80 myths · Page 3 of 3
Come, said Caesar, and let us be one people. Rabbi Tanchum named the mark Rome would not take. Then they opened the lion den.
A drunk priest at a banquet said his people were kinder than the Jews. Rabbi Judah answered with a riddle about a master who stores dishes in many houses.
Turnus Rufus called charity mutiny against God's plan. Akiva answered with a father's hungry child, then priced each Torah word in gold.
The tide left a Roman without a ship or a cloak. Bar Kappara pressed five coins into his palm. Years later the same palm held a decree.
A living emperor told a rabbi he outranked Moses. Then a sick governor needed hot water, and the ban lasted one night.
The king had banned Torah, circumcision, and Sabbath. Judah ben Shamua asked a matron who hosted the city's great men. Cry at night, she said.
Simon the Maccabee sent Numenius to Rome with a gold shield of a thousand pounds while Judea asked how to thank its saviors.
In Rome Rabbi Eliezer saw drops of blood on the ark cover. They told him it was the high priests Yom Kippur sprinkling from Bezalels gold work.
Caesar leaned on his throne and asked to see the lion God is compared to. Rabbi Joshua prayed. The forest of Ilai began to walk.
Hadrian told his nephew to invest in whatever lay lowest, for it rises. Aquila took the advice as prophecy and chose the people of Israel.
The dungeon boy knew only the first chapters. Rome set a Hebrew book in front of him and waited. He opened it and began at the beginning.
A Roman ruler demanded to see the God of Israel. Rabban Gamliel sent him to stare at the sun, and the challenge broke.
Rivers argue like rivals while the Euphrates stays quiet, and the four streams of Eden become four kingdoms of exile.
Rome had rooms of lamps and chests of pearls. The letter still asked for a torch. They sent Rabbi Meir into the room alone.
The chains cut both brothers' wrists. They told the emperor they were sinners, not righteous men owed a furnace miracle. A guard laughed once, then stopped.
A frog ferried a scorpion to its kill and back. A shrub saved a man until he stripped it off. In Vayikra Rabbah, every creature keeps a mission.
The ten blows that broke Egypt were never spent. Blood, hail and darkness wait in God's hand to fall on wicked Rome exactly as they fell on Pharaoh.
At the end of days the nations are tried beside their idols, and when the carved gods fly out of the flame, angels go up after them with chains.
Rome votes to destroy the sages, so Nehunya reads a chain of divine names by their final letters, goes up, and hears God confess the ruin.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi found two marble pillars wrapped against the cold in Rome, and a living man a few steps away under reed mats.
