1,227 texts · Page 18 of 26
A young man and woman who were betrothed to one another were seized by raiders and sold into slavery. By cruel coincidence — or perhaps by providence — they were sold to the same m...
A man decided to divorce his wife. On paper, this was his right — Jewish law permitted a husband to initiate divorce proceedings under certain circumstances. But this man had a pro...
Two boys walked past a group of Elders who were sitting together in study. One boy had his head covered, as was the custom of modesty and reverence. The other boy walked by with hi...
Rabbi Akiva sat in judgment over a case that would become one of the most famous legal rulings in all of rabbinic literature. A man had publicly humiliated a woman by tearing the c...
R. Tarfon was beaten by his superintendent, who finding him in the vineyard took him for a trespasser, he not telling who he was through his meekness. 79 ~ no. a man overheard a di...
A woman unknowingly baked in a loaf the dinar entrusted to her and gave it to a poor man. She swore that she had made no use of it, saying that if she had done so let one of her ch...
A man entrusted his money to another who appeared extremely pious and who afterwards denied having received it. Elijah appeared and told the first man to go to the wife of the othe...
The daughter of Nakdimon b. Gorian was very poor and picked up grains from dung for food. She was seen by R. Johanan b. Zakkai, who recognised her and married her to one of his dis...
A man used to neglect to wash his hands after meals and another, observing the traces of the last meal on his fingers, went to that man's wife. He mentioned the food last partaken ...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was one of the most miracle-working sages in all of Jewish history. He lived in grinding poverty — the Talmud says that each week he survived on a single meas...
R. Hanina b. Dosa told his wife that heaven would provide for the Sabbath meals, and bade his daughter light a wick in a vessel filled with vinegar; it burned. The oven which his w...
A man made an appointment with a woman and she purposely sent his own wife as a substitute. He did not recognize her and when he repented afterwards of his sin she told him that he...
Rabbi Tarfon was one of the great sages of the Mishnaic period, a man of wealth, learning, and considerable stature. But his most famous act had nothing to do with scholarship or l...
Rabbi Tarfon loved his mother with a devotion that became legendary among the sages. The Talmud preserves the story of how he honored her, and it is one of the most striking illust...
Rabbi Ishmael's mother loved him with a love so fierce that it made her do extraordinary things. The Talmud records that when her son — the great sage, the High Priest's descendant...
A mother had several sons, and the older brothers murdered the youngest. It was a killing born of jealousy — the kind of fratricidal violence that echoes the very first murder in t...
A woman came to Rabbi Eliezer with a dream that troubled her. She described its images, its strange sequences, its unsettling feeling. Rabbi Eliezer listened and then interpreted: ...
Rabbi Gidal had a practice that scandalized some of his contemporaries. He would sit at the entrance to the women's bathhouse, directing traffic, showing women where to go. Day aft...
The sages preserved a curious historical note about a girl named Justina, the daughter of Asverus, who was married at the age of six and gave birth to a child at the age of seven. ...
A man entrusted a single dinar to a woman for safekeeping. She placed the coin in a jar of flour — a common hiding place in the ancient world — and promptly forgot about it. Days l...
A king once determined to build a town and selected a site. The astrologers approved of the place on condition that a child be walled in alive, brought voluntarily by its mother. A...
The story of Dama ben Netina's respect for his parents did not end with the famous incident of the precious stone. The Talmud preserves additional details that deepened his reputat...
A heretic once challenged the sages with what he thought was a devastating logical trap. "Your God is a thief," the man declared. "The Torah says that God caused a deep sleep to fa...
Miriam [Hannah) & Her Seven Sons Martyr*. II Bk. Maccabees, ch. VII. IV Bk. Maccabees ch. VIII, ff. Ketubot, f. 64. J. Ketubot, V, II. Gittin, f. 56 b. Pesik. R. Rabati,XLIII. Tana...
