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 choir of fire stood ready. On the far bank, escaped slaves were still finding their voices, and God would not let heaven start first.
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 found good clay ready to hand. The sage would not leave chaos unowned. Even tohu, he said, had been made.
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.
Eleazar opened his mouth to pray his uncle into the land. The Accuser put a hand over the priest's lips and left them shut.
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.
Gold apples, gold pomegranates, gold loaves. Alexander asked if they ate metal here. The king fed him a verdict that left two honest men alive.
The plate held matzah and maror. A son asked what the work was to them. The father answered with a night that no longer named him.
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.
Metatron sat writing. Elisha thought he saw a second throne. When he died, fire burned on his grave until a cloak covered it.
The angels who carry prayers up stood in a corridor with folded wings. Bolts that had no metal still held. Only salt found a seam.
Papias said God does whatever He wishes, and none can turn Him. Akiva cut him off. Heaven still has a right and a left.
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.
Dust rose off the road outside Tiberias. Three men waited in the brush for a cart. Resh Lakish held the rope. The others kept their knives.
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.
A soul reached the high throne. Hosts on the right cried for life. Hosts on the left cried for death. The King did not move.
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.
