80 myths · Page 3 of 3
Caesar invites the Jews to become one people. Rabbi Tanchum answers with circumcision, is thrown to lions, and the beasts refuse to eat him.
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.
Bar Kappara clothes a naked Roman washed up by the tide. Years later that same man sits in power and returns the gift as a decree of mercy.
Emperor Hadrian claimed to outrank Moses because he was alive, then failed to keep a three-day ban on kindling while Shabbat still held forever.
Under a ban on Torah, circumcision, and Sabbath, sages cried in the streets at night. The edicts fell, while other ages still tasted God as a near enemy.
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 demanded to see the lion God is compared to. Rabbi Joshua prayed, the lion of Ilai walked toward Rome, and one roar dropped the emperor.
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.
A Jewish boy in a Roman prison knew only the opening of Genesis. When the emperor needed a Hebrew book read, those few chapters bought his life.
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 sent word to the sages: send us one of your torches. The sages argued about what that meant, then 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.
