A fox once persuaded a wolf to slip into a Jewish household to help prepare the Shabbat meal. No sooner did the wolf step through the door than the whole household rose up and beat him with cudgels until he barely escaped with his life.
The wolf turned on the fox, furious, ready to tear him to pieces. The fox answered, They would not have beaten you if your father had not once, long ago, abused their trust and devoured the choicest portions set aside for the Sabbath meal. The wolf snarled back with a verse. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and shall the children's teeth be set on edge? (Ezekiel 18:2, Jeremiah 31:29). A prophet says I am not punished for my father's sin.
The fox did not argue theology. Well, then, he said, let me show you a place where you can eat and be satisfied. He led the wolf to a deep well. Across its top lay a beam with a rope coiled around it, and at each end of the rope hung a bucket. One bucket rested at the rim, the other at the bottom. The fox climbed into the upper bucket. His weight lowered him to the bottom and raised the other bucket to the top.
The wolf, peering down, asked what the fox was doing. Eating meat and cheese, of course, said the fox, pointing at the reflection of the moon on the water and calling it a cheese. Come down and share. And how am I to get down? asked the wolf. He climbed into the upper bucket, his weight carried him to the bottom, and the fox rose neatly to the top and escaped. This fable, preserved by Rashi on Sanhedrin 39a and cited in Harris's 1901 Hebraic Literature, is a classic parable about justice. A wolf may cite the prophet correctly, but a cunning fox still knows how to make the sins of fathers, the hungers of sons, and the phases of the moon all work in his favor.