28 myths
Each story names the sources it was written from.
God said he would rain down on Sodom. The rabbis found a hidden offer in that word: rain can be water or fire. Sodom chose fire.
After the Temple fell, God sent Jeremiah to wake the Patriarchs from their graves. Jeremiah lied to them. He feared they would blame him for what had happened.
Lot set unleavened cakes in front of two travelers and it only seemed to him that they ate. Before the night ended the whole city was at his door.
The fire that fell on Sodom from the sky had a partner rising from Gehinnom (afterlife of judgment) beneath. Both were prepared before the world began.
Nakdimon staked his fortune on twelve wells of water returning before sunset, then prayed until the clouds came and the sun turned back.
A sage escapes in a coffin, the dew stops blessing the earth, a pig appears on the siege wall, and the Levites hang their harps on Babylonian willows.
Forty years of omens precede the Temple's fall, a prophet's blood boils for centuries naming its killers, and Nero reads his own verdict and runs.
A hen and a rooster stood for a new marriage. Roman soldiers ate them. The defender who leapt a mile said God had forgotten the town.
The high priest put on his ephod and walked into the fire. Captives hauled Temple vessels with iron on their necks. Jeremiah found them on the road.
Buyers waited for the last cloth. Tzafnat tore it off herself and named her beauty out loud. She was dead on the stones before a bid could land.
Night after night the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, descends to the empty Holy of Holies, calling for the husband who vowed never to leave her arms.
Bela sat on a throne of light until the light tore him. In a lower field a farmer put seed into a crack that had been only ruin.
Alone in Zion's ash, Baruch ordered the priests to fling the sanctuary keys upward and told heaven to guard its own house, for the stewards had failed.
Gabriel cooled the cherub's coals against his chest for six years, waiting for Israel to turn, until mercy stayed his arm for the sake of kindness.
Jerusalem still smoked when the question went out. A king of flesh and blood, what does he do when he mourns? The angels answered. The sky changed clothes.
Outside Jerusalem the enemy roasted goats west of the wall so the starving inside died from the scent of meat they could not reach.
The blind man caught a stranger's sleeve in the ruined street. He asked for Zekharya's stain, not bread. His mouth found warm dust.
One rabbi said God filled the city's belly with worms, so Jerusalem was chewed from the inside while the sword took her sons at the gates.
Smoke rose where the altar used to shine. Job asked if God's troops had a number, and Heaven answered by thinning its own ranks after Jerusalem burned.
After the Temple burned, Yehoshua mourned the end of atonement. Yohanan led him past the ruins and named loving-kindness as the altar that still stands.
Two masters compared their most beautiful slaves and struck a business arrangement. Neither of them knew the boy and the girl came out of one house.
The host saw his enemy at the table and ordered him out. Bar Kamsa offered to pay for the whole feast. The rabbis sat and watched.
Gabriel inked a taw on the righteous and blood on the wicked. The Accuser argued the ink-marked had failed to protest.
The gold left at midday. When the soldiers came back with chains for the doors, the courtyard had nothing left to tie them to.
Titus shoved the curtain aside and waited for fire. The air stayed ordinary. A woman laughed as if heaven might still notice.
Smoke still climbs from the Temple stones while Reish Lakish refuses to let Lamentations end in final contempt.
The soldier laughed when the outer course gave way. Jeremiah heard a roar above the dust. Heaven had spoken worlds, then labored over this house.
Smoke hung over the stones. A seraph folded his fire smaller and took a place farther from the Throne. Below, the last priests had already fallen.
