The respect that Dama ben Netina showed his father became the standard against which all filial devotion was measured — and Dama was not even Jewish. He was a gentile merchant in the city of Ashkelon, and his story is told in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 23b-24a, Kiddush (the sanctification blessing over wine)in 31a) as proof that the commandment to honor one's parents is universal.
The sages once needed a particular precious stone to replace one that had fallen from the High Priest's breastplate. They learned that Dama ben Netina possessed exactly the right stone. They came to him and offered an enormous sum — some say six hundred thousand gold dinars.
Dama went to fetch the stone. But the key to the strongbox where it was kept was under his father's pillow — and his father was sleeping. Dama returned to the sages and told them he could not sell the stone. Not today. Not while his father slept.
The sages left. The deal was lost. Dama gave up a fortune rather than disturb his father's rest.
The following year, a red heifer — the rarest animal in Jewish law, needed for ritual purification — was born in Dama's herd. The sages came to buy it, and Dama sold it for the exact amount he had lost the previous year. God rewarded him measure for measure.
"If a gentile who was not commanded to honor his parents did so to this degree," the sages declared, "how much more must we, who are commanded, strive to exceed him?" Dama's example shamed every child who had ever treated a parent carelessly.