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Gaster's exemplum No. 414, drawn from Rabbenu Nissim Gaon's 11th-century Chibbur Yafeh Me-HaYeshuah, tells the story of a rich man who decided to conduct an experiment on despair. ...
Gaster's exemplum No. 438, drawn from the Gaster Hebrew manuscripts, tells the story of a stubborn merchant who decided to prove that a person can lose his property any time he wan...
Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta was a sage of the late second century, a younger contemporary of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — known simply as "Rabbi," the compiler of the Mishnah around 200 CE....
Rabbi Judah was asked a difficult question about divine justice: how can body and soul be judged together when one is mortal and the other eternal? He answered with a parable. A ki...
A potter in the city of Tiberias used to carry fresh water every day to the home of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish — the great sage known as Reish Lakish, whose learning was matched only ...
A rabbinic fable: an ass was appointed toll-gatherer on a narrow road, trusted by the king of the region to demand payment from every traveler. A lion and a fox came down the path ...
Two brothers hated each other. Their father, growing old, asked each of them privately why. The elder said he did not know the reason — only that the hatred was so deep he would gl...
A young boy was traveling by ship when a terrible storm overtook them. The other passengers were wealthy merchants. Each one reached into his bag and took out a small idol — some c...
Ten measures of every quality came down into the world, said the sages in Kiddushin 49b, and nine of each were claimed by one nation while the rest of humanity had to share the las...
A Roman emperor once challenged Rabban Gamliel with a question that sounds modern. If there is a God in the world, why does He not reveal Himself directly? Why not speak face to fa...
A father drank too much. His children, embarrassed, tried an extreme intervention. They refused to give him wine. They cut off the household supply. And when he kept finding it any...
A rich man had one son. When the son turned eighteen, he begged his father for permission to travel to a famous academy. The father let him go, and three times over three years the...
A man walked a hot road carrying a jug of milk. He heard a thin, desperate noise near the verge. A snake, dying of thirst. The man knelt, tilted the jug, and gave the snake enough ...
The Emperor Hadrian, riding through the streets of Tiberias, spotted a very old man on his knees in the dirt, planting a fig tree. Hadrian dismounted. He could not resist the quest...
The Roman Emperor had a habit of baiting Rabbi Akiva with the sharpest question he could devise. "Why is it said," he asked once, "that God gives wisdom to the wise, and not to the...
A charitable man kept three chests in his house. One filled with gold, one with silver, one with copper. From these he gave to every beggar who came to his door, matching the gift ...
King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre once marched their armies to opposite banks of a river. Tension rose. Solomon, worried his soldiers would collapse in the sun, summoned birds to...
Two brothers lived in the same town — one rich, one poor. After the festival of Sukkot, the poor brother walked through the neighborhood gathering up the etrogim that families had ...
Three young men apprenticed themselves to King Solomon for three years. When the term ended they approached the king, disappointed. They had seen wonders at court but believed they...
Rabbi Yudan was famous in his city for two things. He was very rich. And he was so charitable that he had been known to run down the street after the collectors of alms, begging to...
A man walking across a frozen field saw a snake lying stiff in the snow. Touched by pity, he picked up the creature, placed it inside his shirt against his chest, and continued on....
A merchant died in an inn, far from home, leaving a young son who was yet to reach manhood. When the son finally came of age, he set off to claim his father’s property from t...
There was once an innkeeper who ran his business as a trap. Each night, deep in the small hours, he would wake his guests with false alarms — shouts of fire, of thieves, of s...
There was once a man who lived near an old tree. One morning, cutting branches for firewood, he raised his axe, and a voice came out of the wood. “Stop,” said the voice...
There were two men in a distant country who had been friends since boyhood. When war broke out between their two nations, they were forced apart. Years passed. One day, one of the ...
There was once a widow who wept over her husband’s grave day and night. The rabbis kept the story as a bitter parable about how quickly grief, left alone, forgets itself. Not...
A Roman noblewoman — the matrona of Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 2:1 — once walked up to R. Yose ben Halafta, a second-century sage of Tzippori, and asked a question she clearl...
