KEEPING A KOSHER MOUTH

Reb Yaakov Yitzchak of Pshischah, who is known as the Yid HaKadosh, once instructed Reb Simchah Venison in Bunem — in later days his successor as rebbe — to make a certain journey, without telling him its purpose.

Reb Simchah Bunem took several chassidim with him, and set out. When the time came for them to eat in one of the cottages in the hamlet of their destination, their host told them that he had no dairy food for them, but could offer them a meat meal. The chassidim thereupon began to question
him, paying the most scrupulous attention to all the detailed laws relating to kosher meat — who was the ritual slaughterer; whether the lungs of the animal were found on examination to be utterly free of any blemishes; exactly how the meat was salted and rinsed in order to drain it of all traces of blood, and so on.

Their investigations were interrupted by the voice of an individual who had been sitting quietly next to the fireplace, and who was dressed like an itinerant beggar. "My dear chassidim!" he cried. "Concerning what you put into your mouths you conduct the most meticulous crossexamination;
but on what you bring out of your mouths — your words — you make no
halachic queries at all!"

When Reb Simchah Bunem heard these words, he felt certain that he had now lighted upon the reason for which his rebbe had sent him out on his
journey – simply to learn this lesson – and promptly returned to Pshischah.