Hanina ben Dosa Sets His Heel on a Scorpion's Hole

Midrash Aggadah Gaster, The Exempla of the Rabbis (1924), No. 164

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 22, 2025

Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa lived in such fearless piety that the scorpions feared him. The Talmud tells this miniature story like a punchline.

A scorpion had taken up residence in a hole near the house of study and was biting worshippers. Hanina went out, placed his own foot over the mouth of the hole, and waited. The scorpion emerged and bit him.

It was the scorpion that died.

The rabbis loved this story because it inverts the usual geometry of danger. The righteous man does not flee the predator; he lets the predator discover that biting a saint is the worst decision a scorpion ever makes.

The deeper lesson is theological. Hanina was so trusting that he did not protect his foot — he protected the community. The rabbis said of him, “It is not the scorpion that kills, but sin.” A person who is not carrying sin is not carrying the venom’s handle.

Hanina’s life is full of such moments. He was poor, he fasted often, his wife heated an empty oven on Friday so the neighbors would not know they had no bread. But scorpions, snakes, and demons kept away from his heels as if he walked on a different earth.

Themes

Rabbis Righteousness Miracles

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