143 myths · Page 5 of 5
A former butcher in Ludik filled silver dishes for the seventh day. In another house an emperor tasted cold stew and asked why it outshone hot meat.
Scholars bless Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's son in words that sound like ruin, and the father turns every curse inside out until the boy can breathe.
The tongue that refused to know the Lord later begged for flight, and the same mouth that cursed itself taught Israel how to bless.
Blind Isaac reached for the boy's head and stopped. Down that bloodline he had just watched a man walk into the burning Temple and take the lampstand.
Bound on the altar as a living offering, Isaac was told that Egypt was forbidden ground, and famine could not drive him from the land that held his holiness.
The sages argued what God meant by blessing Abraham with all, from a daughter named In-All to a pearl that healed the sick.
Laban ran for gold and murder. At the spring Eliezer spoke a Name, the camels rose, and a cursed servant crossed into blessing.
While the boy Samson lengthened, God poured strength into his body, and the nazirite ban on grape skin already framed his days.
Rebekah sent food first so Isaac's heart would lift. The Presence rests on joy, she knew, and only then would the blessing hold.
In a drought a stranger offered wheat, barley, and legumes if the teacher would settle. He answered with a fortune he would not take.
He asked for a chapter of Mishnah between the onion stalls. His teacher asked him where a man goes when he has a pearl to sell.
Three unborn guests ate with Abraham. Later blessings cast Israel's seed like angels, while God alone lights dark and clothes the bare.
A pilgrim standing where the wall of Jericho stood is supposed to say a blessing. There is nothing to look at. That is what the blessing is for.
His father sent a hundred measures to the Levites and the poor every autumn. The son looked at the pile and saw only grain walking away.
The forests had been standing for a few hours when iron came up out of the same ground. Every tree in the world started to shake at once.
Wherever the patriarchs walked, harvests and houses bloated with blessing. Isaac's hundredfold in Gerar and Laban's confession prove the spill of the righteous.
Jacob only seemed to leave Isaac's tent. He clung to the hinged door as Esau returned from a hunt the midrash hears as a hunt for his brother's life.
Israel wanted blessing straight from heaven. God put the priests in front and stood behind their raised hands.
After Uzzah falls, David leaves the Ark with Oved-Edom. The Gittite's house swells with blessing until the king comes hungry for what holiness did there.
Jacob's body was failing in Egypt. Asenath saw the end coming and forced Joseph to bring Ephraim and Manasseh while blessing still lived.
Abraham would not crown Isaac with a private blessing that might split the house. Michael came for his soul. God finished what flesh refused.
On his deathbed Jacob forced his body upright for Joseph the viceroy, begged the holy spirit for the blessing, and bound his bones to Machpelah.
His brothers got vineyards and grain while he got mountains and a raw shore. So Zebulun went up and told God he had been shortchanged.
