The Library

The Seder is not just a memorial to events of the distant past - it is a dynamic process of freedom from the challenges of the present. We are slaves. Slaves to our own addictions, habits, inhibitions, fears, cynicism and prejudices. These self-appointed pharaohs are laye...

Excerpts below taken from an article on www.jewishsexuality.com Our Sages tell us that we were redeemed from Egypt due to the merit of the two mitzvot (commandments) which G-d commanded us to perform on the eve of our departure - the Paschal sacrifice and the brit milah. ...

Sometimes it seems to work in cycles; you feel strong for a while and then start to lose the strength to guard your eyes, and sometimes it can take time until you get that strength back. But remember, every time you pass a test, every time you overcome the downward part o...

The Israelites had to rush out of Egypt so fast, they didn't have time for their bread to rise. Why? Does that make sense? What was the rush exactly? The Egyptians had just been blasted with ten plagues as divine punishment for holding the Israelites captive, they were mo...

Pesach cleaning is underway in all Jewish households around the world. As we toil to clean our houses from leaven, we are in parallel also cleansing ourselves from the evil inclination, which is symbolized by the leaven. We are toiling to break free of the evil one, in an...

On our site we brought some rants (here) from a non-Jew who found that his addiction to masturbating was preventing him from going out to meet women and so he decided to try to stop completely. He opened a blog to keep track of his progress and I bring you here some more ...

Excerpts from an article at www.jewishsexuality.com The Hebrew word for semen is zera, which means seed. This seed contains not only the physical and spiritual blueprints of life, but also the life force itself. Each discharge of semen contains hundreds of thousands of s...

The less you feed it, the less you need it

A post from the "talk-backs" of Arutz Sheva, on Tzvi Fishman's Blog. Yehudah from Jerusalem writes: I know what you are going through for I have been there and have overcome it with a lot of work and determination to succeed. You can succeed as well. 1. Spirituality; The...

I will remember this Autobiography in Five Chapters to help me stay on track. Chapter 1: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I don't see it. I fall in. It isn't my fault. It takes a long time to figure out how to get out of the hole. Chapter 2: I...

Sometimes a person feels low and Emunah seems out of reach. In such a state, the Yetzer Hara can say to a person, "What use is it for you to be strong and hold yourself back from falling into sin, you anyway feel so far from G-d and you anyway don't have now any Emunah or...

  Let us learn from the butterfly. Say "no" to the obsessions and desires which keep us crawling in the dirt all our lives. Instead, let's do Teshuvah once and for all and lock ourselves into what might feel like a constrained darkness for a while. And then, suddenly, we ...

In Likutei Moharan II:48, Rebbe Nachman writes that every movement that brings a person out of physicality and closer to God is "very precious." If a person progresses even a minute amount, in the higher world he has traversed huge distances. Since a person's spiritual le...

Sefer Chassidim, Siman 148 Three things did the Holy One Blessed be He create in man, ears, eyes and the tongue, and to each one of them he created barriers and a wall to protect them…He put eyelids for the eyes in order to cover them and hide them from looking at somethi...

I'm sure we've all had some difficult tests in the past and overcame them. If someone would offer you a million dollars to sell to him the reward and benefit that you gained in overcoming these tests, would you sell them? I doubt it. So think about it. Do you still feel y...

Someone wrote the following on the forum... It has been a long and difficult few months with the struggle to overcome the addiction, but I have seen my own progress and awareness mature, and have recognised that there is will power after all. Not long ago I did stumble an...

Someone wrote to us how hard his struggles are and that he knows many Jews "who give into their desires for companionship with girlfriends and wind up happy". We tried to answer him with three points, and I share them with you below so we can all be Mitchazek... And in th...

An interesting story / parable from the Talmud Tamid 32b As he (Alexander the Great) was traveling he sat by a spring and began to eat. He had with him some salted fish, and as they were being washed by the spring they gave off a pleasant fragrance; [alternate version: th...