The Coffin Filled with Stones

Before long everyone was praising the eloquent Rabbi Jarchi, but there were also malicious envious men among his fellow believers who spread evil talk about him and at last sought his life as well. It was once during the Jewish holidays, when Jarchi was holding a service in his house with a few of the faithful and the doors were firmly locked. Suddenly an incited mob broke down the doors and burst into the house. All those present were so terrified that no one defended their beloved master, and so the leader of the masked murderers clove the rabbi's head with a single blow. Having accomplished the work of their vengeance they departed as they had come, and no one pursued them; all bitterly bewailed their teacher. Only his wife Leah did not despair and quickly brought a magic balsam, which she poured into the deep wound. And behold — the wound closed, the deathly pallor passed and the slain man rose up. Those present marvelled, but when they had taken counsel on it all, they judged it best that, despite that miraculous power, Jarchi should not remain in Prague but should move away in secret. They therefore did not contradict the report that the rabbi had been killed, but in his stead they buried a coffin filled with nothing but stones and set up a fine gravestone for him with the inscription that there rested the learned and pious Rabbi Jarchi, son of Isaac. The rabbi, however, was already beyond the frontier.