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The rabbis of the Talmud were connoisseurs of soil. They compared regions by fertility the way others compare wines. The best land in the world, they said, is Egypt, for it is writ...
Ben Hei-Hei came to Hillel with a verse that troubled him. Malachi had said, "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God a...
Among those who forfeit their share in the world to come, the sages taught, is the one who reads sefarim chitzonim, "outside books." The phrase is a technical term. It refers to wr...
When Ravah bar Nachmani, one of the giants of the Babylonian academies in the fourth century, died alone in the wilderness, his students searched for him for days without success. ...
When Moses blessed the tribe of Asher at the end of his life, he said, "Let him dip his foot in oil" (Deuteronomy 33:24). The rabbis of the Talmud took the blessing literally. Ashe...
"Those passing through the valley of weeping make it a well; also blessings shall cover the teacher" (Psalms 84:6). Rabbi Yochanan read the verse and pressed on its first image. Th...
Someone once asked Rabbi Akiba how it could be that King Hezekiah, the righteous teacher of Torah, had raised a son as wicked as Manasseh. "Twelve years old was Manasseh when he be...
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...
The emperor of Rome once put a mocking question to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananyah. "Why is your God compared to a lion? Any knight in my army can kill a lion. What kind of comparison ...
Beruriah, the scholar and teacher married to Rabbi Meir in second-century Tiberias, was famous for being able to hold her own against any opponent in Scripture. A woman belonging t...
During a season of Roman persecution, two disciples of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah disguised themselves in Gentile dress and tried to pass unnoticed through dangerous territory. T...
A famous debate arose in the academy between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua over the ritual status of a particular oven, called the oven of Akhnai. The technical question has bec...
Elisha ben Abuyah had once been one of the greatest scholars of his generation, a colleague of Rabbi Akiba. Then he turned away from the tradition so completely that the rabbis sto...
A man walked into a public eating house and sat down to eat. Before sitting, he neglected to perform netilat yadayim, the ritual washing of the hands that observant Jews perform be...
Rabbi Hananyah taught a puzzle that his students were expected to unravel. "Some children feed their parents badly," he said, "and still go to Paradise. Others feed their parents w...
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua were aboard a ship when a storm drove them far out into the open ocean. The wind pushed them into waters no Jew had reason to visit. Rabbi Eliezer,...
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...
A young man fell in love with a young woman of his town. His feelings were so intense that he became physically ill. He stopped eating. He grew feverish. His family feared he would...
Two astrologers were sent on a delegation to Rabbi Gamliel in the town of Usha. Their mission was to study Jewish law from its source, to examine it in detail, and to report back t...
A Roman noblewoman, a matrona, came to Rabbi Yose ben Halafta with a question. She had been reading the book of Genesis, and she was curious about the birth of Rebecca's twins. "Wh...
Elijah the prophet and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi traveled together for a time, and Elijah agreed to be his companion on one condition: the rabbi must ask no questions. Rabbi Yehoshua...
Pinhas ben Yair was a second-century rabbi remembered for an unnerving combination of piety and practical wisdom. He was the son-in-law of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, and stories abou...
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...
When Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai lay dying, his disciples came to gather at his bedside. They expected composure from the man they called the Light of Israel, the Pillar of the Right...
There are three, the sages teach, whom the Holy One, blessed be He, singles out by name and calls virtuous. The first is the unmarried man who lives in a great city and does not si...
A devoted couple in the Galilee had lived together for years without a child. Finally the husband came to Rabbi Shimon and said they had agreed to separate, since the marriage had ...
Caesar once said to Rabbi Tanchum, "Come, let us become one people." The rabbi answered calmly. "Very well. But we are circumcised, and we cannot simply become as you are. If, howe...
In the Temple service, everyone bowed thirteen times, corresponding to the thirteen shofar-shaped collection boxes and the thirteen tables arrayed in the sanctuary. Yet those who b...
The sages collected sharp observations about who people tend to be and why. Most donkey drivers, they said, are rough with their customers, but most sailors are pious, because anyo...
The sages were debating whether a certain oven, built in sections and joined with sand, could become ritually unclean. Rabbi Eliezer ruled it pure. The majority ruled it impure. He...
A Roman emperor once boasted to Rabbi Joshua ben Chananiah that he wished to throw a banquet large enough to entertain the God of Israel. The rabbi looked at him gravely and said, ...
A gentile heard about the honor paid to the High Priest in Jerusalem and decided he wanted the office for himself. He came first to Shammai and asked to convert on the condition th...
The students of Rabbi Akiva were traveling along a road when a band of robbers fell in with them. The bandits were watching closely to see which way the students were heading so th...
When Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, called the Great, lay dying, he gathered his students for a last round of teachings that has the quality of prophecy more than of instruction. He l...
The workers of Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak were clearing a small mound on the edge of a field when the earth gave way beneath their spades and a man sat up from the soil. He was fully...
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...
Rabbi Akiva wanted to know which of his students had the temperament of a scholar and which did not. He devised a simple test at the dinner table. He first set before them a dish t...
In the coastal city of Ashkelon, two men died on the same day. One was Baya, the local tax collector, a figure the community despised. The other was a gentle Torah scholar. Both pr...
In the time of King Suleiman, a vizier's wife had borne nine daughters in a row. As her tenth pregnancy advanced, the vizier grew frantic for a son. He warned his wife that if she ...
Rabbi Akiva had a pious first wife who fed and housed his five hundred students for years. On her deathbed she asked her daughter to continue the work. The daughter accepted the tr...
There is a strange debate preserved in tractate Berachot (folio 47, column 2) that asks a question most of us are afraid to ask out loud. Who, exactly, counts as an am ha'aretz — a...
Rava once told a story in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that was preserved in tractate Sanhedrin (folio 104, column 2) — and it is really a story about how a Jew is supposed to see. T...
A Tzeduki — a Sadducee, member of the party that rejected the Oral Torah — once came to Rabbi Abhu with a question meant to sting. "Your God is a priest," he said, "for it is writt...
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...
Tractate Bava Batra preserves a strange debate about classroom size that turns, without warning, into a story of life and death. The rabbis were arguing about elementary education....
One of the most formidable women in the Talmud was Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Meir. She appears mostly in fragments — but in one famous passage she corrects her husband's Hebrew, and ...
Tractate Shabbat (folio 66, column 2) preserves something most modern readers will find startling: a rabbinic prescription against fever that is half incantation, half midrash. The...
Tractate Yoma (folio 9, column 1) asks a question no one would think to ask unless they were counting: how many kohanim gedolim, high priests, served during each of the two Temples...
