Two brothers lived side by side. One was rich and had a bad wife. The other was poor and had a good one. On the eve of Passover, the poor brother's wife urged him to open his home to guests, as the Haggadah teaches — let all who are hungry come and eat. He did, even though they had little.
The rich brother's wife advised him differently. Invite no one. Save the food for us. She added a second piece of advice: You don't actually know how to conduct the Seder. Watch your neighbor through the window and do whatever he does.
The rich brother agreed. He stationed himself by the window that looked into the poor brother's house and watched, ready to mirror every step.
What he saw was not a Seder. The poor brother had gotten drunk on the four cups of wine earlier than planned, and when his wife went to wake him for the meal, he — in his drunken confusion — lashed out and beat her. An accident of intoxication, not character.
The rich brother, dutifully imitating, turned to his own wife and began to beat her.
She screamed. The noise carried into the street. A patrol of soldiers, hearing a woman in distress, kicked down the door of the rich man's house. They found him beating his wife. They took him as a criminal, and while they were at it, they took everything of value he owned. He was left with nothing.
Gaster's Exempla (No. 350, 1924) ends there. The midrash makes its point through a kind of black comedy. Torah cannot be imitated from the outside. Watch the poor and you will misread what their poverty means. You cannot fake a Seder by copying the worst minute of someone else's night. Jewish life has to be learned from inside the house.