The saying of Chazal in Avos that “One who commits one sin, acquires for himself one accusing angel.” is well-known. That sin will accompany him to the day of judgment and with each sin that he commits he is showing that he is not worrying about the honor of his Creator and he will be punished. Since the whole world is judged according to the majority of its deeds, each person must worry that by committing one sin he will cause the entire world to be judged as being guilty, and he will surely be punished for having caused the delay of the final redemption and the destruction of the world.
Due to our many sins, there many forbidden things which people have become so accustomed to doing that they have become like permitted actions. These include many categories of forbidden speech, such as gossip, bad language, mockery, flattery, falsehood, mentioning the Name of Hashem for no purpose, impossible oaths, blessings and prayers which are snatched at and not concentrated upon, idle speech in the synagogue, idle speech on Shabbos, wasteful words, arrogance, anger, and many other similar prohibitions, bad character-traits, and transgressions of positive commandments. The worst of all of them is Bittul Torah (wasting time which should be spent learning Torah). In all of the above people have become so used to doing them that when he does them he does not even feel bad and does not regret it at all. A living person should consider the real truth, for sin is very serious, and causes huge evil to the one who commits it and to all of the upper and lower worlds. A Jewish man who believes truly in Hashem and His holy Torah and in the words of our holy sages of blessed memory will tremble and worry about the honor of his Creator and about all of the worlds and about his honored soul-who is the daughter of the King-which is being tainted, and on each day he will flee from sin like one who flees a sword. He will overcome his evil inclination and pray that he will receive help to save him from sin, for the pain of sin is very great, and about it David said “The troubles of my heart have broadened, take me out from my troubles!”.
