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Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: ” The definition of a perversion.”

Money, by its very definition, is never an end. It is a way of exchanging, of acquiring things.

When it becomes an obsession, when it becomes an end in itself, that obsession is a slightly pathological situation.

This is true about anything.

Chewing is a way of eating.

When a person begins to chew before he eats, it is a sign of an illness.

Washing your hands is very important to cleanliness.

When you see a person washing his hands sixty times a day, it is a sign of compulsiveness.

Money is a way of transforming assets into other things, whatever they are.

If it becomes a purpose in itself, that is defined psychologically as a perversion.

This is exactly the definition of a perversion: in perversion, you have something that is auxiliary but that becomes a purpose in itself.

–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz