For the source text click/tap here: Bava Batra 11
To download, click/tap here: PDF
Closing the section on the subject of charity, our daf relates the story of King Munbaz, who gave away all of the money in his treasury as well as his ancestors’ treasures to the poor during a year of famine.
Munbaz was the king of Adiabene at the end of the Second Temple period. Adiabene was a small kingdom in the north of Syria on the banks of the Euphrates. In the generation prior to the destruction of the second Temple, Queen Helene, together with her sons Munbaz and Izats, began to study Torah with Jews who traveled through their kingdom, and eventually converted to Judaism. (See Daf Ditty Bava Metziah 54)
We explore the world of Adiabene dynasty, the writings of Josephus and the recent archeological finds of the Tombeau des Rois.
