The Scale of Justice1
The Wolf and the Fox: Justice Like Gravity
(from the Talmud [Sanhedrin 39a])
A WOLF CHASED A FOX through the forest. When he caught the fox, the wolf admitted that he hadn’t eaten in several days and planned to devour him.
“Oh, so you are hungry?” the fox said. “Why didn’t you tell me? It is not necessary for you to eat me. Come and I will take you to a place where there is so much food, you can eat to your heart’s content, and never again will you go hungry.”
The sly fox led the wolf to a well, which had a wooden beam at the top. Suspended from the beam were two buckets attached to both ends of a rope. The fox jumped on one bucket and descended into the well, thereby forcing the other bucket to rise to the top.
“Where are you going?” asked the wolf.
Pointing to a cheese-like reflection of the moon in the water, the fox yelled up, “Here, where there is plenty of meet and cheese. Get in the bucket and come join me in a delicious feast.”
The wolf climbed into the bucket, and because he was heavier than the fox, down he descended, and upward went the fox.
The fox jumped to the edge of the well, and the wolf cried out, “How am I to ascend?”
“Ah,” replied the fox, “the righteous are delivered from troubles, as the wicked fall to take their place.
Endnotes
1 Rabbi Bradley R. Bleefeld and Robert L. Shook, Saving the World Entire and 100 Other Beloved Parables from the Talmud (New York: Plume Books, 1998), 181. ⇑
