happyjew wrote on 04 Jun 2012 17:02:


Perhaps?

הקב"ה מתאוה לתפלתם של צדיקים

MT

happyjew wrote on 04 Jun 2012 17:02:


Sorry, happyjew, but there we go again playing the victim. You really do believe that life as 'you' is like a drama where happyjew needs to cross the road...but there are these (pretty) monsters zooming across (dressed as frum but untzniyus girls) that hit him and splat! - he falls. (How many 'lives' do you get? )

Please chaver, consider a different possibility here:

With respect to you and me, these women are doing Hashem's Will. No, they may not be following halocha - or the spirit of Halocha - but for us lookers, that is their business and G-d's business, not mine nor yours.

There is a cute saying in AA that goes like this:

"Poor me, poor me, pour me - a drink!" (it really only works when you say it, not read it... It means that self-pity is one of our great downfalls - even if it is warranted!

The drunks of AA discovered the same thing the Chofetz Chayim zt"l told someone who had 'emunah issues' because of something really bad that happened:

"To the man without faith, there are only questions - but to the man with faith, there are no questions, at all." He did not mean that the believer understands G-d. He means that we are in some respect idiots, and cannot possibly demand or expect to understand G-d nor His Will...except we may get a freebie once in a blue moon.

His Will includes mitzvos, Torah, your status in parnossah, how tall you are, how hot your wife is, how smart your children are, that the low-life broke into Yankle's car last night, and lots of big tzoress, lo aleinu. And it also includes the way that some of the frum girls out there will dress today. It is His Will operating here. And that means it's gonna be OK. That is the 3rd step of the 12 steps. Not 'being perfect in doing His Will' - but depending on and trusting your own G-d, for a change.

You can start to do that. Goyim the world over are doing that (along with working the other 11 steps) in NA, AA, SA, etc. - and staying sober as a result. You can do it, too!

When Dovid haMelech said about Shim'i ben Geira that "Hashem tells him to curse, so he curses" and refused to kill him (even though he was allowed - or perhaps even obligated to - as the melech) - R' Tzvi-Meyer Zilverberg says that the sforim tell us that was the moment when he was made into moshiach. The permanent malchus - the middah of Malchus Shomayim - was clinched to come through him, davka, because he saw G-d's Will in other peoples' behavior. That's the middos of Yesod with Malchus. As the Gr"a teaches, everything that ever will happen and everything that ever existed, is merumaz in the word Bereishis, and even in the first letter - and even in that beis's dagesh. It's what Malchus is - a nekudah.

Let go of the farshtunkener girls. Daven for them three times at least every day, for Hashem to be so good to them and help them get so close to Him. And leave their health - and their clothes - to Him. Otherwise, resenting and complaining about them is like having one of those flashing signs in your head like they have in the red light districts in NY:
"G I R L S ! G I R L S ! G I R L S! "

That will not work....unless that is what you really want. But it seems that you really do want to be free.

I do it, be"H, and you can do it, be"H. I am certainly no better than you! But it only works if you really want to let Him help you - if you really are ready and willing to give up the girls-obsession.

As the Kotzker told his talmidim and chassidim: "G-d only comes in where people let Him in!" So let go and let G-d, brother.

Hatzlocha!

And as far as those who come and say "Hey, what about kol Yisrael areivim?!"...there is a great story with the tzaddik Reb Yoel, the Satmar Rov.

A guy came into his room excitedly telling there was a certain bad thing going on somewhere - "Shouldn't we go and make a big demonstration (hafganah) against it?"

The Rebbe zt"l is said to have answered, "There are two types of kanno'im (zealots). One is like a human, and one is like a cat. Both kill mice. The human kind wants to get rid of mice...but the cat kind just wants more mice to kill. You are the cat kind. And no, we will not go making a demonstration on this particular matter."