A man grew tired of his wealthy wife and plotted to divorce her through deceit. He devised a scheme: he would publicly accuse her of unfaithfulness, using his own best friend as th...
The physical strength of Rabbi Elazar ben Shimon was legendary, but it was after his death that the most astonishing miracle occurred. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 84b) records that whe...
Rabbi Akiba once saw a man drowning in the sea. The man was pulled under by the waves, and despite every effort, he could not be saved. Rabbi Akiba stood on the shore and mourned —...
A woman was entrusted with a single dinar for safekeeping. She placed it in a jar of flour, forgot about it, and later unknowingly baked it into a loaf of bread. When a poor man ca...
After the destruction of the Temple, the wealthy families of Jerusalem were reduced to utter destitution. The Talmud (Ketubot 66b) records the most heartbreaking example: the daugh...
If neglecting to wash hands before meals could lead to disaster, the Talmud teaches that neglecting to wash after meals was equally dangerous — and one story proved why. A man's fa...
Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa's poverty was so extreme that the Talmud (Berakhot 17b, Taanit 24b-25a) says a heavenly voice went out every day declaring: "The entire world is sustained on ...
The Talmud (Kiddushin 31a-b) collects multiple stories about the extraordinary respect Dama ben Netina showed his father, but it also records stories of Jewish sages who went to re...
The commandment to honor one's father and mother stands among the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:12), equal in weight to the commandments governing humanity's relationship with God. T...
Woman Carrying Off Husband. Pesikta, f. 147. Pesikta R. ch. 31. Song R. I, 4 § 2. Yalk. § 16. Yalk. Sip. I, p. 62. Tendlau, Sagen3, No. 14. B ergsti asser, N eu- Ar am. March. No. ...
A woman came to Rabbi Eliezer with a dream she could not understand. She described it in detail — the images, the sequence, the feeling of it — and asked the great sage what it mea...
The Talmud (Berakhot 20a) records a peculiar observation: Rabbi Gidal used to sit at the entrance of the women's bathhouse. When asked how he could do such a thing — was it not imm...
Rabbi Johanan was the most beautiful man in the Jewish world, and the Talmud is not shy about saying so. His physical beauty was so extraordinary that the sages dedicated multiple ...
Mar Ukba's generosity to the poor was extraordinary — but his method of giving was even more remarkable than the amounts. The Talmud (Ketubot 67b) records that he regularly left mo...
The sages of the Talmud debated a question that still echoes through the ages: at what age may a child be considered ready for marriage? The discussion in Tractate Niddah (45a) pre...
A woman came before Rabbi Akiba with a question that touched on ritual purity. She had found a blemish on her body and feared that it rendered her impure, which would separate her ...
The Talmud in Sanhedrin (f. 97a) tells of a place called the City of Truth — a settlement where no one had ever spoken a lie. Every word uttered within its walls was honest. Every ...
After Abraham sent Ishmael away into the wilderness with his mother Hagar, the patriarch did not forget his firstborn son. According to Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer and the Midrash Haga...
Beruria, the brilliant wife of Rabbi Meir, had a sister who was captured by the Romans and sent to a brothel in the city. Beruria turned to her husband and pleaded with him to resc...
Rabbi Akiba was the greatest sage of his generation, but even he could not escape the anxieties of a father. The astrologers had warned him: his daughter was destined to die on her...
The Midrash on the Ten Commandments tells the story of a faithful woman whose devotion was tested beyond what most people could endure — and who emerged triumphant. A certain man w...
The medieval Jewish collection known as the Parables of Solomon preserves a story about a man whose faithfulness was tested in the most extreme circumstances — a test that proved, ...
Mar Ukba's generosity was legendary, but it was a woman named Hannah who embodied the even higher virtue of righteous silence. The Talmud (Shabbat 56b, Sanhedrin 31b) preserves her...
The story of Solomon's daughter and the bastard — the mamzer — is one of the most poignant tales in rabbinic literature. The Midrash (Tanhuma, Introduction) tells how Solomon, desp...
