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 find him.
When Ibn Ezra arrived in the town where Maimonides lived, he walked first into the famous physician's garden. He ate some cucumbers growing there. He accidentally left a knife among the vines. Then he went to the front door and knocked. The servants answered. They told him the master was inside but could not be disturbed, for he was preparing a medicinal recipe for the king. Ibn Ezra replied, "I see him in the house, mixing a recipe for the king." He could see through walls. Maimonides, hearing the exchange, sent back his own message: "Tell the guest I know he ate my cucumbers and left his knife in the garden, but I still cannot see him now." Each scholar had demonstrated that he could match the other from a distance.
When Ibn Ezra returned later, Maimonides received him warmly. Ibn Ezra had a plan. He asked Maimonides to tell the king that Ibn Ezra was his brother. Maimonides agreed. The king summoned both men. He asked Ibn Ezra his business. "I trade in pearls," Ibn Ezra answered.
At that moment a poor Jew entered with three pearls to sell. Ibn Ezra shouted that the pearls belonged to him, that the poor Jew had stolen them. The Jew protested. The king ordered a test. "Whoever can describe the qualities of these pearls is their rightful owner." The poor Jew could not. Ibn Ezra stepped forward. The white pearl, he said, if ground and swallowed, would rejuvenate an old man. The red one, if shown by the king to a rebellious city, would force the city's submission. The green one would reveal hidden treasure.
The pearls were tested and the claims proved true. Ibn Ezra then bowed and confessed. The pearls were not his. They belonged to the poor Jew. He had raised the dispute only to force the king to pay a high price. The king bought them. The poor Jew went home wealthy. Ibn Ezra had risked a false accusation to lift a stranger out of poverty, and Maimonides had let him do it. Charity, Gaster's sources suggest, sometimes wears the costume of fraud.