Kol Yisrael has it's place - for those qualified to handle it. I and most sex addicts are not qualified. We are oskim b'mitzvah - our sobriety, sanity, and recovery, and the healing of our families - we are potur from another 'mitzvah' - especially as it is a mitzvah that destroys us because of our crazy heads and allergic bodies.

Ah! Where would we be without Dov?


DOV DOV DOV

VAU, THANK YOU DOV!!!

dov wrote on 05 Jun 2012 05:17:


I know these stories get attributed to every one of the great Rebbes
but I believe the story is really attributed to the Brisker Rav

Gesher wrote on 05 Jun 2012 12:52:

Why do you believe you have a monopoly on the truth, Gesher? What is your special source of stories? I heard it was Benjamin Franklin who said it. Or was it the Bardichever?

Probably in India they say it was Ghandi....but they worship rats there, so who cares what they say?

BTW, I got another long, goofy post based off of a good comment by a chaver...any masochists here wanna read it?

(oh, sorry if that was trigerring... :)

To follow:

jewish wrote on 05 Jun 2012 12:27:


Yup, thanks jj. And your humility shines through..now give me a hand and lessons for that. Here goes:

The Sh'lah hakadosh (one of the sforim the ba'al haTanya based his Tanya on) writes that the word "Chazir" literally means "return" or "go back", because by our tikkun for the pig - by not eating it - it will eventually become kosher to eat. That is why G-d gave it some simanei tahara, particularly the outer but not inner ones. The pig is symbolic of Eisav (as the midrash says, Eisav holds up his split hooves and says, "Look! I am kosher!"), and Eisav is symbolic of the Soton - the Yetzer hora itself (as we see that his malach was the Soton in the midrashim about Yaakov wrestling with that "man" by the river).

As sforim tell us, the YH itself acts and talks as though it wants to be listened to and followed by us...but it is really aware that by being listened to it is actually failing in it's mission of helping mankind to get closer to Hashem. That is why it is referred to in Mishlei as an "old foolish king" - it often causes it's own destruction, kind of like a suicidal psychopath.

By not listening to the YH as symbolized by our not listening to/following Eisav, and by us not eating his animal, the chazir, it (Eisav, the YH, and the chazir) get 'fixed'. By "fixed" all that means is that "it did it's job". This state of "having accomplished its mission" is referred to as "becoming kosher".

All this is very nice. But it still misses the point.

************************

My point - the derech that saved (and is still saving) our marriage, my avodas Hashem, and my life - is not tikkun, not Teshuvah, and not any of this religious stuff. What is keeping me sober and in recovery is enlightened self-interest. Hashem is helping me do the things I do not have the ability to do, just as He helps theousands opf goyim the world over. He is giving me sobriety just as He gives it to them. My problem would be the same if I'd be a woman masturbating - they have no sperm so it's not zera levatola, at all - and it would be the same if my drug of choice would be alcohol - there is not issur at all in drinking...and those who say "overdrinking is assur!" are foolish. It is always the aklcoholic trying to limit his drinking and keep it from being overdrinking, that never gets sober.

Issur is not my problem. My problem is the dependence - not what I am dependent on. The dependence ruins my life totally, and in every department and aspect, including of course my yiddishkeit. But that is a side-effect. Let's not confuse the side-effects with the disease/problem itself. The disease itself is addiction. Self-destructive dependence. For yidden it destroys our avodas Hashem, relationships, sanity, and eventually our entire lives. For non-believers it 'just' destroys their relationships, sanity, and eventually their entire lives.

Big difference? I think not.

