TANAKH
And if thy brother grow poor, and his means fail with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. - Levitucus 25:35
MIDRASH
Rabbi Abahu said in the name of Rabbi Eliezer:
We must be grateful to the deceivers among them, as were it not for the deceivers among them, when one of them would demand [charity] from a person and he would refuse him, he would be punishable by death, as it is stated:
“He will cry out to the Lord against you [and it will be a sin for you]” (Deuteronomy 15:9).
And it is written: “The soul that sins, it will die” (Ezekiel 18:20).
Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish descended to bathe in a certain bathhouse in Tiberias. A certain poor person encountered them.
He said to them: ‘Gain through me.’
They said to him: ‘When we emerge we will gain through you.’
They emerged and found him dead.
They said: ‘Since we did not tend to him in his lifetime, we will tend to him in his death.’ When they were washing him, they found a purse with six hundred dinars hanging around his neck.
They said: ‘Blessed is He who chose the Sages and their words. Did Rabbi Abahu not say in the name of Rabbi Elazar: We must be grateful to the deceivers…’
PERSONALITIES
Rabbi Abahu - והבא יבר: A 3rd generation amora, who lived in the Land of Israel from the beginning of the 3rd century until the beginning of the 4th century
Rabbi Eliezer -
Rabbi Yohanan -
Reish Lakish -
LOCATION
Tiberias: Named after the Roman emperor Tiberius, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in Galilee from the second to the tenth centuries CE. Much of the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud were compiled there during this period.