The Torah commanded us to make a “fence” to the commandments, as it says “And you shall keep my guarding!”, which is explained to mean that you must make a safeguard to my safeguard. Our holy Chazal made many additional restrictions to safeguard the commandments. Besides for these official restrictions, it is correct for each and every individual to make restrictions for himself or his townsfolk according to the need of the time. He should use trickery to fight the evil inclination, and flee from one hundred gates of permitted things so as not to enter one gate of prohibited things. When Hashem sees the ways of this man that he wants to be saved from the evil inclination, then Hashem will not abandon him in the hands of the evil inclination and He will not hold back goodness from those who walk with blind faith.
The Rambam writes that even though the straight path for a person is always the middle one, nevertheless if a person has become accustomed to transgressing a certain commandment or using a bad character-trait, he should go to the other extreme in order to finally arrive at the middle path. If, for example, one is accustomed to becoming drunk, one should accustom oneself for a long period not to drink alcohol at all, except for Kiddush and Havdalah. If he is accustomed to being lazy, he should strengthen himself to be quick and prompt until he changes his own nature, for a person can change his own nature, and something to which one becomes accustomed becomes second nature. A person should try every day to straighten out his character-traits and ways and to change his bad nature for good using tricks, restrictions, fines etc. There is an allusion to this in the words of Chazal who say that “Anyone who learns Halachos every day is guaranteed that he is a man of the world to come!”, that it alludes to one who changes his ways to the good every day will definitely receive a share in the world to come.
