B"H
A true story, well-known amongst the Yemenites, but less so amongst other groups, is the one carried here. It is also related to this week's section from the Torah (Parshas Terumah). Enjoy!
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The Men of Shar'ab and the Building of the Holy Shrine* in Yemen
(As told by Rabbi Saadia Hozeh, in his book "Toldos HaRav Shalom Shabazzi;" chapter "The Judaism of Shar'ab in Yemen," page 80. The following is a paraphrased account of what happened in Yemen. It is a true story.)

The men of Shar'ab were known for their tenacity in Jewish learning, and often challenged one another in debates touching on halacha, and in the weekly readings from the Law. They were renowned kabbalists, whose fame spread far and wide throughout the far-reaches of Yemen.

Once, when the Jewish men of the district known as "Shar'ab" had set out together in a large party for the Monday marketplace in one of the distant towns, a routine journey made by them each week for the sole purpose of selling their wares, they had laden their donkeys with the usual commodity of cambric cloth and woolens (for the men of their place were weavers by trade), yet, having procured little revenue on that particular day, they started back on their long journey homeward. Having reached a certain junction, there, they decided to rest.

The company of weavers comprised forty men from a certain village, and forty men from another. It so happened that the weekly reading from the section in the Law was that section known as "Terumah," which deals with the construction of the tabernacle, or tent, made by Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness. And as their custom was to discuss between themselves the reading for that particular week, the forty men of the one place proposed that the inviolable tent made by Moses was constructed in a certain manner, while the other party proposed that it was built differently. Each party argued the points of his theory, without prevailing over the other to concede. At length, it was decided that replicas would be made of the holy tabernacle, just as its outlines and measurements were defined in the Second Book of Moses, with all the pertinences thereof for joining the curtains &c. in order to show more effectively where the other party had been wrong. They were to make use of their own woven cloth, and the staves they had taken along with them when making their own make-shift booths in the marketplace, to protect them from the scorching sun. Thus, each party constructed a replica of the tabernacle which once stood in the wilderness, and which accompanied Israel on its journeys.

Yet, since no party was willing to concede that he had erred in his understanding (although one party excelled the other in its exactness of measurements), their preponderance took them to that one extreme measure so as to suggest to their fellows whose tent seemed to be the most exact, that the very calf which they had bought in the marketplace for their upcoming Sabbath meal would there be butchered, and its dissected limbs spread over the altar which they had made. And if G-d would then answer them by fire, and consume his offering, this would be sufficient proof that his construction of the tabernacle was the more accurate one. So great was their obduracy!

The other party agreed, and the animal was duly slaughtered (for out of their zeal they had forgotten the prohibition of sacrificing in any other place outside of Jerusalem)**, and its limbs were spread over the altar. Fire suddenly rushed down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, as did also consume the forty men of Shar'ab, as well as the ground beneath their feet. All which stood in the confines of that place became ashes until this very day. No man, beast, fowl or creeping thing durst venture henceforth within the purlieu of that place, and he who does so meets his death. Now seeing that a breach was made there, in that very place, and lest perchance others should die there, those who observed this great spectacle came and marked off the bounds of that place with a stone wall. Until this day, that place is called "Makbarat al-Arba'in," meaning, "the graveyard of the forty."

As for the other party of forty men, who did not suffer the same fate as their co-religionists, all of them died within the space of a year, and were buried in a plot of ground beside their companions. END.
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* Heb. "mishkan," lit., "Tent" or "Tabernacle," built after the pattern and design described in the second book of Moses, Exodus, ch. 25: 1-ff.

** This prohibition became effective when Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem. Prior to that time, altars could be reared on high places in almost any place. (Cf. Tractate Megillah)