August 30, 2011 The Battle of the Fishy Folktales On page 119a
of Tractate Shabbat in the Babylonian Talmud, you will find an
8-line story about a fellow simply known as “Joseph-who-honors-
the-Sabbath”. It is mildly interesting and has a pithy ending.
Here it is in its entirety: This tale begs to be embellished,
and you don’t have to look hard to find the imaginings of
others. They appear in various ways, gracing collections of
Jewish short stories throughout both adult and children’s
literature. Surely, the most unlikely version must be “The
Devout Israelite,” one of the many stories in “A Thousand and
One Arabian Nights,” which features a poor man, a stinky fish
and a pearl, but, no surprise, leaves out mention of the Sabbath
altogether. Other renderings are sprinkled throughout various
short story collections for children, such as “Ten Best Jewish
Children’s Stories” by Daniel and Chana Sperber, (“Yosef’s Love
for the Sabbath”) “Tales for the Seventh Day,” by Nina Jaffe,
(“Yosef and the Sabbath Stone”) and