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R. Johanan b. Zakai was asked by R. Eleazar b. Arach permission to expound some of the mysteries of the creation (Ma’ase Merkaba). R. Johanan dismounted from his ass, as angels mig...
The judgment of poor, rich, and young after death when they neglect study. The poor man who pleads want of 75 - means is compared to Hillel who was wont to work all day for a very ...
Rabbi Akiba was standing by the shore when he witnessed something terrible. A man — someone Rabbi Akiba knew — fell into the sea. The waves swallowed him instantly. One moment he w...
Benjamin the Righteous served as the guardian of the community charity fund. Every donation that came in, every disbursement that went out, passed through his honest hands. The peo...
During a terrible famine, King Monobaz opened the royal treasury and distributed everything inside it to the poor. Every coin, every jewel, every stored reserve of wealth that his ...
Nahum Ish Gamzu was a man whose name became his philosophy. Whatever happened to him, no matter how terrible, he would say "Gam zu l'tovah" — "This too is for the good." But the re...
A farmer was harvesting his field when he realized he had forgotten a sheaf of grain. It was sitting in the far corner of the field, left behind in the rush of the day's work. His ...
Rabbi Tarfon was one of the wealthiest men among the sages, but he was famously reluctant to part with his money. He studied Torah with passion, observed every commandment with pre...
A poor tailor paid a dinar for the only fish left in Rome, in honour of the Sabbath. Upbraided by the Hip- par ch he explained the reason and was allowed to go free. He found a pri...
The Story of Antoninas andR. [Jehudaha-Nassi] who preferred the cold meals of the Sabbath. The Rabbi explained to Antoninus that the superiority of Sabbath meals over those of the ...
A woman unknowingly baked in a loaf the dinar entrusted to her and gave it to a poor man. She swore that she had made no use of it, saying that if she had done so let one of her ch...
The daughter of Nakdimon b. Gorian was very poor and picked up grains from dung for food. She was seen by R. Johanan b. Zakkai, who recognised her and married her to one of his dis...
The story of Ben Sabar who helped an orphan to be married. On his journey home he was met by the angel §5 of death. He went to the R. Shaffan b. Laish and was saved from death thro...
Rav Hisda used to hang an open purse at his doorpost so that anyone who needed money could take some without being seen. This detail, preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compil...
A philosopher approached Rabban Gamliel with what he considered an unanswerable objection to the practice of charity. "How can you Jews give so freely to the poor?" the philosopher...
After the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah was consumed by grief. "Woe to us," he cried to his teacher Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. "The place where the sins of...
A man earned sixty dinars. He divided them into three equal portions: twenty for food, twenty for his house, and twenty he saved for his children. It was a sensible arrangement — f...
Story of R.b. Nahman, who was accused of keeping people away from work for two months, and of detaining them in the village. He fled and was overtaken by the Angel of Death whilst ...
A man came before Rabba and declared: "I am poor, yet every day I eat fattened fowl and drink aged wine." Rabba was skeptical. How could a poor man afford such luxuries? The man ex...
Mar Ukba was a man of extraordinary generosity, but his generosity had one absolute rule: the recipient must never know who gave. Every day, Mar Ukba would slip coins under the doo...
Mar Ukba learned that a certain poor man in his town had once been wealthy — a man accustomed to fine food, comfortable furniture, and the pleasures of an affluent life. Poverty ha...
The death of Rabbi Akiba in a Roman prison was one of the most sacred and terrible events in all of Jewish history. The greatest sage of his generation, the man who had laughed on ...
Two brothers lived in Cou$y in the year 893(1). Moses was a scholar and poor and Haim very rich. The latter asked his brother to act as his adviser and he would provide for his fam...
A man entrusted a single dinar to a woman for safekeeping. She placed the coin in a jar of flour — a common hiding place in the ancient world — and promptly forgot about it. Days l...
III. 2. A rich man on his death bed, ordered his son never to take an oath. Swindlers came and robbed him of all his property, claiming debts from his father, he refusing to swear....
