LEV108 What forms of abstinence are in accord with our Torah? I say, in response to this question, that the abstinence advocated by our Torah is of three kinds. One of these is in our dealings and associations with other people. The second relates to what is solely our own regarding our physical senses and external limbs. The third relates to what is ours alone regarding our inner selves, our traits, our convictions, and the thoughts, good or bad, hidden in our hearts. ... The abstinence we should adopt of the second kind--that which relates solely to ourselves with regard to our senses and external limbs--may be divided into two parts: (1) the forbidden, namely, the negative commandments; and (2) the permitted, namely, all the different kinds of permitted pleasures. Each of these parts may be divided into three, as follows. The forbidden. Anything that is forbidden to us must be one of three things. Either it is (1) One of the things for which there is a natural longing, such as fornication, theft, usury, and gluttonous consumption of forbidden food and drink; (2) something that by nature one neither abhors nor desires, such as wearing a garment woven of wool and flax, sowing diverse seeds together, eating meat and milk cooked together, eating forbidden fat, and many things similar to this; or (3) something that is repulsive to our nature and abhorrent to our souls, such as eating the flesh of a beast that died of itself or had not been ritually slaughtered, [eating] the blood, or [eating] any of the many creatures that one would not wish to eat even if these were permitted to be eaten, such as the eight species of reptiles (Vayikra 11:29-30) and their like. You should discipline yourself, my brother, by abstaining from all that God has commanded you to abstain from, until the disgust you feel and the abhorrence you have for forbidden forms of pleasures and desires reach such an extent that the most revolting of the forbidden things and those that are attractive [to others] are equally abhorrent to you. Thus, forbidden sexual relations, taking money in prohibited ways, self-aggrandizement through the humiliation of one's fellow and his disparagement-- all of which a person, by nature, is strongly attracted to--should be as [repulsive to you as] eating mice, blood, or reptiles, which are repulsive and abhorrent to you by nature. When you attain this degree of abstinence from the forbidden without forcing your nature or feeling it a hardship, you will belong to the class of people who are free from sin and [saved] from a stumbling, of whom it is said: “No evil will be fall the righteous” (Mishlei 12:21). (Continued at [[DEUT811]] Deuteronomy 17:17 wives 811-3)