Today, on the Jewish calendar, is Pesach Sheni, which in the times of the Temples was the make-up date for those unable to bring the paschal sacrifice a month earlier. It is also, traditionally, the anniversary of the death of a legendary wonderworker named Rabbi Meir Ba’al ha-Nes, Meir the Master of the Miracle. Tamar Marvin writes:

Rabbi Meir Ba’al ha-Nes has become a popular, saintly figure, thought to be an intercessor on behalf of the needy, particularly for the finding of lost belongings.

Beginning in the 18th century, various hasidic groups established charitable foundations, some of which continue to the present, to raise funds on behalf of those in need in the Land of Israel; their collection boxes became near-ubiquitous in the later 19th century. Today you can buy a portrait of Rabbi Meir Ba’al ha-Nes on TzadikimPortraits.com; read a graphic novel about him; or visit [a] semi-official website dedicated to Rabbi Meir or another devoted to his tomb. In times of need, giving charity and calling upon the God of Rabbi Meir to answer you three times is always a possibility; should one need to find a lost item, there is a special formula to say before invoking Rabbi Meir’s memory.

Who, then, is Rabbi Meir Ba’al ha-Nes? He is strongly and most commonly identified with the great, storied [2nd-century] Rabbi Meir, mentioned thousands of times on the pages of the Talmuds, the consummate sage, disciple of Rabbi Ishmael and especially Rabbi Akiva, ordained under threat of death, . . . as well as the descendant of the late-converted Roman emperor Nero, the student of the notorious talmudic heretic Elisha ben Avuyah, and the husband of the exceptionally learned Bruriah.

Reviewing Stranger Than Fiction, a new history of the 20th-century novel, Joseph Epstein draws attention to what’s missing:

A novelist and short-story writer who gets no mention whatsoever in Stranger Than Fiction is Isaac Bashevis Singer. When from time to time I am asked who among the writers of the past half century is likely to be read 50 years from now, Singer’s is the first name that comes to mind. His novels and stories can be sexy, but sex, unlike in many of the novels of Norman Mailer, William Styron, or Philip Roth, is never chiefly about sex. His stories are about that much larger subject, the argument of human beings with God. What Willa Cather and Isaac Bashevis Singer have that too few of the other novelists discussed in Stranger Than Fiction possess are central, important, great subjects.