Once upon a time there lived a man called Mar 'Ukba, who had a very poor man as a neighbor. Every morning, whenever Mar 'Ukba went to the college, he put four shillings in the socket of the door's hinges in the poor man's house, so that when he opened the door to go out, he found the four shillings. One day the poor man thought to himself: "Who might that man be who gives me four shillings every day? I must find out who does it."

On the day that the poor man was on the watch, Mar 'Ukba was late on his way to the college and his wife went along with him. As he passed by the poor man's house and wanted to put down the money, as was his custom, the poor man crouched down in order to find out who it was who, in the company of his wife, was leaving him money stealthily so as not to put him to shame.

When they saw him, they ran away and hid themselves in a heated bake-oven so that the poor man should not catch sight of them. When they were in the heated oven, Mar 'Ukba said to his wife: "Oh! my knees are so hot." "Put your knee between my knees," the wife replied, "my knees are cold."

Mar 'Ukba felt very angry that his knees should be hotter than those of his wife, but she said to him: "My dear husband, there is nothing strange in this, as I will explain to you. You give money to the poor and they must go to the trouble of buying bread or meat, but I am all day at home and give to the poor bread and meat and salt, which they like much better, as they do not have to run about to buy their food."

The sages ask in the Talmud: "Why did these good people run so great a risk by hiding in a heated oven?"

R. Johanan explains: "They did it because they did not like to put the poor man

to shame, for it is much better that one should hide in a burning limekiln than that one should put his neighbor to shame in public and cause his face to blush."

We learn this from the story of Tamar, who preferred to be burned rather than to expose the man who had been with her.