Every Harlot in the World

One of the most daring, counter-intuitive and refreshingly irreverent ancient tales of the Talmud is the story Rabbi Elazar Ben Dordia, who made it his business to pay a visit each and every prostitute in the great Roman empire. This tale, told in the wonderfully economic story telling style of the Talmud, starts as a raunchy farce and ends as a grand anthem of repentance. It is also surprisingly relevant to our day and age, when sexual self-fulfillment is considered one of the building blocks of the modern self.