Pig in Israel

In the final stretch of this month's Israeli election Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party charged Avigdor Lieberman of the secular Yisrael Beiteinu party with denigrating Israeli society by selling pork, and said “Whoever does so supports Satan and the evil inclination."

It is interesting that in the news the part about the evil inclination was left out leaving the reader to assume some hellish reference to the Judeo-Christian myth. There is no Hell in the Torah and Satan/Opposition is an angel who comes to stand against— sometimes for the good of the person. The evil inclination is a power created by God with tentacles in each human being from the time of birth tempting us to do wrong against God so freedom of choice can exist.

The pig is identified in the Torah as being the only animal in the world with the outer sign of a kosher mammal, cloven hooves while missing the inner sign of multiple stomachs. The Talmud-Book of Law says the pig is the sign of a hypocrite showing kosher, but being within not kosher.

By leaving off the part about the Evil Inclination the Rabbi’s words were skewed into a different meaning—what was said is not what was meant.