Sorry this is a megillah. But it is Rosh Hashonoh so forgive me!
Dr.Watson wrote:
The only area of avodas Hashem I've been working on this past year is porn and masturbation. I know how bad this aveiroh is and I felt like nothing else mattered for much if I'm still masturbating...etc.
...And now we're coming to rosh hashona and I'm scared of what Hashem will think of me....etc.
...In feel like the battle-lines of avodas Hashem have moved inwards and surround me very closely, almost trapping me....etc.
...I want to roll up my sleeves and get to work but I don't know where to start to really make a difference.
The Divrei Chayim hakodosh writes that the best derech of general avodah is to work on mizvos, not aveiros. He writes: "with the rise of the kodesh, the tomei will fall away."
Now, how to apply that?
Ignore aveiros? Never do teshuvah on them? What if we are sinning like crazy? And lying and faking to everyone in our lives, too? Keep right on doing it and just keep learning?
And what about the breaking of the luchos? Many hold that the ikkar reason that Moshe rabbeinu broke them was to show Bnei Yisroel in the eyes that "No, you
can't serve avodah zora and do pritzus
and Hashem, too!" So what about the Tzanzer Rov's suggestion?
OK. First back to the reality for many of us: recovery; and a suggestion to answer the above be"H, at least with respect to recovery:
I want to share some thoughts about your personal situation, Doc. Thoughts that are not so comfortable to say (
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/shocked.png)
Hey, what's new?
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/whistling.png)
), so please don't strangle me.
Thanks.
It's obvious that you sincerely want to be an eved Hashem, but I suggest that you were really not dealing directly with avodas Hashem in your past year. It seems to me that at some point you decided that your status as a good Jew was defined by your pornlessness and that all the rest of your real avodas Hashem
must be put on hold until you are tahor from the porn and sex with self. When you did that, you switched from serving Hashem - to serving your own image of who you wanted to be. That is not avodas Hashem, but avodas atzmo. It is self-serving. "Hashem would be served, sure -
after I satisfy myself!"
I suggest learning how to serve Hashem without any self-respect at all. Just let go of self a bit. Hachno'oh. Yes, that may indeed be a bad starting point for a normal Jewish child or ba'al Teshuvah - but I think it is a fine starting point for an addict. Perhaps it is
the only starting point for us frum, chronic masturbaters and porners.
Surely, in order to serve Him, Hashem does not need you to be a tzaddik (or even
not a rosho). He has plenty nachas from plenty of losers. And I apply the Tzanzer's teaching this way: Do good, and the bad will fall away. Focus on positive sobriety - living sober rather than on 'not looking'; on taking actions of love toward the precious people in my life and toward Hashem and toward myself - and the garbage will fall by the wayside. Road-kill. It is a good path for the losers like me, for addicts.
Think it over with Hashem's help. Daven over it. Ask Him to help you,
no matter what you 'owe' Him.
Is this making any sense to anybody here?
The posuk says "
Rabim mach'ovim lorosho - v'haboteyach baShem, Chessed y'sov'venhu", and Chaza"l ask why the posuk compares a rosho with a boteyach baShem and not with the more obvious opposite - 'tzaddik'? They answer that the end of the posuk is also referring to a rosho, and they (incredibly) say: "
afilu rosho, uboteyach baShem - Chessed yisov'venhu"! In other words, Hashem loves the rosho who trusts Him, even (obviously!) imperfectly. Chessed is Love. As R' Shlomo of Karlin said referring to the Maggid, "I wish I loved the generation's greatest tzaddik a fraction of how much Hashem loves the generation's worst rosho." See Tomer Devorah for more on this general idea.
Chessed
cannot be deserved -
by definition. If Chessed (love) is given or gotten because it is deserved, then it is just reward...and that's Din. That's not Chessed at all, but actually the opposite of it. Right?
So...the Divrei Chayim hakodosh is surely right. Hashem does not need us to
deserve to serve Him. We serve him as tzaddikim, as beinonim, and if we are c"v resho'im (which we surely are not) - we can serve Him, too.
It's just impossible for a screwed-up person like me to survive at all in early recovery with a focus on getting cleaned up, on being fixed. Yet that's all many people with our struggle do! They want to figure it all out and beat it, they want to change now so that 'I will never want to use porn again!', Teshuvah is not enough - they need, absolutely demand of themselves that they are the RMB"M's 'ba'al Teshuvah gemurah. One who Hashem Himself bears witness that he will never return to this sin again. Oy vei, where is humility? Where is hachno'oh? Not there. It's avodah derech atzmo, not direct avodas hashem. It's childish self-serving avodah...and we
all have called it 'avodas Hashem'. And it does not work.
OK. So to end, I will say that your posts have shown a different Dr Watson. No, you may have not 'made the grade', and have not won the fight. But you are clearly a growing person and have come a long way.
That is clear.
Have a great Rosh Hashonoh. And may we sweet losers, Hashem's most loved children, all leave the next year completely and totally to Hashem. He will make it just, just right. He knows we want to be good. It's hard not to cry when saying that.
Hope that was not melodramatic, dear Doc.