Eleazar ben Shimon Astonishes His Host

Midrash Aggadah Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis, No. 93

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 2, 2025

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 that he had prepared for a guest.

Eleazar ate. Then he ate more. Then he ate until his host was staring, unable to believe the quantity one body could take in. The story, set down in Gaster's Exempla of the Rabbis (1924), Exempla #93, does not end with a moral reproach. It ends with astonishment — and a reminder that the Rabbis were men of strange bodies and strong hungers, not only fine sentences.

A sage, the tradition allows, can occasionally astonish his host at the table.

Themes

Rabbis Community

Continue Reading

Midrash Aggadah Famine, Plenty, and the Wise Ruler Appointed by Heaven The Rabbis teach that three things come into the world directly from the hand of the Holy One, never secondhand. Famine.... Midrash Aggadah Why Purim Is a Day of Gifts for the Poor of Israel Although the reading of the Book of Esther — the Megillah — on Purim is not commanded anywhere in the Pentateuch, the Ra... Midrash Aggadah Rabbi Yose Wept Because Israel Was a Ship of Many Beams On his deathbed, Rabbi Yose began to weep. His students, surprised, asked why. He had been a great scholar, a faithful t... Midrash Aggadah Why Rabbi Akiva Refused to Drink the Prison Water The Romans had thrown Rabbi Akiva into prison, and his disciple Yehoshua Hagarsi was permitted to bring him water — a sm... Midrash Aggadah The Rabbi Who Valued Wealth but Honored the Man Beneath It Buneis, son of Buneis, came to pay a call on Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi — Rabbi, the Prince, the redactor of the Mishnah, the... Midrash Aggadah The Three Reasons the Righteous Were Rich Across the Centuries Someone once came to Rabbi Ishmael, the son of Joshua, with a question that must have been asked in every generation: ho... Midrash Aggadah Why Rabbi Judah Wanted to Exclude the Ignorant from Alms A terrible famine had descended on the land. Grain was scarce. Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi — the Prince, the compiler of the Mis... Midrash Aggadah The Rabbi Who Pretended to Convert to Save His Community There was once a pious scholar who left behind a son, Rabbi Isaac, greater in learning and piety than himself, and a day... Midrash Aggadah Samuel the Small and the Blessing Against Slanderers The twelfth blessing of the Amidah, the eighteen benedictions prayed three times daily, is known by its opening Hebrew w...