478 myths · Page 15 of 16
Wheat has to be ground before anyone can eat bread. That was Rabbi Hoshaya's answer when a philosopher called circumcision pointless.
Og ate at Abraham's table and left no name in the joy. Jobs three friends came to a house of ash, kept their names, and Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) lost.
Abram quoted two verses about women who may not be sold or enslaved. Sarai answered that she cared neither for Hagar's good nor her harm, three times.
A firstborn calf nurses seven days before consecration. Separation, tithe, and Abraham's tenth of all teach how firstness is handed over.
At seventy Abraham cut the pieces and heard exile timed. Later Israel planted trees that waited three years for free fruit.
Three sons and their wives stood on the deck. Not one neighbor from the drowned streets stood beside them. Abraham left Haran with a caravan of converts.
Three unborn guests ate with Abraham. Later blessings cast Israel's seed like angels, while God alone lights dark and clothes the bare.
Abraham ran toward three strangers he took for idolaters. Later Gamliel left the patriarchs seat and poured wine for the sages himself.
God clothes the Messiah in light at His right hand, Abraham falters at the left, and the heavens open so Israel can see there is no other.
Jethro brought offerings and the elders sat to eat. Moses stayed on his feet serving, and the sages raised the bar to heaven.
Two men own a measure of wheat and a measure of barley. However the offer is phrased, the first man walks off with the wheat. Abraham made Lot that offer.
A flute missed a note when Rabbi Eliezer refused the cup. Rabbi Yehoshua drank instead, then set it down. A drop of wine marked the wood like a wound.
Elijah came late to Rabbi Judah's study house. He had been washing Abraham's hands, then Isaac's, then Jacob's, never all three at once.
Four invading kings dig tar pits as traps in the Vale of Siddim. Sodom sinks into clay until an angel hauls the king up for later judgment.
Mikhael and Gavriel asked to pull Abraham out of the furnace. God went Himself, and told them to wait for an errand of their own.
Adam had canopies of precious stone and a heel that outshone the sun. He still ended as dust. At the table a man set his cup down, wine still sweet.
A newborn waits through one Shabbat, then the covenant knife gathers home-born, bought, and foreign sons under Abraham's tent.
Sages weigh refuse soil of Hebron against royal Zoan in Egypt and decide even Canaan's dregs outrank the seat of Pharaoh's officers.
Payment is not enough after the blow. Abraham prayed for Abimelech, and the injurer still owes heaven a request for mercy.
King Areus of Sparta sent High Priest Onias a letter claiming the Lacedemonians and Jews were brethren from the stock of Abraham.
On the third day Abraham stopped and asked his son what he saw. Isaac named a mountain wrapped in cloud. The servants named only desert.
Rabbi Shmuel juggled myrtle branches at weddings while peers scowled, and at his funeral a branch of fire came down between coffin and crowd.
After the kings fled with Lot, Abram mustered pale disciples for a night war, then stood empty and afraid until God named himself a shield.
At ninety-nine Abraham hits the ground twice under God's promise, laughs in his heart at Sarah's age, then rises into the cut that binds his house.
Heaven spoke the cosmos into place, then labored over one house. When the nations tore that handiwork to its foundation, the roar rose from on high.
Goats shoved goats on the ridge while the shepherds shouted. Lot looked down at the Jordan plain, wet and shining like a garden, and chose first.
Reuven came back to the pit and found an empty hole and a coat that would lie to Jacob. Years later Moses gave him six words. Live and do not die.
Famine drives Abraham into Egypt with Sarah. Each step he takes becomes a mold, and generations later Israel walks the same road into exile and out.
Cain hunts Abel, a generation hunts Noah, Nimrod hunts Abraham. In each chase God turns toward the one being driven, never toward the driver.
Abraham's body failed while Heaven showed the reward ahead. The first day asked Torah what God had made, and a dying sage saw thirteen balsam rivers.
