that ye should commit idolatry?” Again, “What is written?” “Remember the
Sabbath day to sanctify it.” “Do ye then do any work so as to need rest?”
Again, “What is written?” “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in
vain.” “Have ye then any work that would lead to this sin?” Again, “What
is written?” “Honor thy father and mother.” “Have ye then got any father
or mother?” Again, “What is written?” “Thou shalt do no murder.” “Thou
shalt not commit adultery.” “Thou shalt not steal.” “Have ye then envy or
the principle of evil amongst you?” Immediately they praised the Holy One,
“Blessed be He.”
Wonderful stories are told of the manna. The manna is said to have fallen
from heaven, accompanied by showers of pearls and precious stones. It
tasted to everyone according to his desire. If one wished for fat fowl, so
it tasted. If another other wished for honey, so it tasted, as it is
written, “Thou hast lacked nothing” (Deut. xi. 7). The Targum of Jonathan
goes on to inform us, “At the fourth hour, when the sun had waxed hot upon
it, it melted and became streams of water, which flowed away into the
great sea, and wild animals that were clean, and cattle, came to drink of
it, and the children of Israel hunted and ate them” (Exod. xvi. 21). It is
further related that the Queen of Sheba (whom the Rabbis labor to prove to
have been the King of Sheba) wished to test the knowledge of Solomon who
had written on botany “from the cedar to the hyssop.” She once stood at a
distance from him with two exquisite wreaths of flowers—one artificial,
one natural. They were so much alike that the King looked perplexed, and
the courtiers looked melancholy. Observing a swarm of bees on the window,
he commanded it to be opened. All the bees lighted on the natural and not
one on the artificial wreath. Solomon is also said to have sent Benaiah,
the son of Jehoiada, to bind Aschmedai, the king of the devils. After
deceiving the devil with wine he made him reveal the secret of the
Schamir, or little worm, which can cleave the hardest stone. And by the
aid of this worm Solomon built the Temple. The devil afterward asked
Solomon for his signet ring, and when he had given it to him the devil
stretched one wing up to the firmament and the other to the earth, and
jerked Solomon four hundred miles away. Then assuming the aspect of
Solomon, he seated himself on his throne. After Solomon had again obtained
it, he wrote, “What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh
under the sun?” (Eccles. i. 3).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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