Tag: Talmud

The Rabbi and the Basket of Grapes

Another story for liberal religious kids.This story comes from Babylonian Talmud, Kethuboth 105b.

The Rabbis taught that if you are going to judge a case between two people, you must not accept any kind of money or gift from either person, you must not accept anything that might look like a bribe. You must show everyone that you will remain completely neutral, and completely honest.

Obviously, a judge should not accept money from either person in a lawsuit. But the rabbis taught that a judge must be so honest that he or she does not accept anything, no gifts, no favors, not even a kind word.

To show what they meant, they told this story:

Once upon a time, Rabbi Ishmael rented part of his land to a tenant-farmer. The tenant-farmer paid part of the rent by bringing fruits and vegetables to Rabbi Ishmael every Friday, the day before the Sabbath day.

But one week, the tenant-farmer brought some fruit to Rabbi Ishmael on a Thursday — a big basket full of luscious, ripe grapes. Rabbi Ishmael loved grapes, but before he took the basket he said, “Thank you for bringing the grapes, but why do you bring me grapes on a Thursday, instead of your regular day, Friday?”

“It’s like this, Rabbi,” said the tenant-farmer. “I have a lawsuit, and I would like you to be the judge for this lawsuit. And as long as I was coming up here to talk to you about being the judge, I thought I’d bring your regular weekly delivery of fruit. So I brought you your basket of grapes.”

“No, no,” said Rabbi Ishmael, “I cannot be your judge. Take the grapes back to your house, and I will go find two other rabbis to act as judge for you.”

Confused, the tenant-farmer took the basket of grapes back to his house, even though they were really Rabbi Ishmael’s grapes.

Rabbi Ishmael went out to find two other rabbis to act as judge in the lawsuit, and brought them to meet the tenant-farmer. The two other rabbis began to ask the tenant-farmer about the lawsuit, and the tenant-farmer answered as best he could.

Rabbi Ishmael stood to one side, watching and listening, and he thought to himself, “Why doesn’t the tenant-farmer give better answers?” At one point, Rabbi Ishmael was on the point of breaking in and telling the tenant-farmer what to say, but he caught himself in time.

“Look at what has happened to me,” said Rabbi Ishmael to himself. “Here I am, secretly hoping that the tenant-farmer will win his case, and I didn’t even accept a bribe. I didn’t even accept the grapes that were really mine, but came a day early. What would I have done if I had accepted a real gift, a real bribe!”

The Backwards Alphabet

Another story for liberal religious children. This story comes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sabbath 31a.

One day, a man came to Rabbi Shamai to ask about becoming a Jew. Rabbi Shamai told him that if he wanted to become a Jew, he would have to learn the Torah, or the Jewish law.

The man asked, “Well then, how many types of Torah do you have?”

“We have two types of law, or Torah,” replied Rabbi Shamai. “We have the written Torah, and we have the oral Torah, the law as passed down by oral tradition.”

“I believe in the written Torah,” said the man. “But I don’t trust laws that are passed on by word of mouth. If laws aren’t written down, they are worthless. I will still become a Jew, on one condition: that you only teach me the written laws, but not the oral laws, not the spoken laws.”

Upon hearing this, Rabbi Shamai grew impatient. He said the man would never become a Jew with that attitude, and he told the man to leave.

But the man still wanted to know about becoming a Jew, so he went to Rabbi Hillel, who told him: “We have two types of law, or Torah. We have the written Torah, and we have the oral Torah, the law as passed down by oral tradition.”

“I believe in the written Torah,” said the man. “But I don’t trust laws that are passed on by word of mouth. If laws aren’t written down, they are worthless. I will still become a Jew, on one condition: that you only teach me the written laws, but not the oral laws.”

“I will accept you as a student,” said Rabbi Hillel, who was a patient man. “First, you must learn how to read Hebrew, so I will teach you the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Repeat after me: aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, he, vav, zayin, khet, tet, yod, khaf, lamed, mem, nun, samekh, ayin, pe, tsadi, kuf, resh, shin, tav.”

The man repeated the entire Hebrew alphabet after Rabbi Hillel — “Aleph, bet, gimel,” and so on, until he had all the letters memorized.

