Measure for Measure
A fellow Jew wept bitterly that his life was one bundle of difficulties. Within one year, his wife and all of his children died, leaving him alone in the world.
I keenly felt that this man had received the punishment of karet, which is given to one who eats chametz on Pesach, as the pasuk states (Shemot 12:15), “Anyone who eats leavened food – that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” This is also the punishment for one who does not observe the halachot of taharat hamishpachah, as the pasuk states (Vayikra 18:29), “For if anyone commits any of these abominations, the people doing so will be cut off from among their people.”
Since this man insisted that he never transgressed the prohibition of chametz on Pesach, I understood that he had not been punctilious in the halachot of taharat hamishpachah. He accepted this, and avowed that when he would remarry, he would be stringent in these laws.
