I use Grammarly’s online grammar check because it is hard to respect yourself if you use bad grammar. And others will think you are an idiot. When I get an email from a stranger that is filled with spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors, I’m much less likely to respond to it than when I get a correctly formatted letter.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin writes in Gateway to Happiness (I keep this book in my car and read a sentence or two several times a day): “A young student walking with his shoulders stopped passed in front of his house. [Rabbi Chayim Mordechai Katz] called the student over and admonished him to walk straight. The Rosh Hayeshiva stressed that a person’s posture reveals his self-concept, and someone studying Torah should demonstrate his appreciation of the great value of what he is engaged in.”
This book is filled with such wisdom. The point above is excellent. It takes strength to be good. You can’t be blown around by the winds of popularity. You have to stand for something. For a Jew who observes the Torah, he’s going to have to make dozens of actions each day that run contrary to contemporary trends. He’s going to have to thank God before drinking a glass of water and eating an apple and upon awakening and going to bed. His every deed, ideally, should be governed by God’s immutable moral law.
How you carry yourself reflects how you think about yourself. You can’t be all stiff and slumped and deformed and at the same time think highly of yourself. People who are awkward in their bodies tend to be awkward in their thinking and in their interactions with others. People who are smooth in their bodies tend to be smooth in their thinking and in their interactions with others. People who glide through life with great poise tend to be equally poised in their thinking and in their interactions with others.
