Not Shaving?
 
 
  Breaking Free Chizuk #1655  
 
 
In Today's Issue
   
Q & A: Not Shaving During Sefirah
Sayings: Addiction is...
12 Step Attitude: What is the 12-Step Meeting Etiquette?
Daily Dose of Dov: A Nice, Shiny Blue Tricycle
 
 
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Q & A
 
Not Shaving During Sefirah
 
Can you give me an attitude that I will actually keep the omer properly?
 
By GYE

Question:

Pesach is coming up. This means that I will not be able to shave until lag baomer. I have never done this before as I have always been worried about looking weird.

Can you give me an idea of how to have an attitude that I will actually keep the omer properly? I do not mix with girls but I still always have a thing in my head of trying to look good in front of them. I want to make this Pesach a time when I could break out of this.


GYE Responds:

I once heard an inspiring story with Rav Moshe Feinstein. Someone came to him and asked for a heter to shave because he was going to an interview with a major company for an important job and wanted to look good. Rav Moshe did NOT give him a heter, but he couldn't resist the nisayon and shaved. At the interview, the boss told him that he does not want to accept him because he knows that frum Jews don't shave during this period, he had another few frum workers, and he was looking for people with real integrity!

The same with the girls. Any girl that YOU would want to be interested in, will want a guy that puts his spiritual integrity ahead of his good looks :-)


Response:

I can't begin to explain how much you have impacted my life. That message really hit the nail on the head! Really powerful and true.

Why should I care about 'looking good'? For what? I don't want to go near a girl who cares about that. My Yiddishkeit is much more important.

Brilliant.

This is something that will take time for me to work on but this step of not shaving will surely be the first leap.


A month later he writes:

I was so scared with the whole not shaving in the omer business. But looking back, I realise how much spiritual growth it has caused me to have already.

Thanks to you, I realise that it's never about the look in life. It's about the inside. There is no doubt that it's not a coincidence that we can't shave or hear music etc during the Omer which is also about spiritual growth, up to shavuous, as these two things lead to growth as a person, and seeing what's important in life.

I just heard an incredible shiur about what it means to be an ideal Jew. It has to do with making Hashem the centre of our lives. There is never enough "taking" if we make ourselves the centre.

I was so worried, as my beard does grow quicker than my friends, but now I realise fully that I am not living for myself and my looks are irrelevant. As Dov says, "the heck with me, what can I do for you?". That needs to be the focus in my life.

Sayings
 
Addiction: I want what I want when I want it.
 
12 Step Attitude
 
 
What is the 12-Step Meeting Etiquette?
 
Daily Dose of Dov
 
A Nice, Shiny Blue Tricycle
 
By Dov

"MosheF" posted on the forum:

So I have a void, a spiritual void, now what? How am I going to fill it? Should I sit and learn all day, say tikunei zohar, work on my middos? It's not going to work. I know I should just learn to accept ordinary life the way life is, and live in the present moment, and not dream of being rich and famous, just living the present. Before I fell last time, I could have gone home and played with my kids but that wasn't good enough, I needed more. To prove my point, when I have a real exciting day and made a major sale or met with important people and felt important and good, lust usually stays away on those days because I'm feeling good about myself. But when life is ordinary, it's just not good enough for me and I need real stimulation.

Dov responds:

In my case too, my problem was clearly not the acting out. It was being sober! I couldn't tolerate it after a while because life was always either too boring or too complicated or both. Staying sober under all circumstances necessitated the 12 Steps. And of all things, it was the fourth step (especially my second round at it) that finally made living tolerable. Then sobriety started getting easier.

I learned the hard way, but Yshu'as hashem k'heref ayin! You may get a bit of something and then find you have grown more than you imagined was possible. It often happens this way for me. The condition seems to be, that I stay off the 18-wheeler and keep things simple. Especially when I feel like I've grown a great deal, I still picture myself as just beginning. A nice, shiny blue tricycle (with silver accents!) does me best...

Do you think you may have a porn addiction?
 

Do you have a problem with obsessive and compulsive porn use? Have you seriously tried the tools on GYE and feel that you are not getting better? Maybe it’s time to consider joining a 12-Step program.

Porn Anonymous (PA)
If you’re compulsively acting-out with pornography and masturbation we suggest you explore joining Porn Anonymous (PA). If you need help deciding whether to join PA, call Michael at 347-699-2368, or email help@pornanonymous.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit pornanonymous.org (Hebrew: p-a.org.il / Yiddish: pa-yid.org).

Sexaholics Anonymous (SA)
If your compulsive acting-out has progressed beyond the screen (with other people, paid sexual services, etc.) we suggest you explore joining Sexaholics Anonymous (SA). To figure out if SA is for you, call Dov at 917-414-8205, or email Dov at dov@guardyoureyes.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit www.sa.org.

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