The Rabbi Who Fasted to Protect Torah in His Family

Midrash Aggadah Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis, no. 96

Curated by The Jewish Mythology Team · Published January 24, 2025

Three quiet stories, each one about keeping Torah alive in a household.

Rabbi Yehudah — the Prince, the redactor of the Mishnah — personally undertook the education of the daughter of Rabbi Tarfon. In an age where girls were rarely taught formally, Yehudah sat down with this one and shaped her learning himself. He understood what Tarfon's absence from the world left behind, and he made himself the teacher the father could no longer be.

Rabbi Joseph, terrified that the love of Torah might not carry into the next generation of his family, fasted eight times — two fasts, four times over — as a discipline of pleading. He was not asking for wealth or for healing. He was asking that his children should love to study. He fasted because he knew that the love of Torah cannot be commanded, only invited, and he was willing to afflict his own body to tilt the invitation toward his sons.

Rabbi Zeira fasted on behalf of Rabbi El'a, a colleague whose soul he feared would have a hard time in Gehinnom. And Zeira's fast was so deep, the tradition says, that he sat in a fiery furnace unhurt — tested, but not consumed. He was singed only once.

Gaster's Exempla (no. 96, 1924) gathers these three because they make a single point: in the world of the rabbis, what you love, you fast for. The life of Torah in a house is not a happy accident. It is paid for with hunger and with time.

Themes

Rabbis Study Torah Parenting Afterlife

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