A lame Jew in a pagan city heard a rumor about a local idol. The idol, people said, had been healing lame people. Those who slept in its temple overnight woke with their legs straightened.
Desperate, he went. He lay down among the other pilgrims — gentiles, most of them — and fell asleep.
The Demon in the Wall
In the night, a demon emerged from the wall of the temple. He carried a vial of oil. He moved among the sleepers, anointing each one in turn — until he reached the Jew.
He stopped. He looked down at the Jewish man and passed him by.
The Jew was awake enough to see it happen. Desperate, he whispered, "Why not me?"
The demon answered with something the Jew did not expect — a rebuke. "These others, I anoint so that they will continue to trust in their idols. That is my work. But you are a Jew. You are supposed to pray to the Holy One, blessed be He. It was your appointed time for healing — a healing that would have come to you through prayer. But because you came here, you forfeited it. The time has passed. I cannot give it to you. Neither, any longer, can He."
The Midrash's Sharp Edge
The exempla, preserved in the Midrash of the Ten Commandments and collected by Gaster, is one of the sharpest teachings on idolatry in the rabbinic tradition. The Sages are not telling the man that the idol was powerless — in this story, the idol's temple actually did contain healing, delivered by a demon for a demon's purposes.
The message is different. Each Jewish soul is allotted a window of healing, offered in the language of its own relationship with the Holy One. When a Jew goes to another god — even a god that seems to work — the window closes. Not because the other god is stronger. Because the Holy One had been waiting, and the Jew walked past Him.
The lame man left the pagan temple the same way he had entered it: unhealed, and now also late.