A pious man was digging in his field one afternoon when his spade struck something hard. He uncovered a marble statue — finely carved, half buried in the soil of generations. As he brushed away the last of the dirt, the statue spoke.
"Clean me," it said. "Place me in a clean corner of your house, and I will give you riches." The man was astonished. He took the statue home and set it on a shelf.
Days later, the statue spoke again. "Your friend is caught in a trap in the forest. Go now and free him, and you will be rewarded." The man ran, found his friend exactly as the statue had described, freed him — and was gifted a generous sum for the rescue.
The statue spoke once more. "Now light a lamp in front of me." And the pious man understood. A lamp was not a gesture of gratitude. A lamp was an act of avodah zarah — foreign worship. The statue had been easing him, gift by gift, toward idolatry.
He reached for his axe and moved to shatter the marble. A demon burst out of the statue's mouth and begged him to stop. "Spare me and I will give you riches beyond anything you have seen." The man did not listen. He raised the axe and broke the statue to pieces.
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 396, from the Ben Attar collection, closes the tale quietly. A year later, the man was digging in his garden and found a genuine treasure buried there — not from a demon's bribe, but as a reward from Heaven for the refusal.
Every idol offers you something real at first. The question is what it wants in return. A pious man is the one who can do the math before the lamp is lit.