143 myths · Page 4 of 5
Hezekiah hired tutors for his son. Manasseh filled Jerusalem with idols anyway, and only Assyrian hooks in his flesh made him pray.
Scouts return with proof of a city's idolatry, courts dig until truth holds, and fire claims the square while holy writings are hidden from the flames.
Even the high priest, if he killed without intent, had to flee. Ordinary exiles wait for his death to go free. If he is the exile, no door reopens.
In Jerusalem the high court ruled, and an elder went home teaching the opposite on purpose. They called him zaken mamre. Willful teaching ends in death.
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.
When the ban on prayer was signed, Daniel went home, opened his windows toward Jerusalem, and knelt three times as if the Temple still held its fire.
David swore off sleep until he found a home for God. The prophet Gad sent him to a farmer, to the ground where Adam and Noah had built altars.
A thief stole the carpenter's savings and died on the road. The purse spent years inside a hollow tree, then floated back to the man it belonged to.
Fire locked in his bones, Jeremiah walked the gates begging the house of Jacob to listen before the same word would reach them as dry bones in Babylon.
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.
The Temple was ash. Josephus ended his history with a roll of names from Aaron down to a priest chosen by lot who did not know the rites.
Rabbi Yochanan parks his famous beauty where women leave the mikveh so they will bear radiant children. He trusts Josephs immunity to the evil eye.
Inside the Cave of Machpelah, Abraham found Adam and Eve lying on their beds, lamps still burning. He wanted the ground. The Jebusites wanted an oath.
Two brothers left for Jerusalem while neighbors planned to loot them. Angels wore their faces at home, and covenant merit kept the road guarded.
A thing with one eye in its chest walked the noon shade between Tamuz and Av. Schoolteachers were told to put down their straps for four hours.
In dry Jerusalem, Rabbi Gershon felt the prayer open under his tongue, left the lectern, and chose delayed rain over a pride that could drown him.
His brothers loaded the family silver and ran from the Romans. Eliezer walked the other way, to a study house in Jerusalem, and went hungry there for days.
Smoke came off the Temple courts. Gold vessels went out on carts and the survivors walked east in chains. The month was Av, which sits under Leo.
He carried his peppers up into the Land of Israel and sat in the market with nothing selling. An hour later his hands were empty and his purse was not.
On the Ninth of Av, dew beads on the Kotel's stones like tears, wayfarers clap over ruined Jerusalem, and a mourner teaches that silence can be Torah.
A tailor in Tyre asked the pepper merchant for a pinch and was refused. A tailor in Jerusalem walked him into a courtyard and bought all of it.
Below the city, in the Valley of ben Hinom, a hollow idol stood behind seven partitions. Fine flour opened one. Birds two. A child opened the seventh.
A servant invited the wrong man to a banquet, pride expelled him, and the road from that door ran straight to the burning city.
Zion weeps in the night while God weeps day and night. David asks how long, and the ruined city remembers her old delights.
Gabriel inked a taw on the righteous and blood on the wicked. The Accuser argued the ink-marked had failed to protest.
The Assyrian king drinks the water of strangers and counts his hosts, then an angel answers with a body count of one hundred eighty-five thousand.
Two sisters in two cities wore the same face. One was accused, the other went to Jerusalem in her clothes, and the swap held until the doorway.
Forbidden to number Israel by head, Agrippa ordered the priests to count Passover kidneys and found a city drowning in lambs.
A Galilean accused the wrong Jerusalemite of holding his two hundred dinars, then stood in the same market to take the shame he had given.
Scripture gives David forty years of rule, then six extra months. The sages said the missing half year was flight, grief, and a crown hanging in the air.
