{"id":98701,"date":"2022-11-20T03:14:37","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T01:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/?p=98701"},"modified":"2022-11-20T03:14:37","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T01:14:37","slug":"selling-his-soul-to-swine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/selling-his-soul-to-swine\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling His Soul to Swine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Selling His Soul to Swine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whenever I visited a certain Chassidic Jew in Mexico, my senses would be assailed by the distinct smell of swine. I could never understand how I could connect this G-d-fearing Jew with this repulsive food and decided to ask his forgiveness for doing so. But I did not know how to go about this, so I kept my peace.<\/p>\n<p>On one visit, this man asked me to affix a mezuzah to the entrance of his store. He felt that this would draw Heavenly blessing upon his endeavors. After that was taken care of, he offered me a tour of his factory. As we passed each room, the man explained what was done there and who was employed there. But he skipped one room. I immediately asked about it, but he replied, \u201cIt is not fitting for the Rav to enter that room. Come, let us continue on our way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His answer only further aroused my curiosity. What was this man hiding there? I insisted on visiting specifically that room and seeing what took place there. He finally agreed to my request. He opened the door to reveal a tremendous freezer, full of swine heads!<\/p>\n<p>I was shaken at this sight. \u201cWhat is this?\u201d I roared. \u201cRemove it right now!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut honored Rav,\u201d he stammered, \u201chere is where I get the most revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dam had burst. \u201cYou should know,\u201d I began, trying mightily to steady my voice, \u201cI have always wanted to ask forgiveness for associating you with pigs. But now I see that I was justified. You deal with this defiled creature and make a profit from it. As a result, all of your property smells like swine, and your face conjures up images of this impure beast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One who is involved in defilement will possess the look and smell of that item. Although this man tried to be a righteous, G-d-fearing person, he acquired the qualities of the impurity with which he dealt. One who fails to correct his inappropriate character traits is nothing more than a two-legged animal. Regarding him, Shlomo Hamelech said (<em>Kohelet<\/em> 3:19), \u201cMan has no superiority over beast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>A person takes the form of the physical matter with which he deals. Conversely, one who sanctifies himself through Torah study and mitzvah observance transforms everything that enters his body into a holy object, an extension of his good deeds<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selling His Soul to Swine Whenever I visited a certain Chassidic Jew in Mexico, my senses would be assailed by the distinct smell of swine. I could never understand how I could connect this G-d-fearing Jew with this repulsive food and decided to ask his forgiveness for doing so. But I did not know how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":25840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1083],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashrut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}