I've been reading some Talmudic stories.
And one that I liked was about a certain rabbi
who was bitten by a snake while he was praying.
And I thought how religious schools through the ages
had different interpretations of this incident.
And resulted in this poem, which is called "Snake."
"When the snake bit Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa while he was praying,
the snake died.
Each day is attended by surprises, or it is nothing.
Question-- was the barefooted smelly Rabbi more poisonous
than the snake?
Or so God-adulterated he'd become
immune to serpent poison?
Oh great-great-great-uncles, your palms weighing air,
why are you arguing?
Listen, the snake thought, being old and unwell and bad-tempered
as hell, death, where's thy sting?
In short, was just testing--
a snake's last fling.
Yes, the so-called snake was dying anyway,
its heart calcified and as old as Eden.
No, that snake was A1 fit, but while hissing for fun
it clumsily bit its own tongue.
No, Hanina invented that snake, not for his own sake,
but for first-class religious publicity.
No, no, here's the key to it.
Ask-- did the Rabbi, later on, become a jumpy, timid man?
Remember, he who has been bitten by a snake
thereafter becomes frightened of a rope.
Bearded men in darkening rooms sipping lemon tea
and arguing about the serpent till the moon of Russia,
of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, rose above the alien steeples,
centuries of sleep.
Now, tonight, a clean-shaven rabbi
who once studied in Vienna says snake venom contains
haemolysins, haemocoagulants, protolysins, cytolysins,
and neurotoxins.
And that even in Hanina ben Dosa's day a snake was a snake.
Unless, of course, it was a penis,
an unruly penis, making a noise like one pissing
on a mound of fresh hot ashes.
Oh great-great-great-uncles, did you hear him?
And are your handbones weighing moonshine?"
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]