{"id":98820,"date":"2022-11-20T03:58:29","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T01:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/?p=98820"},"modified":"2022-11-20T03:58:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T01:58:29","slug":"poverty-is-akin-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/poverty-is-akin-to-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty Is Akin to Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Poverty Is Akin to Death<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A wealthy Jew contributed generously to the needy and also immersed himself in Torah study. He was the embodiment of what Chazal call \u201cTorah and greatness in one.\u201d He married off his children honorably and merited seeing grandchildren. Suddenly, the wheel of fortune turned in his disfavor. He lost all of his riches and became a destitute pauper.<\/p>\n<p>He still had young children at home, whom he supported, as well as grandchildren who looked to him for sustenance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy did this happen to me?\u201d He bewailed his bitter lot. \u201cI was always meticulous about giving <em>tzedakah<\/em> and doing favors for my fellow man, even above what I took for myself and my family. At the same time, I kept up a steady schedule of learning Torah. Why do I deserve this difficult test?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I honestly did not know what to answer the man. Do we know Heavenly calculations? But one thing I do know. There was surely a reason why he lost his assets. It was his moral obligation to vindicate Hashem\u2019s desire and accept it with unconditional love. Who knows? Maybe poverty came instead of other more difficult tribulations which had been decreed upon his family. Maybe it came to atone for sins committed in a previous lifetime. Upon pondering the trials of poverty which his children and grandchildren faced, I realized that it was because children are a person\u2019s guarantors.<\/p>\n<p><em>When a person sins in any area, the Attribute of Justice demands that his children die, for they are a person\u2019s guarantors. But Hashem is all-merciful and therefore spares this anguish. Instead, he takes a person\u2019s property. The children are left penniless and are thereby considered dead. In this manner, they can continue to live while serving as atonement<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poverty Is Akin to Death A wealthy Jew contributed generously to the needy and also immersed himself in Torah study. He was the embodiment of what Chazal call \u201cTorah and greatness in one.\u201d He married off his children honorably and merited seeing grandchildren. Suddenly, the wheel of fortune turned in his disfavor. He lost all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":24628,"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":[1090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98820","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=98820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdpinto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}