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Rabbi Chaim Walkin

Sefer Da’at Chaim

34th Ma’amar

I already wrote above and proved it from clear sources, and validated
for ourselves a person’s great frailty and his inclination to things that
are bad. Challenges clarify for us that anything at all that a person
can use to guard himself he must do in order for him to be even more
protected from their bad consequences since there is no pleasure in this
world that does not have the potential for sin to follow right behind
it. By way of an example, food and drink when all esurim have been
removed from them are permitted. However, a glutton who gorges
his stomach with them will subsequently be attracted to forbidden
sexuality and other evil behavior. And all the more so if this person
has already habituated himself to stuffing himself with food or drink,
and if once he does not satisfy his compulsion it pains him and he will
feel it very much. Because of this compulsion he plunges himself
with a strong persistent effort and exertion to work to acquire all of
his “wants” so that nothing will be missing from his life’s cravings,
and from there he transitions to criminal things and theft, and from
there to swearing falsely and to other sins that follow, and he removes
himself from his service to Hashem and leaves Torah and Tefilah.
But he could have stopped himself from committing all of these sins
if in the very beginning he did not addict himself to these seductive
pleasures. In a comparable sense Chazal have said in the framework
of the “unrestrained compulsive son” that the Torah delved into the
depths of this son’s thinking…” please carefully study this topic in
that Gemara.

The lesson to be absorbed from studying this topic is an understanding
of the great power of the danger hidden within the addiction to
disgusting and ugly habits, for if – G-d forbid – a person allows
disgusting habits to become part of his psychological make-up (“…I
drink responsibly” \ “…I can stop drugs any time I want” \ “I can
stop smoking anytime” \ “…can’t stop now, I’m on a hot streak” \
“…I’m not a zombie addicted to my smartphone” \ etc.) the addiction
becomes extremely dangerous, and who can foretell how it will end.
Thus, there is a very great compelling obligation to continually fight
this war against negative-addictive habits, to uproot them from their
source and completely destroy them.

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