A Jewish man who was lame heard a rumor that spread through the cities of the ancient world: an idol in a certain temple was healing the lame. Pagans who could not walk entered the temple at night and emerged the next morning on their own two feet. The miracle was real, they said. The god was powerful.
The lame Jew, desperate for healing, traveled to the pagan temple. He did not believe in the idol. He was a Jew. But pain makes people do things that faith alone cannot prevent.
He entered the temple at night and lay down alongside the pagan worshippers. As midnight approached, a demon emerged from the temple wall — not a god, not a healing spirit, but a sheid, one of the invisible beings that inhabit the spaces between the sacred and the profane.
The demon moved among the sleeping pilgrims, anointing each one with a substance that healed their ailments. One by one, the lame pagans were restored. But when the demon reached the Jewish man, he stopped.
"I will not anoint you," the demon said. The Jew was shocked. "Why not?" The demon answered: "The others I heal so they will continue to believe in the idol. Their healing is a deception — it keeps them enslaved to falsehood. But you are a Jew. You know the truth. You should be praying to God, not sleeping in a pagan temple."
The demon continued: "Your time for healing had arrived. God was ready to restore your legs. But by coming here, to the house of a false god, you have forfeited your chance." The lame Jew left the temple unhealed — punished not by the idol but by his own faithlessness. The demon's refusal was, paradoxically, the most honest thing that happened in that temple of lies.