The next day, the man came back to learn the written law from Rabbi Hillel. Rabbi Hillel said, “Let’s make sure you remember the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Repeat after me: tav, shin, resh, kuf, tsadi, pe, ayin, samekh, nun, mem, lamed, khaf, yod, tet, khet, zayin, vav, he, dalet, gimel, bet, aleph.”

The man looked confused. “But that’s not the way you taught them to me yesterday,” he said.

“Yes, that’s true,” said Rabbi Hillel, “and as you can see, you must learn to rely upon me and my teaching. In just the same way, you must learn to rely upon the spoken law.”

Standing on One Foot

Another story for liberal religious kids. This story comes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sabbath 31a.

A man came to talk with Rabbi Shamai, one of the most famous of all the rabbis, nearly as famous as Rabbi Hillel.

“I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew,” said the man. “But I don’t have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot.”

The Torah is the most important Jewish book there is.How disrespectful that this man wanted to learn it while standing on one foot. Why, people spent their entire lives learning the Torah. It was not something you can learn in five minutes! Rabbi Shamai grew impatient. He pushed the man away using a builder’s yardstick he was holding in his hand.

The man hurried away, and found Rabbi Hillel. “I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew,” said the man. “But I don’t have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot.”

“Certainly,” said Rabbi Hille, who was a very patient man. “Stand on one foot.”

The man balanced on one foot.

“Repeat after me,” said Rabbi Hillel. “What is hateful to you, don’t do that to someone else.”

The man repeated after Rabbi Hillel, “What is hateful to me, I won’t do that to someone else.”

“That is the entire Torah, the whole law,” said Rabbi Hillel.

The man nodded.

Rabbi Hillel continued, “Everything else is there to explain this simple law. Now, go study.” And because of Rabbi Hillel’s patience with him, the man spent the rest of his life studying the Torah.

The Fox and the Fish

Another story for liberal religious kids. This story comes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakoth 61b.

Once upon a time, the wicked Roman government issued a decree: no more would the Jews be allowed to study the Torah and the law.

But Rabbi Akiva seemed to ignore the decree. He gathered people together quite openly, and taught them the Torah and the law. Pappas, the son of Judah, took him aside and said, “Rabbi Akiva, do know what could happen to you? Aren’t you afraid the Romans will punish you?”

“Let me tell you a story,” said Rabbi Akiva, and he told this story….

Once upon a time, there were many small fish who lived in a stream. One day, fox walked alongside the stream, and noticed that all the fish were darting to and fro, as if they were afraid of something.

“O fish, o fish,” said the fox, “why are you swimming around so? What is it that you are trying to escape?”

“We are trying to escape the nets that the humans have put in the stream to catch us,” said the fish.

“Oh, ho,” said the fox. “Then perhaps you should come up here and walk on dry land alongside me, just as your ancestors used to walk beside my ancestors years and years ago. That way you can escape from the nets of the humans.”

“What, go up on dry land!” said the fish indignantly. “You have a reputation for being smart, but that is a stupid thing to say. We may be afraid of what’s going on here in the water where we feel comfortable, but it would be much worse for us up in the thin air where we would surely die.” And so the fish stayed in the water, and did not try to walk beside the fox on dry land.

Rabbi Avika said, “Now you can see that we are just like the fish in the stream.”

Pappas asked the rabbi to explain.

“It’s like this,” said Rabbi Avika. “If we neglect the Torah, if we neglect what is central to our religion, we would be like fish out of water, and we would die. It is written in the Torah, ‘For that is your life and the length of your days.’ Perhaps we will suffer if we do study the Torah, but we know we will surely die if we don’t.”

Not long after that, the wicked Romans arrested Rabbi Akiva for teaching and studying the Torah. He was roughly thrown into the Roman prison, and there to his surprise he found Pappas.

“Pappas, what are you doing here?” asked Rabbi Akiva.

“O rabbi,” said Pappas, “you were right. I have been thrown into prison for nothing important. At least you have been thrown in prison for something worth dying for.”

And when Rabbi Akiva was killed by the Romans, he died in peace with the words of the Torah on his lips.