Avot deRabbi Natan אבות דרבי נתן

The book follows tractate Avot and adds to each saying a story or a parable. From it come many tales that have become common property: how Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai left besieged Jerusalem; how Rabbi Akiva began to study at forty, seeing a stone hollowed out by drops of water.

It belongs to the "minor tractates" printed at the end of the Talmud. The name of Rabbi Nathan the Babylonian stands on it by custom rather than by proven authorship: the book took shape in several layers and has come down in two markedly different recensions.