124 myths · Page 3 of 5
An old man hung merchants' scales in front of the throne, put every noble in Egypt in one pan and a baby goat in the other, and the goat went down.
The news reached them on a Thursday. Rome had four of the great sages and wanted eight thousand students of Jerusalem as the price of their release.
No king who came after Solomon could replicate his throne. The problem was not the gold or the ivory. The throne was built to humble whoever sat on it.
A golden lion put out its paw with a law cut into it, and Solomon could not reach the second step until he read it. In Babylon the lions were alive.
Moses argued to the angels that only humans sin and repent, which is why they need the Torah. Years later he struck a rock in anger and understood the irony.
Moses saw God most clearly of all the prophets. Ezekiel saw through nine clouded panes. So why is Ezekiel's vision so much stranger and more detailed?
Thirty thousand angels escorted Moses upward, and he was terrified. Qemuel met him at the first gate and told him he came from a place of defilement.
Enoch vanished without a grave. Moses left no known tomb. Elijah rose in fire. Jewish sources say some lives end not in death but in translation.
In 3 Enoch, the angel Radweriel breaks the seal on the Book of Records and reads every human deed aloud before God and the celestial court.
When Moses ascended to receive the Torah, an angel sixty myriads of parasangs tall blocked his path and unleashed lightning with every word.
Seven palaces, seven gates, a guard at each one. Rabbi Ishmael asked which songs get you past them. Give the wrong seal and the guards kill you.
On the first Shabbat all creation paraded before the throne, and the constellations took their place in line beside the angels.
When the Temple burned, heaven itself went dark and God withdrew to weep alone, away from every creature who might witness the grief.
While Rabbah bar Nahmani sat under a tree fleeing arrest, heaven's sages were deadlocked on a point of ritual law. Only he could break the tie.
Angels are already sewing crowns and robes. Each one matches a wound Israel suffered, death by sword, famine, shame. None of it is lost.
Every dawn a new host of angels is created from fire, sings one song before God, and is gone before the morning has fully opened.
Metatron clapped his hands and the stars flew off the Throne on flaming wings. He named every one of them while Rabbi Ishmael watched.
At the gate of the seventh palace, Anaphiel stands crowned with a radiance that fills the seventh heaven, holding the seal that opens the way to the Throne.
Haman's letter warned that the Jews were an eagle growing new feathers. Mordecai told them to skip Haman's feast. Thousands went anyway.
Some men came back from the sixth palace and some were killed at its door. The students needed their teacher awake to tell them why.
Heaven sings in layers. Stars move in praise, angels in Ma'on go silent at dawn so Israel's prayers can enter the court without competition.
Fire was ruled out. The sword was ruled out. Egypt worked down the list and settled on the river, because God had sworn off floods.
Solomon warned that a bird of heaven carries the voice. The midrash says that bird is an angel, and Saul's curse reached heaven as soon as he said it.
The guards would not let the column stop walking. The first ground the exiles were allowed to sit down on was the bank of the Euphrates.
Israel drinks from a gushing rock and eats bread from heaven, then mocks the miracle before learning what a new song costs.
Enoch ascends through dark heavens, finds chained angels weeping in gloom, then silent Watchers stripped of light, still awaiting judgment.
A Roman minister hides a decree against the Jews, keeps a ring of poison close, and counts the days until he must use it to protect Israel.
A poor man promised the king dinner, then hid the plain lamp he had made when the royal gold came through the door. The king sent his own lamp away.
From the angels who debated creation to the manna Israel grew to hate, Legends of the Jews places Moses between two worlds neither could hold.
David looked down the line of kings coming out of him, saw the one who would burn his own children, and stopped calling himself a king.
