The story goes that during the reign of King Solomon, there were two mothers who gave birth to baby boys at more or less the same time. One baby died, while the other survived, and the mother of the deceased child stealthily exchanged babies, claiming the surviving one as her own. Nobody could tell which baby belonged to which mother, so the king was appealed to for his judgement.

There is a magnificent depiction of the whole drama in the form of an etching by the engraver Gustave Dore, showing king Solomon instructing his swordsman to bisect the child (ne’do-gedacht!) and give half to each mother. We see the true mother clutching at the king’s robes, while the false mother stands by in a ‘couldn’t-care-less’ posture. King Solomon, brimming with saychel, knows that only the true mother would want the baby to be spared at all costs, so he promptly has the child returned to its rightful........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)