Reply To: Short & Sweet

Shemini: Constant Change

The Ramban writes that one of the reasons the Torah prohibits certain birds and animals is that these creatures have bad middos, such a cruelty. By eating them, we would be ingesting their negative traits. A person who eats these forbidden foods will become crueler or develop other bad middos.

R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz sees a similar idea in the Gemora that says: אין אדם עובר עבירה אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות, a person does not sin unless foolishness has entered him. R’ Chaim Shmuelevitz explains that the שטות that enters a person is that they do not realize that the Aveira they are about to do will change who they are from now on. (Heard from R’ Yisroel Gluestein)

If we internalize that each deed we do is a building block for who we will be for the rest of our lives, we will be for more motivated to do what’s right than if we see them just as “actions” outside of ourselves.

Each aveira that we do changes us, makes us into worse people. But each mitzva that we do changes us as well, and makes us into people with better middos and a closer relationship to Hashem.

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום