Among the millions of Jews cruelly killed by the Romans were the "Ten Martyrs"--all great sages and leaders of Israel--memorialized in a special prayer recited on Yom Kippur. Three of them--Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha and Rabbi Chanina S'gan Hakohanim--were killed on Sivan 25.
Links:
The Ten Martyrs
Egyptian representatives appeared in the court of Alexander the Great, demanding that the Jews pay restitution for all the Egyptian gold and silver they took along with them during the Exodus. Geviha the son of Pesisa, a simple but wise Jew, requested the sages' permission to present a defense on behalf of the Jews.
Geviha asked the Egyptians for evidence that the Jews absconded with their wealth. "The crime is clearly recorded in your Torah," the Egyptians gleefully responded.
"In that case," Geviha said, "the Torah also says that 600,000 Jews were unjustly enslaved by the Egyptians for many, many years. So first let us calculate how much you owe us..."
The court granted the Egyptians three days in which to prepare a response. When they were unable to do so they fled on the following day and never returned.
In Talmudic times, the day when the Egyptian delegation fled was celebrated as a mini-holiday.
(According to some traditions, this event took place on Nissan 24.)
“Whoever builds a home,” the sages say, “goes broke over it.”
Midway, you run past your budget. To complete, you borrow and fall into debt. It’s only then that your home is built and your investment pays off.
It’s the protocol of life—every success is preceded by despair. But why?
Because our minds and hearts are too small to reach their own fulfillment. But once we hit that point of desperation, we call upon something much deeper, something we never knew we had. We borrow from our innermost, hidden powers. And only then can we build a home.
So it is with our own homes. So it is with the home we build for the Creator to dwell in His world. There is only one way to make real change in this world: by borrowing from our innermost, most hidden powers. By changing who we think we are.