The Sex Life of the Pharisee

Slomo O’Neill was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.  He not only kept the Sabbath, he kept three Sabbaths, one before and one after to be certain he rested as much as God did.  Not only did he avoid mixing meat and milk dishes, he did not eat milk products and meat products the same day.  He retched when he passed Roman soldiers gnawing cheeseburgers and avoided publicans selling pig knuckles and beer.

To avoid being tempted by a woman, he walked the streets of Jerusalem with his head down in a prayerful pose, seeing only the cobbled streets and an occasional crusty foot, stubbed toe, infected toe nail.  One day he grazed a shoulder against the stone wall as he turned a corner and before he could avert his eyes he saw a plump shapely toe with a perfectly rounded pink nail.  Turning away he pounded his head against the rough stones to banish the image from his mind.  His bloodied forehead inflamed his vision of the toe   He went to the temple and prayed loudly throwing heavy coins into the coin box.  The toe remained as succulent and tempting as ever.

He fled the temple knocking himself unconscious when he collided with a donkey conveying balm to Gilead.  He sat up, stars circling his head like those over Sisera.  He looked down and there before him was the toe, as desirable as ever and surrounded by equally desirable sweet pink...no, no, not piglets, hams, er lambs, their downy bodies reclining on soft supple leather and smelling of inces--incense.  What had happened to him?  Not only did he lust, he lusted in replication.

“Away,” he cried.  “Be gone, evil temptress.”  And with a swish of cloth and a faint bouquet of woman, she was gone.  Come back, his heart cried out, come back, but with one hand he gripped his mouth and with another his throat.  He made his way home with lamentations and Song of Solomon (KJV).  If her toes were so tender, who could endure the nape of her neck?  The lithe, responsive arch of her foot?  

The next day he grazed the stones of the same corner, removing the scab on his shoulder, and with his head bent in a prayer pose his eyes darted left and right in search of the delicious toes made even more luscious by his fervid memory.  Up and down the crowded street he went without success.  And the next day.  And the next.  His head was bloody but bowed yet the image of five perfect lilies remained.  His cloak stuck to his skinned shoulder and each day his sanguine head rose higher and his eyes saw more.  But not the object of his desire.

Then one day in the crowded market among the grapes, the pomegranates, juicy melons, fleshy figs he saw the toes of his discontent.  There, among the throng, he knelt to study the grapes, to press the pomegranates, stroke the melons and feel up the figs.  Unable to countenance what he was about to do, he closed his eyes as his mouth sought paradise and kissed . . .a hairy, crusty toe.

“Get up, you fool,” said a Samaritan camel driver, hoisting him by the back of his cloak and smiting him on both cheeks.  “I have slaves for that.” 

And the Pharisee hurried away after a sandal to his sitter.   

He who has eyes to see, let him hear: not every Samaritan is a good Samaritan.  Not every woman is an evil temptress.  It is better to look temptation in the eye than to trip over a foot and fall sucker to a toe.

First published in The Wittenburg Door 

www.wittenburgdoor.com

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