6 myths
The rabbinic teachings on poverty, wealth, and obligation: why the poor are beloved by God and what the community owes them.
6 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines poverty, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
A poor sage hawking baskets is cornered into sin by a noblewoman, so he hurls himself off her roof, and Elijah races to catch him before the ground does.
On a Sabbath eve with an empty house, a hand from heaven hands a poor sage one radiant jewel, and his wife sees the price hidden inside it.
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa's family had no oil for Shabbat, so he filled the lamp with vinegar and it burned from nightfall until dawn.
Mar Ukva gave charity in secret every day for years, and when the poor man finally chased him to see his face, Mar Ukva ran into a furnace.
Hanina ben Dosa heals sick sons, lights vinegar, and survives poverty while heaven bends to meet his unbroken confidence.
He chased the alms-collectors down his own street to give before they passed, until ruin left him one cow that broke its leg into a buried fortune.
