A man once lived in the capital who was recognized as remarkably clever — but he was also desperately poor. He used to walk the streets crying out, "Why has God dealt so harshly with me?"

Word of his complaint reached the king, who summoned him and asked what he meant. The man explained his situation: gifted with insight into many things, yet starving. The king, intrigued, ordered that a sack of corn be delivered to him every week.

Whenever the sack arrived, the man said one word: "Teva — Nature."

Some time later a merchant brought the king a magnificent ring with a precious stone. The merchant swore the stone was carved from a single piece. The king sent for his new pensioner and asked for his judgment. "The stone is of two pieces," the sage said quietly. He dropped the ring into boiling water, and the two pieces came apart. The king, amazed, appointed him a councillor and doubled his pension to two sacks of corn a week.

Again the sage said, "Nature."

Later a beautiful horse was presented to the king as a gift. The sage examined it and said, "After a gallop of twenty miles this horse will go mad and kill its rider." The king had the horse tested with a condemned prisoner. At the twentieth mile the horse threw and trampled him. Three sacks a week.

Again the sage said, "Nature."

At a banquet one night the sage said it one time too many. A courtier laughed. The king took the sage aside and pressed him. "Why do you always say Nature?"

"If the king promises not to kill me, I will tell."

The king promised.

"I am not the son of the father I was raised to call my father," the sage said. "My real father was the man who threshed and ground the corn in my mother's village. I inherited my cleverness from him, and I inherited no land because my mother hid the truth. When I see grain, I remember him, and I say Nature — because every skill I have came not from schooling but from his blood."

The king sent for the sage's mother. In private, she confessed the truth.

The king gave the sage great wealth — on condition that he never repeat the story outside the palace. And ever after, he lived well.

Thus, the Codex Gaster concludes, wisdom sustains the one who possesses it — even when fortune did not hand him his starting place.

(From The Exempla of the Rabbis, Moses Gaster, 1924, no. 372, from Codex Gaster 130.)