80 myths · Page 1 of 3
Rome in rabbinic literature: the empire that destroyed the Temple, the enemy of Israel, and the symbol of exile and oppression.
80 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines rome, 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 rabbi enters a Roman prison to test a captive child with a verse, and what the boy answers changes the course of a life.
Rabbi Ishmael seated the Sanhedrin at the Temple gate and laid out fifteen signs, three wars, and a figure emerging from Edom in crimson garments.
The Emperor's daughter mocked the rabbi's God as a builder. Days later she was sealed in a tent she could not leave, and God would not take it back.
On the Temple dedication night, Solomon sleeps under false stars while Gabriel plants the reed that will become Rome from the sea.
Between the cut animals, a deep sleep fell on Abram. What he saw was not a promise first. It was a nightmare about exile and four crushing kingdoms.
He had silenced the earth, lifted his heart, and taken the ends of the world. Then he fell into bed in Babylon and gave everything away.
Iron combs tear Akiva's flesh while he finishes the Shema, Hear O Israel, and heaven records his blood as a legal claim not yet settled.
Psalm 45 opens with lilies, and the rabbis heard a rescue story: a woman spends herself to pull three condemned men out of the machinery of death.
Rabbi Ishmael ascended through the heavenly palaces and descended with a prophecy about Rome, war, and what comes after the last empire falls.
The Romans sentenced them to death. The crime belonged to their ancestors. Rabban Shimon wept in confusion. Rabbi Ishmael told him to stop and listen.
When Nimrod put on Adam's garments, the animals stood still for him. Esau killed him for them and stripped them off the body in the field.
Titus defiled the Holy of Holies, stabbed the curtain, and sailed home victorious, but God sent a gnat into his nose that gnawed at his brain for thirty years.
The emperor's nephew called Titus and Balaam up from the dead. He asked which nation is honored in the world to come. Both enemies said the Jews.
Thieves replaced his gift to Rome with dirt, and when the emperor opened the box, Nahum said what he always said: this too is for good.
After thirteen years of Torah study in hiding, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai emerged with eyes so fierce that everything he looked at caught fire.
Three losses in a single night left Rabbi Akiva in darkness outside a hostile town, and the next morning he understood why each one had saved him.
Her father was wrapped in a Torah scroll and burned alive. Beruriah did not weep at Rabbi Meir. She told him to take gold and go get her sister.
Pilate set Caesar's portraits over Jerusalem in the dark. The crowd walked to Caesarea, lay down in front of him and bared their necks.
Rome commands armies but cannot command the record kept above, where Lupinus Caesar is summoned, named, and judged before he knows it.
A Roman governor asked why God is allowed to work on the Sabbath. Akiva said the whole world is God's own yard, and a man may carry inside his house.
Two Hasmonean brothers each asked Rome to settle which of them should rule. The Romans built their siege ramp on Sabbaths, when nobody threw.
Two lecturers heard the king was dying and sent their students up the Temple gate with axes. Forty of them stayed when the soldiers came.
Roman soldiers eat the wedding birds and a rebellion ignites. Bar Deroa holds the army off until he says God forgot them. Then a snake finishes it.
Rome banned Torah and Rabbi Akiva gathered students in public anyway. When Pappos warned him, Akiva answered with fish who knew that dry land was death.
A Roman minister hides a decree against the Jews, keeps a ring of poison close, and counts the days until he must use it to protect Israel.
Three rabbis wept when a fox walked out of the Holy of Holies. Akiva laughed, reading the ruin as proof the prophecy of rebuilding was now guaranteed.
Alexander offered gold for a statue of himself between the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. The High Priest offered him a generation of children instead.
Rome sent legion after legion to arrest the emperor's convert nephew, and each cohort sat down, listened, and crossed over instead.
On the night Solomon weds Pharaoh's daughter, an angel plants a reed in the sea, and the silt that gathers will one day burn Jerusalem.
Hadrian strides into the Holy of Holies to revile God to His face, and a king dead a thousand years rises from the psalms to answer him.
