Interspersed with the legal material that constitutes much of the Talmud are narratives—ranging from tales about the rabbis themselves, to illustrations of real-life applications of legal principles, to expanded versions of biblical stories, to legends about Alexander the Great. In The Land of the Truth: Talmud Tales, Timeless Teachings, the scholar Jeffrey Rubenstein presents fourteen of these stories, alongside his own analysis. Yitzchak Blau, in his review, praises Rubenstein for his clarity and insight, and offers as an example his reading of this characteristically bizarre tale:

On December 20, a Palestinian waited in a wooded area near a Jewish village in northern Israel in the hope of encountering a victim. Soon enough he spotted Esther Horgan walking home from an evening jog and killed her by beating her with a rock. He later told the police that he did the deed to avenge the death of Kamal Abu Wa’er, a terrorist in Israeli custody. Itamar Marcus explains: