B"H
From my days as a student in psychology , during which I
learned that the notion of Pavlovian elicitation might be readily
understood when someone prods his mind to recall the taste of a
preferred food substance as a primary awareness in the decisio n
what he or she intends to eat. The mo ment of ingestion is recalled;
the touch of the tongue, the fragrance, and closure of the lips are
previewed as tactile excite ment appearing upon the monitor o f
inner vision experiencing sixth-sensual titillation I felt when,
upon previous occurrence I absorbed the delicacy into my mouth.
Imagine the salivation the like s of which Pavlov aroused in his
unwilling laboratory subjects as you conceive manipulating a tast y
food ite m into your mouth and catching the tangy flavor on your
tongue. Our bodies process sensations recorded in me mory. The
greater the force and reinforcement of specific self-indulgence
from the environment; the easier it is to imagine the effort to
procure the articles, the more difficult it is to restrain stimulatio n
aroused by the memory.
Safrascity is about the furthest place on the globe fro m my
natural habitat, and five decades had pas sed since my college days,
but the aforementioned teenage celebration I wanted the memory
of my youthful sexual exploits to assume preeminence, thinkin g
wishfully that one of the female guests could be drawn into my
sexist web. As I approached a table at w hich two youthful fe minine
characters were seated, I didn't question how I could be the only
party interested. Most everybody paid no attention to me until I
whipped out a bottle of wine and with raised glasses blessed
l'chayim with the Elephant son. I also raised glasses with the
young lady named Maria. The bottle quickly emptied, but Maria
remained seated across fro m me. The backdrop to this scene was
nothing other than the holy arc in which is housed the holy Torah,
the party being staged in the synagogu e. For all that, I was draw n
like flecks of metal to a magnet, into the social morass of two
females whose role in that scene most mysterious . I'm projecting
my own evil as described from my own reference, whereas the
entire population of males there, who knew better than I did, kept
their distance fro m the forbidden fruit.
Every millimeter of the apartment was filled with a multitude
whose likes I had never encountered before at a Purim celebration.
I saw nothing but Maria who sat in conversation with me , and it
was in her that my interest was piqued. It was the rush of water-
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