As such, though issurim are involved, my actual problem is sakanta - not issura. And as the gemora puts it (exactly as AA does), sakanta chamira m'isura" - addiction is far, far more serious and important than issurim are! This is the halocha. And it does not apply to most guys here - for many guys here are not addicts at all! The fact that someone masturbates even though it is very wrong does not make them an addict, of course, any more than getting drunk a couple of times does not make one an alcoholic! No matter how much religious terror anyone tries to spill all over me (such as some have seen in some videos about the issur and damage of zera levatola), they miss the point. The issur is not the issue - the danger to my life and my pain are the only relevant issues. They - not holiness, not the Torah, not the Tanya - are what bring me into recovery. And as such, my recovery probably ends up to be the tikkun of the YH...but that is G-d's business totally. Not at all mine. So I am not concernced with it. The "tikkun" and "Teshuvah" business are just big, sick, distractions from the ikkar - getting and staying sober one day at a time till the day I die.

So the solution for me has actually been to learn how to be saner, rather than how to be 'gooder'. And a big part of being 'saner' is learning how to treat women in the street, my wife, my self, and G-d right. Hashem is helping me learn that one day at a time through the Steps and recovering drunks He has sent me in the meetings I go to regularly.

I have learned how to daven for the women I tend to lust after - that has helped me actually see them as people, not as breasts or candy machines. And it is all because of the pain and suffering I had as a result of my ingrained dependence on them as breasts and candy machines for years and years! As Chaza"l teach us, Hashem says "I sent you 48 prophets and 7 propheteses - and you didn't listen until Acashveirosh gave his ring onto the finger of Haman." Religious and holiness stuff did not work for us - and it certainly did not work for me! So I quit trying to break the wall with my head. It took a lot of humility to accept that. This struggle is so much more 'respectable' when it is seen as an epic struggle between my own power and my yetzer - a nisayon..."will I win and beat it and get all the glory of our tzaddikim who did that?"

My body is the part of me that is addicted - that is why it always wins in the end. So my body needs to be retrained (recover) or I will die. And the body only understands force. Pleasure or Pain. And rolling in the snow or paying big fines will not work. For they are caused by me and not by my addiction, so they do not fool my body! Can't fool the body!

Pain works. Iyov discovered that. Emotional pain was one thing - he lost everything and all his children were killed, R"l - and he still kept 100% right. But when he got a physical pain, tzora'as mam'eres...he broke and "cursed the day he was born". This addiction breaks us. Leiv nishbar. It is the biggest brocha, actually. For then we stop and get help not to start back up again. And all the enlightenment, Torah and yir'as Shomayim, and chizzuk are no substitute for that - for an addict like me. And I always was a 'good guy', even when I was masturbating.

Yes, there are exceptions. Some do quit without the horrible suffering and do get the (always) uncomfortable help they really need in order not to need to start 'drinking' again, and they stay sober and have a new lease on life. But they are few.

All the best, chaver, and sorry for the long answer. If anything I wrote upset or insulted you in any way c"v, please forgive me and let me know. BTW, I still do not know your real name, so I do not really know who I am talking to! But my real name is:

- Dov

joe wrote on 31 May 2012 21:14:




hey joe... i know this is not the place to say but when i send a personal message to u it says u cant/dont wana recieve it or something like that....

so now that i kinda understand that...whats the reason why their husbands WANT/LIKE them to go out like that??

happyjew wrote on 07 Jun 2012 14:08:


Can I ask my own question. How will knowing the answer to this help you in your recovery. There will always be people that are not dressed tzniusdig and we all have to learn how to control our own lives around them regardless of why they dress the way they do. Much hatzlacha

happyjew wrote on 04 Jun 2012 17:02:

Um... Yes.
I like to quote Rav Berkowitz.
"The most important thing for a Yid is a relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam."
Rabeinu Yona: (paraphrased)
A Yid will speak to Hashem. If he does it on his own, well and goo, if not, Hashem will create tzaros so that he will be forced to. As it says: צרה ויגון אמצה ובשם ד' אקרא, & כוס ישועות אשא ובשם ד' אקרא.
The day I 'discovered' this was the first day of the rest of my life.
B'Ahava,
Meir

It seems you have ignored the heartfelt advice of a friendly fellow above:

dov wrote on 04 Jun 2012 20:54:


Good luck.