90 myths · Page 3 of 3
When Bagris bans Shabbat observance in Jerusalem, Jews retreat to a cave. His soldiers offer food and wine. The answer is no.
On a Sabbath eve with an empty house, a hand from heaven hands a poor sage one radiant jewel, and his wife sees the price hidden inside it.
The Sambatyon hurls stones and sand all week and rests on Shabbat, trapping the lost tribes behind a river that keeps the one day they cannot cross.
Chronicles of Jerahmeel says the righteous dead emerge from their graves each Shabbat eve to eat, drink, and praise God, then return before nightfall.
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa's family had no oil for Shabbat, so he filled the lamp with vinegar and it burned from nightfall until dawn.
When Rome banned Shabbat, circumcision, and purity, the sages sent Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai to Rome with a demon as their only ally.
After thirteen years of Torah study in hiding, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai emerged with eyes so fierce that everything he looked at caught fire.
Joseph spent every coin he had on Shabbat food, and a Gentile neighbor tried to cheat the prophecy that Joseph would inherit his wealth.
After soldiers slaughter Jews in a cave for refusing to fight on Shabbat, Mattathias decides that survival itself can defend the law.
Shabbat stops punishment in Gehinnom, leads the pious to mountains of snow, and proves that holiness reaches even the depths of judgment.
A beadle crosses the stone-hurling Sambatyon on Shabbat to reach the lost tribes, nearly dies for it, and returns with help for Polish Jewry.
Six days the Sambatyon hurls stones and on the seventh it rests, trapping the lost tribes while it proves Shabbat to a Roman governor.
On Friday night, two angels walk home with you from synagogue, one good, one accusing, and which one speaks first depends on what they find inside.
A Roman governor brings his sharpest questions about Shabbat and poverty to Rabbi Akiva and finds every trap turned into a doorway.
God ordered Israel to build Him a sanctuary, then commanded them to rest one day in seven. The Yalkut Shimoni asked whether holiness must yield to rest.
Beruriah hides her two dead sons through Shabbat, then asks Rabbi Meir whether a deposit must be returned before she opens the door.
In the fourth palace of heaven, thousands of angels gather at Sabbath tables. An angelic overseer watches to see who rejoices and who does not.
In the fourth heavenly palace, angels gather each Shabbat beside prepared tables, and the supervising angel watches to see if they are rejoicing properly.
The Talmud says a person receives an additional soul at the start of Shabbat and loses it when the day ends, enlarging them for the hours between.
The Zohar sees Shabbat as a crowned Bride entering the world with seventy lights, adorned by commandments, escorted by the Shekhinah herself.
Seventy-two Jewish elders enter an Egyptian king's hall and answer every question with praise, carrying God's sovereignty into the heart of empire.
The Tikkunei Zohar teaches that the Shekhinah is homeless when souls lack wings, but on Shabbat an extra soul descends and prayer learns to fly.
The Shekhinah loses her resting place while Israel wanders, circling the nations like a dove with nowhere to land until the world is made whole.
The Tikkunei Zohar finds the Shekhinah in the joints of the hand, the depth of Shabbat prayer, the sweetened bitter water, and the letter dalet's open door.
A woman separates challah and repairs what Adam broke in Eden. A thief returns the stolen object and the Shekhinah, exiled by the theft, comes home.
In the Tikkunei Zohar the Shekhinah is a lawyer mid-argument, a collector with empty hands, a daughter sent away while her children rush their prayers.
Holofernes drank more wine than in his entire life and never woke up. What Judith did in the dark that night connects to a covenant older than any army.
A lone Sabbath traveler is guarded by a bear while his companions die; a pious cow refuses to plow for a new master on the holy day.
An angel walks a trembling soul down seven descending floors of fire, where the gates lock the feet and each punishment is cut to fit the sin.
A violin cut from leftover coffin wood, a ghost army hauling its own wagons, and spirits loosed before Shabbat to strike the careless living.
