‘We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.”
(Lamentations 5:9)
Whoever eats bread without washing their hands first, cuts themselves off from Torah (Scriptures) and the “sword in the wilderness” will cut them off from faith and holiness. In other words, the disregard of one mitzvah (religious precept or commandment) could easily lead to the disregard of other mitzvahs. We learn that “whoever makes light of washing the hands will be uprooted from the world.” (Sotah 4b)
It happened in the days of the persecution (by the Romans) there was an innkeeper who used to cook swine’s flesh as well as kosher meat and serve them to his patrons, in order that nobody should know that he was Jewish. After much observation of people who came into his inn, his practice became: If anybody entered the inn without washing his hands, he knew that this must be a non-Jewish person and set swine’s flesh before him. But if he washed his hands, he knew that this must be a Jewish traveler and gave him meat that was kosher.
