Once there were two brothers, one brother was very rich and the other brother was painfully poor. The wealthy brother had a fine house which he filled with beautiful things while the poor brother had a very beautiful wife and filled his house with faith and love.
One day the poor brother came to wealthy brother to ask him for a loan, but the rich man refused to help him. Even when neighbors tried to persuade the rich man to help his poor brother saying, “If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.” (Leviticus 25:35), he would say that he had no brother.
One day the rich man went out for a walk in the town, and in the course of his wanderings came to the poor quarter of the town. Through the window of one of the buildings he saw the face of a beautiful woman. “Whose wife is that?” he asked the people nearby.
“That is your brother’s wife,” he was told. He immediately fell in love with the woman and desired her greatly. His every thought was about the beautiful wife of his brother and soon he began to plan how he would capture her heart. After sometime he decided that if he could not convince her to come with him, he would take her by force.
One day the rich man sent for his poor brother. He gave him money and said to him: “Why do you not ask me for anything?” And he flattered his poor brother and invited him and his wife to his house, and did them many favours. After some time he gave his brother goods to trade in a faraway land, to earn some money. At first the poor man refused to leave his wife, but the rich brother promised him that she would remain under his protection. And so the poor brother set out on his journey with a quiet heart.
On the following day the rich man sent his sister-in-law vegetables, fruit and meat and told her that he would come to eat dinner .at her house. She could not tell him not to come, but while he was in the house she conducted herself in the most proper manner. Every day the rich man used to pester her and send her gifts but she remained unimpressed. One day the woman decided to end matters with the rich man. She invited him to her house, and tried to speak to him. She reminded him that she was his brother’s wife and his actions appeared improper. She asked him, “ You have established yourself as a leader but ‘What is the essence of leadership? To rule oneself well, and not be led astray by wealth or fame.’ ” (Apocrypha, Aristeas: 211) The wealthy man seemed not to hear her words and so she abruptly rose and left the house. The wealthy man was outraged and felt he was disrespected by this woman who he saw as beggar refusing his charity. In his anger, he nursed the insult in his heart and decided that he would revenge himself on the woman who had offended him.
One day, early in the morning, the rich man left his house and on his way met a poor man. He gave him money and said to him: “In return for the money that I have given you I want you to steal into the house I will show you.” Needless to say, this house was none other than the house of his sister-in-law. Then the rich man went to one of the synagogues in the city and invited the men he found there to a bris milah which, he said, was taking place in that same building. The men opened the door and there in the house they saw a man standing: “What are you doing here?” They asked him. “Since the departure of this woman’s husband I have always been here,” the poor man answered. The rich man had ordered the poor man to say, in return for the money that he had given him.
The men believed the poor man, and they beat the unfaithful woman and drove her out of the town. Sadly, no one spoke in favor of the poor woman.
All the woman’s pleadings were in vain. She wished to explain to the men and her rich brother-in-law that she was not guilty of what they suspected, but they refused to listen to her. Instead they slandered and shunned her so she had no choice but to leave the town. When she was some distance from the town, she fell, overcome with emotion and exhaustion. She cried silently prayed as she fell to the ground.
Just at that time, a rabbi and his wife were approaching the town. They were childless. They heard the sound of crying and set out to find out the cause. After a short time they found the poor woman lying on the ground with bleeding wounds.
They comforted her, bound her wounds and asked her to travel with them. In their hearts they thought: “Perhaps we have done a good deed today and in reward we would be blessed with a child.”
The prayers of the faithful woman and the childless couple were heard and after some time, the couple was blessed with a child and they asked the woman they had saved to be the child’s nurse. The woman, of course, was very grateful to the couple, for they had rescued her and she was a faithful nurse.
In the house of this rabbi there was a student who fell in love with the beautiful woman. He asked her to marry him but she refused, for she was married but did not wish to reveal her secret. The student decided to avenge himself on her. What did he do? He rose in the middle of the night, killed the infant in her care, and immediately afterwards he ran away.
In the morning the parents were very angry with the ungrateful woman, but the rabbi who was very wise decided, “she should not be punished, all that has happened is the will of G-d. We must let her go, taking with her the dead child.”
The woman herself was sad and hopeless. She had been driven from every place because of false accusations. Who knew better than she how false the accusations were?
She set out into the desert, hungry and thirsty, and in her arms she carried the dead child. Suddenly she saw an old man with a long beard and flowing robes who told her,
“We are taught ‘the Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executes justice for the poor.’ (Psalm 140:12) You have nothing to fear, I bring you two gifts.” He offered her a potion to give to the child and, as the liquid passed his lips, his eyes fluttered and he began to breathe. The old man then gave a sack of golden coins and another potion to her and he explained that it could cure all ills. Before leaving, he gave her some advice: she must disguise herself as a man, establish a rest stop where she could cure all the sick who came to her. The woman took the advice of the old man, put on men’s clothes and opened an inn at the edge of the desert. The inn became very popular, for all sorts of conditions were cured there. The rabbi’s son, who had been restored to life, was educated and studied the Torah and wisdom.
All that the old man with the long beard and flowing robes had told her came to pass. Some of ‘the sick who came to the inn were well-known to the woman. Among them was her wicked brother-in-law who suffered greatly from leprosy, and her husband who became sick in the heart, body and soul after he had been told what his wife had been unfaithful. There was the poor man who had stood in the hall of the woman’s house and who had made the false accusations against her; and the rabbi and his wife also came. Then too, there was the student who had wanted to marry her and whom she had refused.
