And also, run away from a small sin as if it were a great sin. We learned this principle earlier in Perek Bet (Chapter two), by Rebbi, who said that we don’t really know the value of mitzvot (commandments). From our perspective, something could seem small, and something could seem big, but really, mitzvot have much more value, or averot (sins) have, even though it seems minor to us, it could be a major averah. So don’t try to come up with a scale of which mitzvot are important or not important.
But then Ben Azzai is going to give another reason: one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and one sin leads to another sin. What Ben Azzai is saying over here is that human nature is such that when a person does a mitzvah, he’ll continue to do more mitzvot. It becomes easier in the future to continue down the right path. The inverse applies to an averah: if somebody does an averah, they find it easier to commit more averot. In the future, they get into certain habits.
Likewise, a person really changes his relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. When a person does mitzvot, the reward for that mitzvah is another mitzvah. Hashem notices this person doing a mitzvah, so Hashem is going to throw him more opportunities to do mitzvot. And the inverse applies with an averah. If somebody does averot, Hashem is going to pull away His guidance from them, and they’re going to have to find their own way back. When they have to find their own way back, and Hashem is not going to be pushing them or helping them down that path, they’re going to have more averot available to them, and the person will be involved in more sins.
So therefore, the mitzvah for a mitzvah is another mitzvah. The mitzvah is another mitzvah. The reward for one mitzvah is the opportunity to do more mitzvot, and the punishment for an averah is that the person is going to have Hashem withdrawn from him a little bit, sin is going to be more around him, and he’s going to have the opportunity to commit more averot. So a person should get into good habits, because it’s human nature to continue down a certain path. And also, klapei Shemaya, from the heavenly perspective, Hashem brings a person more opportunity when he does good, and more averot when he does bad.