Bar Hadaya was an expert in interpreting dreams. When he was well paid he interpreted the dreams favorably, but when he was not well paid he interpreted them unfavorably.

Abbaye and Raba each dreamt a dream. Abbaye paid him well for the interpretation of his dream, but Raba did not. Both had seen in their dream the verse, "Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes" (Deut. 28.31).

Bar Hadaya said to Raba, "You are going to lose your ox and will not be able to eat anything thereof because of your troubled mind."

But to Abbaye he interpreted the same verse thus, "You will do excellent business, and you will slaughter an ox for a banquet. But you will not be able to eat thereof because you will be too busy. Wine, however, you will drink, to the full enjoyment of your heart."

Then they said to him, "We both dreamt a dream that the gates of our houses fell in."

He interpreted it very favorably to Abbaye, but to Raba he said, "Your wife will die." And so whenever they dreamt the same dream, he interpreted it favorably to Abbaye and unfavorably to Raba, because the one paid him well and the other never gave him anything.

Once upon a time, Raba and Bar Hadaya were traveling upon the seas. As he landed, a book fell out of the bosom of Bar Hadaya. Raba picked it up and began reading it, and he found written therein, "All dreams go according to the mouth," i. e. depend upon the interpretation.

Then Raba turned to Bar Hadaya and said, "You wicked man! Why have you always interpreted my dreams in an evil sense, whereas you always gave a good interpretation to Abbaye? I can well imagine that if I had given you money, you would have interpreted them favorably to me as you did to Abbaye. I am willing to forgive you everything except one thing which I cannot forgive you, namely your interpretation of one dream as signifying the death of my wife. May it be the will of God that you be delivered into the hands of a cruel king who will also have no mercy on you."

Then Bar Hadaya said, "What am I to do now? We have been told that the curse of a learned man comes true even if the person cursed is innocent. How much more so in the present instance, where Raba had good reason to curse me! His curse will surely come true. I will take upon myself the penance of going into exile, for we have been told that if a man goes into exile, God forgives his sins."

Accordingly, he departed from thence and traveled about as far as Rome. When he came to Rome, he sat down at the gate of one of the king's officers called Tarzayana, which means the guardian of the king's treasure. The latter dreamt that night that his finger was pricked by a needle. Coming out he met Bar Hadaya and told him his dream.

Bar Hadaya said, "Have you money to pay? If so I will interpret it to you."

The man refused to pay and Bar Hadaya declined to interpret his dream. The following night he dreamt that a worm was gnawing at two of his fingers, and he told it again to Bar Hadaya and asked him the meaning of it.

Bar Hadaya again replied, "If you will pay me my fee, I will tell you what it means."

Again he refused to pay, and Bar Hadaya again refused to give him any answer.

The third night he dreamt that the worm had entered his hand.

He told it again to Bar Hadaya, who asked him for a fee. He at last consented to pay and Bar Hadaya explained to him his dream. He told him that a moth had entered the clothes of the king which were in his keeping and had destroyed them.

When the king heard this he sent for the Tarzayana and ordered him to be killed for allowing his clothes to be destroyed.

The Tarzayana said, "Why am I to be killed? Let that man be killed who knew of it and refused to tell me."

So they fetched Bar Hadaya and upbraided him, saying, "Why did you not tell him of it till the third day, when you got your fee, and meanwhile the clothes were eaten by moths? You, therefore, deserve to be killed."

They bent down two pines and tied Bar Hadaya's legs, one to each of the trees. Then they let the trees go and Bar Hadaya was torn to pieces, and thus the curse of Raba was fulfilled.

Therefore no man should go about with a false heart, for in the end the truth will out and his deceit will not profit him, just as happened in the case of

Bar Hadaya, who acted treacherously and came to a grievous end.