A Golden Chicken and a Man Eating Rabbit (Tales of Foolish Authoritarians)

“As a living dog is better than a dead lion” –

Hadrian, may his bones be crushed, asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Ḥananya,

he said to him: ‘I am better than Moses your master.’

[Rabbi Yehoshua] said to him: ‘Why?’

[Hadrian answered:] ‘Because I am alive and he is dead, and it is written: “As a living dog is better than a dead lion.”’

[Rabbi Yehoshua] said to him: ‘Are you able to decree that no person may kindle a fire for three days?’

[Hadrian] said to him: ‘Yes.’

At nightfall of the [first] day, the two of them rose and ascended to the roof of the palace. They saw smoke rising at a distance.

[Rabbi Yehoshua] said to him: ‘What is that?’

[Hadrian] said: ‘The governor is ill and a doctor entered to visit him and said to him: You will not be cured until you drink hot water.’

[Rabbi Yehoshua] said to him: ‘Let despair come upon him; even while you are still alive your decree is voided. Moses our master, ever since he decreed upon us: “You shall not kindle fire in all your dwellings on the Sabbath day” (Exodus 35:3), a Jew does not kindle a fire on Shabbat in his life, and [Moses’s] decree has not been voided for all these years until now; yet you said: ‘I am better than he’?’

Alexander the Great came to the king of Katzya, and was shown much silver and gold.

Said he: “I didn’t come to see your silver and gold; I came to see your laws and customs.”

As they were sitting, two people came for litigation before the king.

Said one of them: “My master, the king! I purchased a ruin from my friend. I demolished it and found a hidden treasure inside it. So I said to him: ‘Take your treasure. I purchased a ruin, not a treasure.’

And the other one said: “ I sold you the ruin and everything in it—from the depths of the earth to the heights of heaven!”

The king asked one: “Do you have a son?”

Said he: “Yes.”

He then asked the other: “Do you have a daughter?”

Said he: “Yes.”

Said the king to them: “Let them marry each other, and the treasure and the ruin shall belong to the two of them.”

Said the king to Alexander: “Did I not rule well?”

Said he: “No, you did not.”

Said he: “If such a case came before you in your country, what would you do?”

Said he: “I’d cut off both their heads, and send the treasure to the royal palace.”

[The king of Katzya] then asked that a meal be brought for them. The meal was a chicken made in gold, in a pot made of gold.

Alexander the Great asked "Will we eat gold?"

The king answered: "You would destroy people, and you tell me you don’t eat gold? It is only because mercy is found in my country that we have this much gold".

The king of Katzya continue to say to Alexander: “Does the sun shine in your country?”

Said Alexander: "Yes."

"And do rains fall upon you?"

Said he: "Yes."

"Perhaps there are cattle and herds in your land?"

"Yes, there are".

[The king of Katzya said] “It is for the sake of the cattle and herds that the sun shines for you and the rains fall upon you, as we read “God saves both humans and animals.” (Ps. 36:7) [i.e., if not for the merit of the animals, the sun would not shine for the people of a land who practice such injustice...]

It states with regard to King Zedekiah: “And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God” (II Chronicles 36:13).

The Gemara asks: What was his rebellion?

The Gemara answers: Zedekiah found Nebuchadnezzar eating a live rabbit, and the latter was ashamed to be seen doing this.

He said to him: Take an oath to me that you will not reveal my behavior and this matter will not emerge in public.

Zedekiah took an oath to him.

Later, Zedekiah was physically suffering, as he wanted to tell people what he had seen, but he could not do so due to his oath.

He requested dissolution of his oath from the judges of the Sanhedrin, who dissolved it for him, and he publicly said what he had witnessed.

Nebuchadnezzar heard that he was being ridiculed for his behavior.

He sent for and brought the Sanhedrin and Zedekiah before him.

They said to him: He requested dissolution of the oath.

He said to them: Can one request the dissolution of an oath?

He said to them: Must this be done in the presence of the person he took an oath to, or even not in his presence?

They said to him: It must be dissolved in his presence.

He said to them: And you, what did you do? What is the reason you did not say to Zedekiah that he can have his oath dissolved only in my presence?

Immediately, they fulfilled the verse: “They sit upon the ground, and keep silence, the elders of the daughter of Zion” (Lamentations 2:10).

Rabbi Yitzḥak said: This means that they removed the cushions upon which they sat from underneath them, as a sign that they had erred in halakha.