45 myths · Page 2 of 2
A mother of seven builds seven altars in one day, rebukes Abraham's single test, and God claps His hands to His heart and weeps in secret.
They seize Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon; he burns with his Torah scroll and still blesses the Judge. His wife and daughter answer after him.
Ten years in prison, then the furnace. Angels reported each stage. God refused to act until the flames actually closed around Abraham.
Because I circumcised my son, the first one said. The next was going to the fire for reading Torah aloud. A third had eaten matzah.
Rome had just killed Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yishmael. Akiva told his students the two were taken early so they would not see what was coming.
Rome chains Zion's children to bed-feet as living idols of beauty. Four hundred boys and girls learn what waits, link hands, and walk into the sea.
They sent him in first because he knew the rooms. He carried out a golden candlestick and they took it from him at once. Then they told him to go back in.
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 guard left one small cup of water in the cell. Akiva poured half of it over his hands and ate his bread, then went thirsty the rest of the day.
A nephew rides to mock his uncle on the road to execution, hears two calm sentences, and steps down into four deaths of atonement.
A landowner bars a widow's boys from the field, mother and sons die the same day, and heaven answers that the life taken will be exacted in full.
Someone wrote Hadrian a letter that hated life. A stand-in claimed the words, faced the sword, and bought his family bread.
Pressured to pour libations and swear by foreign gods, they answered no. Idol meat and the red cup stayed untouched while God remained their only portion.
The chains cut both brothers' wrists. They told the emperor they were sinners, not righteous men owed a furnace miracle. A guard laughed once, then stopped.
They toasted the shortness of life, named strength their only law, and staked a wager on whether God would come for the one man they broke.
