Anybody whom people are pleased with, Hashem will be pleased with that person as well. When a person is a Torah scholar and talks nicely, is honest, and is looked at as a moral person, people are going to look at him and say, “Ah, he’s like that because of the Torah that he learned.” They’re going to praise him, praise his Torah teachers, his rabbis, and his family, and eventually say, “HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the source for all of this, and it must be that Hashem’s Torah teaches the following details.” And that is an example of a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of the name of Hashem. Therefore, if people are pleased with this person, Hashem will be pleased with him as well.
And anybody with whom people are not pleased because they witness his immoral actions doesn’t act correctly. He’s not an honest person, and people are going to look at the failings of this individual, who is supposed to be a representative of Torah, and say, “Ah, this is him. He must get it from the Torah.” And that’s a person desecrating the name of God. So if they look at him in a negative light, they’re going to look at the source of the Torah of Hashem in a negative light as well. Lo aleinu (God forbid).
Rabbi Dosa ben Harkinas would teach: Sheina shel Shacharit, sleeping late in the morning where a person would miss the time of Keriat Shema (recitation of the Shema); V’yayin shel tzohorayim, drinking wine in the afternoon; V’sichat hayeladim, playing with children in an obsessive way. Too much. V’yeshivat batei knessiyot shel amei ha’aretz, sitting in gathering spots of ignorant people. These remove a person from this world in terms of his accomplishment in religiosity, Torah knowledge, and spirituality.
These types of actions are absorbing. They could draw a person in, and therefore he may spend too much time doing them and neglect what he’s here for, which is Torah and Tefillah (prayer). A person who wakes up late in the morning misses the whole morning. The whole morning is supposed to be dedicated to Talmud Torah (Torah study) before a person goes out to work. If he’s drinking in the afternoon, drinking makes a person drowsy, and he’s going to be sleepy and not diligent in his Torah knowledge after he works. If he’s playing with his children too much, of course a person should spend time with his family and have a good time with them. But if he spends all of his days doing that, the person is missing out on the purpose of life, which is Torah.
And also, sitting with amei ha’aretz, who are talking gossip and talking about nonsense and politics, the person is going to get absorbed in that conversation and allow the time to just keep on moving, and he’s going to miss that precious time for Talmud Torah. So a person who does all of this is taking himself out of this world by not focusing on his spirituality, not focusing on growth. So a person should stay away from these activities in excess.