idol — some c...
A poor man, driven by his weeping wife and starving children, went to the marketplace in despair. He had nothing to sell and no trade to offer. He prayed to God for help, and the p...
A great scholar who spent all his days teaching Torah had a son late in life. He cherished the boy and kept him inside the study house, afraid that the world would distract him. Hi...
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 w...
A Roman emperor once challenged Rabban Gamliel with a question that sounds modern. If there is a God in the world, why does He not reveal Himself directly? Why not speak face to fa...
A Jewish man named Nathan traveled to an island and was on the brink of committing a serious sin with a famous courtesan. The room was prepared. The door was closed. He was about t...
Two prominent rabbis, Rav Huna and Rav Chisda, once refused to return the greeting of a colleague named Gniba. Perhaps they considered him insufficiently respectful, or perhaps the...
When the Roman siege tightened around Jerusalem in 70 CE, wealth stopped meaning anything. Doeg ben Yosef was a rich man, and in the final weeks of the siege he stood in the street...
Elazar, son of Shimon bar Yochai, had inherited from his mystical father not only the secrets of Torah but a body of extraordinary strength. The Talmud says his belly was so large ...
Rabbi Tarfon was walking through his own vineyard one day when his farm supervisor — who did not recognize him — assumed he was a trespasser and gave him a beating. Tarfon said not...
Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair was one of the strictest ascetics in the Talmud. He never touched another person's bread. He would not allow his donkey to eat untithed fodder — the animal i...
Two of Rabbi Meir's sons died on Shabbat afternoon. They had been in the house while their father was at the synagogue leading the congregation. When Rabbi Meir came home, he asked...
Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was a miracle-worker from the Galilee in the first century, known for a faith so exact that his prayers came true almost by default. He lived in poverty. He ...
A student once came to Rabbi Preida and asked him to teach a particular passage of Mishnah. Rabbi Preida sat with him and went through it slowly. The student did not understand. Th...
A woman had been married for ten years and could not conceive. Her husband, following the ruling that a childless marriage of ten years permits divorce, declared his intention to s...
In the town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, a dangerous group practiced sorcery. Among their victims was Chananya, the nephew of Rabbi Yehoshua. They cast a spell on him — the ...
The Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed the teaching of Torah after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE. Rabbi Akiva refused to stop. He gathered students in public and taugh...
Hillel the Elder — the Babylonian immigrant who rose to lead the Jewish people in the first century BCE — had eighty students by the end of his life. The Talmud in Sukkah 28a divid...
The story takes two breaths. Hillel the Elder was returning from a journey and walking the final miles toward his home in Jerusalem. As he approached the city, he heard loud noise ...
A father drank too much. His children, embarrassed, tried an extreme intervention. They refused to give him wine. They cut off the household supply. And when he kept finding it any...
The halachah is clear: a man must not leave the synagogue before the chazzan finishes the Amidah, and must not pass a synagogue without entering it to pray. Gaster's Exempla (No. 3...
A rich man had one son. When the son turned eighteen, he begged his father for permission to travel to a famous academy. The father let him go, and three times over three years the...
Two brothers lived side by side. One was rich and had a bad wife. The other was poor and had a good one. On the eve of Passover, the poor brother's wife urged him to open his home ...
A merchant left his young wife at the start of a long trading voyage. She was pregnant at his departure, though he did not know it. He was gone many years — so many that the infant...
A scholar traveled on a boat with a group of merchants. They pressed him for information — What merchandise have you brought? Where is your cargo stored? He answered vaguely: my go...
A young man rode from Tiberias to Betar and met a young woman who fell in love with him on sight. They married within days. A year later she asked him to bring her to visit her par...
A rich man once swore an oath before his sons that when he died he would leave each of them one hundred dinars. He had ten sons, so the promise totaled one thousand dinars. Then hi...
A man walked a hot road carrying a jug of milk. He heard a thin, desperate noise near the verge. A snake, dying of thirst. The man knelt, tilted the jug, and gave the snake enough ...
The Talmud returns often to a gentile from Ashkelon named Dama ben Netina, whom the sages held up as the gold standard of the commandment to honor father and mother. They told his ...
The Roman Emperor had a habit of baiting Rabbi Akiva with the sharpest question he could devise. "Why is it said," he asked once, "that God gives wisdom to the wise, and not to the...
Rabbi Shela once punished a man who had sinned with a non-Jewish woman. The offender, smarting under the beating, reported the Rabbi to the king. Jewish courts were not supposed to...
Rabbi Eleazar ben Shimon was known for his great body and his greater appetite. Once he went to visit Rabbi Yosef ben Laqania. They sat together, and Rabbi Yosef set out a meal tha...
King Solomon wanted to build the Temple from unhewn stone. The Torah forbade iron tools on the altar, and Solomon, meticulous as always, extended the prohibition to the whole sanct...
Rabbi Zeira bought a field one morning in the marketplace. A fair price. A closed deal. He walked home satisfied. Then he learned what he had not known when he made the purchase: R...
