Rabbi Nehemiah was a humble man and a simple eater. He kept a plain table. He served plain food. One day he invited a man to share his meal, and the man accepted.
The guest was a gourmand. He was used to rich dishes, meats braised in wine, cakes heavy with oil and honey, delicacies prepared by experienced cooks. He walked into Rabbi Nehemiah's modest home expecting the kind of hospitality that matched his own expensive tastes.
Rabbi Nehemiah served lentils. That was the meal. A pot of lentils, bread, and whatever greens were at hand. The guest sat down and ate what was placed before him. He did not complain. He did not refuse. But his stomach had never been introduced to such plain fare. The unaccustomed food did not agree with him. The Exempla tells us that the man fell ill shortly after leaving the house, and he died of the illness.
The story is told in one sentence in the Gaster manuscript, and the rabbis who preserved it offered no tidy moral. The anecdote sits next to other exempla about the rules of hospitality and the limits of human bodies. What it seems to protect is a principle worth protecting: a plain meal offered with a warm heart is not the same meal for every guest. Rabbi Nehemiah did nothing wrong by offering lentils. The gourmand did nothing wrong by eating them. But the distance between a simple life and a rich life can be a real danger, and the man who suddenly crosses it may not survive the crossing. The lentils were honest food. Honesty, offered to the wrong body, can be lethal.