124 myths · Page 4 of 5
A boy stole God's name and grew wings; Moses saw the future and begged God to stop; and heaven locked every gate so his final prayer could not pass through.
Jacob flees east from Esau, sleeps on the bare ground, and finds the place where a ladder connects earth to heaven in his own dream.
The angels opened their mouths to sing and God raised a hand and stopped them. Israel was singing in the desert. Heaven had to wait its turn.
Before the world began, the letters fought to be first. Generations later, humans shot arrows at heaven. The arrows came back covered in blood.
God took fire in one hand and water in the other and pressed them together until they held. Then a human body stretched across the whole sky.
Earth pulled itself to the gate before heaven could look lazy, and Ben Zoma stared at the gap between waters until the world took him.
A brick fell off the tower and the whole work line sat down and wept. A man fell the same morning and nobody turned his head.
Most picture Jacob wrestling a man by a river. One early medieval tradition lifts the fight out of the mud entirely and moves it into the palaces of heaven.
On the second day of creation the sky trembled like fresh milk in a bowl, waiting. One divine word dropped in and the whole expanse seized and stood.
On Moriah the ministering angels broke into weeping above the bound boy, and their tears dropped into Isaac's eyes and stayed there for life.
A philosopher told Rabbi Gamaliel that God was an artist who found good materials ready to hand. The sage answered that even chaos was made, clay and all.
For fifty-two years the mountains quaked over Sodom as a call to return. When the city refused, the same heaven that sends manna poured fire instead.
Moses begged Eleazar to pray him into the land. Samael sealed the priest's lips, while in heaven Moses answered Jacob and Joseph measure for measure.
Turnus Rufus asked what made today different from yesterday. He ended up testing it: a conjurer raised his father's corpse six days, never on the Sabbath.
Heaven's bread shifts by the eater's years. It melts into rivers for the righteous, while the same sky that burned Sodom rains mercy on Israel.
A man bought a ruin and found gold buried in it. He said the gold was the seller's. The African king told the two of them to marry their children.
At the table of matzah and maror, a son said "to you" and stepped outside the people, so the answer gave him Egypt without the exit.
An angel blocks the earth-born stranger. A homesick star tells its exile. Moses grips the throne, walks the commandments, and wins Torah for needy bodies.
From the ridge Moses sees the whole land and the final day. He bargains to enter as a commoner or as a corpse. Heaven answers no.
One glimpse above wiped his ledger of merits blank. When he died, fire burned over his grave until Rabbi Meir spread a cloak across it.
Isaiah climbed to heaven and found every door bolted shut. Angels who carry prayers up were stuck outside. Only the gate of tears still opened.
Papias said God acts alone and none can turn Him. Akiva answered that above as below, the court debates, and even heaven has a right that tips toward merit.
The ox had been quiet for months. Then it lowered its head in the lane and a man went down. Its owner left court owing nothing and slept badly.
Outside Tiberias three men used to wait in the brush for a merchant's cart. Resh Lakish held the rope. The other two never put their knives down.
Unlike jealous kings, the King of Glory shared staff, whirlwind, throne, and even name, binding Israel to Heaven through Moses the joiner.
Jacob slept on bare ground while the guardian princes of the nations plotted above him, and God stepped between them and His favorite.
Behind a curtain of divine names, Metatron showed Rabbi Ishmael every generation to come. The light hurt. The knowledge did not make the path easy.
Hosts stood at the right and left of the high throne. Some cried for life, some for death, and truth rose only from the quarrel of voices.
Two sit and speak of the Holy One in awe. Presence arrives, and heaven's storehouses open for those who ask for Torah.
Each dawn the sun and moon enter trembling. God's light blinds them until arrows clear a path, and they rise against their will.
