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. Maimonides set up his medical practice in the market square of the royal city and offered to treat anyone whom other physicians had failed to cure.
The king fell ill. Maimonides cured him and rose rapidly in favor. The king's Vice-Regent, who had held that privileged place for years, grew jealous and began plotting the rabbi's death. He pressed the king until finally the king, bound by a prior promise not to harm Maimonides personally, agreed to a subtle alternative. The Vice-Regent would instruct the royal lime kiln attendant to kill the first man who arrived that day carrying a message from the palace. Then the king would dispatch Maimonides on a routine errand and the deed would be done.
Maimonides left the palace with the written order in his hand — not knowing it was his own death warrant. But as he walked, he passed a synagogue and stepped inside for the afternoon prayer. A poor family was holding a brit milah — the circumcision of their newborn son. Maimonides could not refuse an invitation. He stayed through the ceremony and the small celebration.
In the meantime, the impatient Vice-Regent rode out to the kiln himself to confirm the trap. He arrived carrying a message from the palace — and the attendant, following his instructions exactly, killed and burned him. When Maimonides finally arrived, the Vice-Regent's ashes were still hot.
The king, shaken, confessed openly: "The God of Israel is mighty." A detour into a poor family's circumcision, a slight delay in the afternoon — and a noose prepared for one man closed around another.
Heaven often saves a righteous man through the most ordinary delays.