Eleazer b. Dorai's prostitute The one who farted and revealed a truth
Eleazer b. Dorai visited many prostitutes. During sex with this particular expensive one, she farted and compared it to his inability to repent. Upset by this, Eleazer called on the mountains, the stars and heavens to pray for him. When they said that they couldn’t, he realised he was alone, and he wept and died. Then a heavenly voice came announced he, in that moment, he had repented.
It seems that there is something missing in the story. She farts during sex and then tells him that he cannot repent. Did she make that statement because she was embarrassed? Or did he do something, react in a way to her fart that prompted her to say he was beyond forgiveness? perhaps he was startled by the fart, this very physical, sponaneous, crude, funny bodily function. reminding him that she was a separate other body, not a tool to be used.
He reacts to her statement by trying to find another to pray for him, and turns to the world around him. In the embroidery her bottom becomes the contours of the hills and the fart becomes the stars. He turns the landscape into a person. A person who says no, he cannot use them for his own gains.
(Avodah Zora 17a)
It seems that there is something missing in the story. She farts during sex and then tells him that he cannot repent. Did she make that statement because she was embarrassed? Or did he do something, react in a way to her fart that prompted her to say he was beyond forgiveness? perhaps he was startled by the fart, this very physical, sponaneous, crude, funny bodily function. reminding him that she was a separate other body, not a tool to be used.
He reacts to her statement by trying to find another to pray for him, and turns to the world around him. In the embroidery her bottom becomes the contours of the hills and the fart becomes the stars. He turns the landscape into a person. A person who says no, he cannot use them for his own gains.
(Avodah Zora 17a)