12. Rabbi Joshua b. Levi and the prophet Elijah travelled together although the prophet said R. Joshua would see things which he would not understand. The first night they slept at...
13. Rabbi Meir once left synagogue earlier than usual. Wonder at the reason. He had overheard a snake saying, “I am sent to kill R. Judah the Antoti and his whole family because ha...
A wicked man lay on his deathbed. He had lived selfishly, hoarded his wealth, and never once given charity. The Angel of Death was approaching, and the man's ledger in heaven was c...
20. A young lad, going on a journey, encountered a storm at sea. All the other passengers who were very rich took out their idols and prayed without any result. He who was poor wen...
In time of drought the sages sent to Abba Hilkiah to pray for rain. They found him digging in the field and he did not reply to their greeting. In the evening, returning home, the ...
Abraham, the Carpenter in Jerusalem, hac. saved some money through hard work. His neighbour stole it and ran away, but dropped down dead on the road. A young man found him, dug his...
King Solomon was asked what was the meaning of his saying, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” (Prov. 15, 17.) He said when he was ...
A pious woman used to bake four loaves of bread every day; three she gave to the poor and one she kept for her household. One day four beggars came and she gave all the four. She t...
A woman was weeping and mourning over the grave of her dead husband for a long time. Close by stood a gallows and a watchman was appointed by the king to see that none of the bodie...
Alexander Legend. J. Aboda Zara, III, 1. Midr. Psalms, 93, 6. Numb. R. ch. 13. cf. Ps. Callisthenes II, ch. 38 and 41. cf. Hebrew Alexander Legend ed. Gas ter, Romance of Alexander...
Jose ben Yoezer of Tzeredah was one of the first of the zugot (pairs) — the great paired leaders who guided the Jewish people in the centuries before the common era. He was also on...
When Jacob fled from his brother Esau and set out on the long road to Haran, he stopped at a place called Bethel and made a vow to God. "If God will be with me and guard me on this...
Nathan de § us it a. Sabbath, f. 56b. Sanhedrin, f. 31b. Menahot, f. 44a. cf. Gittin, f. 56a. Sifre, Numb. Shelah § ii5- P- 35b,, Tanya". Tana de be Eliahu Zutta, ch. 22. Maamadot,...
Beruria, the brilliant wife of Rabbi Meir, is one of the few women in the Talmud whose legal opinions are cited alongside those of the greatest sages. And one of her most famous in...
When the Romans executed the Ten Martyrs — the greatest sages of Israel — two of the first to die were Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, the Nasi (prince) of the Sanhedrin, and Rabbi Ishm...
The Talmud (Bava Batra 11a) records a teaching that transformed how the sages understood the mechanics of divine reward: charity does not merely help the recipient — it literally s...
King Monobaz of Adiabene, a convert to Judaism, opened his family's treasuries during a year of famine and distributed everything to the poor. His brothers and his father's family ...
Nahum of Gamzu — the sage whose name became a proverb, because to every misfortune he would say "Gam zu l'tovah," "This too is for the good" — learned the cost of delayed charity t...
The rabbis taught a stark warning: reduce your tithes, and God will reduce your harvests. The Talmud and Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) preserve the story of a family t...
Solomon & Two-Headed Man. Tosafot, Menahot, f. 37. Midr. Hahefes, Cod. Br. M. 2351, f. 200a and 231a. Ben Atar, No. 11. Bezalel, Shifta Meku- beset ad loc. - 207— Farhi, 0. P. I, f...
When Rabbi Eliezer fell gravely ill, four of the greatest sages came to comfort him. Rabbi Tarfon, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, and Rabbi Akiba each tried to ease his ...
Ben Sabar was traveling home one evening when he came upon a young orphan girl weeping by the side of the road. She had no family, no dowry, and no one willing to marry her. Withou...
Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai was a sage of such extraordinary righteousness that the rainbow — God's sign of the covenant with Noah — never appeared during his lifetime. The Talmud (Ketu...
