Rabbi Joshua and the Emperor of Rome

The Emperor of Rome once said to Rabbi Joshua, “If you have a God, show Him to me. Then I’ll know that He’s real.” Rabbi Joshua said, “Come with me and I’ll show you.” They went out into the street. Rabbi Joshua told the emperor to look up at the sky, but the emperor could not because the sun was shining so brightly. So Rabbi Joshua said, “The sun is but a servant of God, and you are unable to look at it. Then how do you expect to see God Himself?” The emperor was embarrassed and went home.

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Glossary

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Annotations

TELLER: Grunye Royznberg, Sharkoyshtshine (Szarkowszczyzna), Poland, 1927.
COLLECTOR: Toyvye Yofe.
SOURCE: V.A. 32:20.
COMMENTS: This is an oral variant of a Talmudic legend (*Hullin* 60a) with a long tradition in printed Yiddish sources (e.g. the sixteenth-century *Mayse-bukh*). See Gaster (1934), story 57; cf. Gaster (1924), story 9, and his sources on p. 187.