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The Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 19, Tanhuma Pinehas) tells a cautionary tale about gluttony — the sin of making the stomach into a god, of subordinating every other value to the next ...
The meeting — whether real or legendary — between Rabbi Eleazar of Worms and Maimonides represents one of the great contrasts in Jewish intellectual history. Eleazar, the Ashkenazi...
A king fell gravely ill, and none of his physicians could cure him. They tried every medicine, every herb, every treatment known to the medical science of the age. Nothing worked. ...
A wealthy man grew so weary of his riches that he decided to give them away — but not to the poor. He wandered outside the city and found a beggar sitting in the dust, dressed in r...
A man was granted a wish — and what he wished for became the source of his downfall. The tale of the "Foolish Wish" is found in dozens of cultures, but the Jewish version carries a...
Although the reading of the Book of Esther — the Megillah — on Purim is not commanded anywhere in the Pentateuch, the Rabbis teach that it is binding on us and on every generation ...
Some rabbinic teaching comes as narrative. Some comes as argument. And some comes as short, edged sentences that land like stones. Here is a handful from the Proverbial Sayings and...
A Greek philosopher came to Rabban Gamliel with a complaint disguised as a question. "Why," he asked, "should I give to the poor with a smile? Giving drains my purse. A smile on to...
A terrible famine had descended on the land. Grain was scarce. Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi — the Prince, the compiler of the Mishnah, the richest and most influential sage of his generatio...
There was a man in a certain town who was always seen in tattered clothes. He sat on the synagogue floor among the poorest of the congregation. He ate what was given him. He accept...
A pious but desperately poor man owed more money than he could ever earn, and his creditors had him dragged to the debtor's prison, where he was left to rot until his family could ...
A man once lived in the capital who was recognized as remarkably clever — but he was also desperately poor. He used to walk the streets crying out, "Why has God dealt so harshly wi...
Ulla and Rav Chasda were walking together when they came to the gate of the old house of Rav Chana bar Chenelai. Rav Chasda looked up at the crumbling walls, stopped, and let out a...
Nakdimon ben Gurion, one of the three wealthiest men of Jerusalem before the Roman siege, had been so rich that, according to tradition, his daughter's dowry alone was twelve thous...
Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta was famously poor. One Friday afternoon, as the Sabbath was closing in, his wife came to him with the familiar announcement: there was no food in the hous...
Rabban Gamliel of Yavneh and Rabbi Joshua ben Chanania were once traveling together by ship on a long voyage. Gamliel was the head of the Sanhedrin, the recognized leader of Palest...
Rabbi Meir, the great fourth-generation Tanna and student of Rabbi Akiva, taught that when a father teaches his son a trade, he should pair the lessons of the craft with the prayer...
In the time of King David (who reigned c. 1010 to 970 BCE) there were three years of famine across the land of Israel. A poor man with nine sons and daughters went without food for...
At the very tail of Moses Gaster's 1924 Exempla of the Rabbis, tucked in among the short sayings that the editor gathered from the diverse Gaster manuscripts, comes a single senten...
The prophet Elijah was traveling through the world with a disciple — the kind of journey the Sages often assigned Elijah in their stories, testing whether his disciple could see th...
Eliezer ben Hyrcanus came from a wealthy farming family. When the Romans attacked the region, his father and brothers fled with as many of their possessions as they could carry. El...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was a first-century Galilean Sage so famously poor that his family sometimes went without bread. His wife, enduring yet another week of hunger, finally said t...
Benjamin the Righteous was the keeper of the communal poor-box in his city. He had one job: to guard the coins and give them out to the hungry. In a year of famine a woman came to ...
Rav Kahana was a scholar, but he was poor, and poor scholars in Babylonia often had to work as peddlers to survive. He earned his bread by selling women's baskets door to door. One...
The Roman governor Turnus Rufus thought he had caught Rabbi Akiva in a contradiction. "If your God loves the poor," he pressed, "why doesn't He feed them Himself?" Akiva did not he...
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 330, tells a folktale of two brothers. One was rich. The other was poor and had many children. The rich brother took one of the poor brother's sons — a...
A philosopher once stood before Rabbi Akiba with a question designed to unsettle him. "If your God loves the poor," the philosopher asked, "why does He not support them Himself? Wh...
Rabbi Nehemiah was a humble man and a simple eater. He kept a plain table. He served plain food. One day he invited a man to share his meal, and the man accepted. The guest was a g...
Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra, the great twelfth-century Spanish Jewish scholar, once wanted to know who his equal might be in the world. He was told: Maimonides. He set out at once to fi...
Rav Pinchas pointed out that King David called five times upon the Holy One to arise in the book of Psalms. "Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God" (Psalms 3:7). "Arise, O Lord, in Your...
A poor man came before Rabba asking for support. The rabbi inquired about his usual diet, as was the practice when setting the rate of assistance. The man explained that he habitua...
A beggar once came to Rava's door asking for a meal. The story is told in tractate Ketubot (folio 67, column 2), and it is really about the difference between charity as surveillan...
(Leviticus 19:9-10) and (Deuteronomy 24:19) lay out a peculiar agricultural law. When you harvest your field and forget a sheaf behind you, you are forbidden to go back for it. It ...
Mar Ukva, a fourth-century Babylonian sage and exilarch, was famous for his habit of secret charity. Every day he would pass by a certain poor man's house and drop a small purse of...
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. ...
Rabbi Tarfon was a wealthy sage who believed in personal tzedakah but preferred to hold his money close. Rabbi Akiva came to him one day and asked for a considerable sum, promising...
Rav Hisda was one of the leading sages of Babylonian Jewry in the third century, and in his prime he was also one of the wealthiest. One day, late in life, after his fortunes had c...
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...
A poor man, driven by his weeping wife and starving children, went to the marketplace in despair. He had nothing to sell and no trade to offer. He prayed to God for help, and the p...
A scholar traveled on a boat with a group of merchants. They pressed him for information — What merchandise have you brought? Where is your cargo stored? He answered vaguely: my go...
When King Solomon was stripped of his throne — cast out by Ashmedai, the king of the demons, and forced to wander his own kingdom as a beggar — he discovered that hospitality has t...
The midrash tells of the last days of Jerusalem under Roman siege. One of the wealthiest women of the city, Miriam the daughter of Baythus, sent her servant to buy flour for the ho...
The Roman governor Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva argued often. Once they argued about tzedakah. “Akiva,” said Turnus Rufus, “if your God decreed that a certain man...
The Hebrew of (Genesis 18:20) says only that the outcry of Sedom and Amorah is great and their sin very heavy. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan will not leave that vague. It hands us, in Ara...
Back in Midian, the Holy One delivers a piece of news that unlocks the Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan preserves the phrasing with startling specificity: they have come to nought, a...
The tenth commandment looks mild next to murder and theft. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan will not let it stay mild. "Sons of Israel My people, Ye shall not be covetous companions or p...
There is a moment when a poor person walks up to a wealthier neighbor and asks for a loan. The wealthier neighbor has a choice. He can treat the moment as a market opportunity. Or ...
A lender holds collateral. The borrower is poor enough that his only pledge was the cloak on his back. Evening comes. The air cools. What does the Torah require? Targum Pseudo-Jona...
