Thanks!!!

I'm thinking of just asking to be on the balbatim forum. There's no new info about sex I'm going to learn. Unfortunately I need a 'de-knowledging' not any more knowledge. Yes, on the specifics of Jewish intimacy too. I did a lot of halachic, biological, neurological, and behavioral research. (I'm ADHD and very compulsive, so whenever I have a question I research till I found out the answer, wherever it might be) I've in a funny/weird way heard 10s of more chosson & kallah shmuezzen then most people married for years. Its a weird little piece of info I'm sharing here. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that a part of me is compulsive, especially sexually. But hay their are some benefits too. Gaining some knowledge. Maybe ill be able to do something one day with it. As I'm sharing how compulsive i am on this public forum anonymously, I'm blushing and just hoping nobody judges me and everyone can still accept me. If anyone has reassurance, that would be really caring.

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:07:

Eerie Responded,
Hi my good friends! I don't think you were hijacking my thread, as the discussion came from what I posted, which was my point. I want people to see the damage done by these things. I would add, that I mentioned many times that I'm a very emotional person, I think even more than my wife. Many times when people see the things we've seen, coupled with the fact that men are more physically based and women are more emotionally based, it causes trauma on the part of the wife. In m case, I think that the fact that I'm a very emotional person, and I have a marriage with a very strong emotional connection, I think that it limited the damage a lot. But I want to point out that there still is damage. I am very disturbed about that. I always knew that I shouldn't be watching etc. but I didn't realize that it would influence the dynamics of my marriage. And that bothers me very much. Maybe I'm a little obsessive as well, but I think about a lot these days, and it really disturbs me. My wife is very sheltered and I am so upset that I brought in things that don't belong. I did things she didn't really enjoy. And I hope that people reading this will realize that what they see there is not the normal way people connect. It is not the way a human being connects to his spouse. Every wife has her choice of deciding what she likes, but what's there is not the natural way. I hope that some people will learn from my mistake and spare themselves and their marriages the trauma. 
About your feelings, HB, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I teach my family all the time, the only thing you have to be embarrased of is if you did something wrong. the way Hashem wired your brain is not something you did. It's similar to desire. I, and most bachurim I think, and some married guys, used to think that I am bad because I desire things. But that plain false. desire was created by Hashem, and there's nothing wrong with me that I desire things. What IS up to me is to control those desires. What is up to you is to do what you can to help yourself, and although I don't know you from the way you write you seem to be a very intelligent fellow, so I'd assume you are doing what you can to be able to live a productive life in the service of Hashem. My friend, you remain unjudged. Keep sharing your insightful posts with us, here or anywhere!

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:14:

Cordnoy responded to Eerie
I generally do not talk Torah on this site and I certainly do not weigh in on philosophical nuanced stuff, however....

The Torah says: Lo sachmod, accordin' to many that means: do not covet/desire thin's that are not yours or that are wrong.

I am addicted to lots of stuff. I have acted upon those addictions as well. It is my responsibility to fix both those thin's. I may not equate the two and I may be more guilty of one more than the other, but even if God gave me those desires, which I have no way of knowin', He still would rather that I work on them somehow.

Yes, the Ibn Ezra, beis halevi, and more.

Godspeed to all

Eerie wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:15:

Eerie responded to Cordnoy
dear cordnoy, just wanting somebody else's stuff is not an aveirah. One is oiver only if he forces the owner to give it to him or somehow forces the situation to get what he wants. That said, it is not a middah toiva to covet somebody else's things. here we are discussing a different desire altogether. We are talking about sexual desire, which is not among the things the Torah says to eradicate from your heart. Of course, one must not harp on those desires or think  about them in a way that he grows those desires. That's part of what I meant when I wrote that what IS my job is to control those desires. Not only control from doing terrible things, but also to do my best to not cultivate that desire and cause it to grow. As much as possible to not think about it. Not look at things that are triggers. Also, we are talking here about the feeling that many people have that desire makes them bad, and that is not true. The desire is not something that they bring upon themselves, so it in no way defines them. and whatever desire is there naturally is not something that one must get rid of. I would love to hear what you have to say

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:17:

Human being responded to Cordnoy
I don't think that would apply to sexual desire that cant just get worked on and "fixed".

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:21:

Cordnoy responded to human being
Covetin' your fellow's wife sounds pretty sexual to me.

Eerie wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:17:

Cordnoy responded to Eerie
Your first two sentences are both wrong. In the second sentence, you are mixin' up "lo sachmod" with a chamsan.

human being responded to Cordnoy
It doesn't mean to eradicate the desire. We cant eradicate feelings. That's just not how feelings work. We cant get up one day and decide we dont want a desire and then work on it and it goes away. It means to reach a state of not triggering the desire and not never giving in to the desire. -in my opinion. (The hashkafa given over to me) Same with anger. We don't control our feelings. We cant just decide "hay I'm not going to feel anger" It means if we don't try to avoid triggers and give in to the desire to be angry. As it says 

ר"ש בן אלעזר אומר משום חילפא בר אגרא שאמר משום ר' יוחנן בן נורי המקרע בגדיו בחמתו והמשבר כליו בחמתו והמפזר מעותיו בחמתו יהא בעיניך כעובד ע"ז שכך אומנתו של יצה"ר היום אומר לו עשה כך ולמחר אומר לו עשה כך עד שאומר לו עבוד ע"ז והולך ועובד

R’ Shimon Ben Elazar said in the name of Chilfa bar Agra, who said in the name of R’ Yochanan Ben Nuri: One who tears his clothing in anger, or who smashed vessels in his anger, or who scatters money in his anger - he should be in your eyes like an idolater. For this is the way of the Yetzer Hara: Today it tells him to do this, and tomorrow it tells him to do that, until it tells him to worship idolatry, and he goes and worships.

torah.org/torah-portion/ravfrand-5770-yisro/   -one of the many pshatim in lo sachmod.Parshas Yisro“Lo Sachmod”: Two Approaches

These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissocher Frand’s Commuter Chavrusah Tapes on the weekly portion: Tape # 712, The Kiddush Club. Good Shabbos!

The tenth of the Asserres HaDibros [“Ten Commandments”] is Lo Sachmod: “Do not covet your neighbor’s house; do not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his slave, his donkey, his ox, or anything that belongs to your neighbor” [Shemos 20:13]. A person is not allowed to be jealous of his friend’s possessions.

The Ibn Ezra wonders how the Torah can legislate against a person’s desires. It is very natural for a person driving a jalopy to be jealous of a person who has a new car and does not have to worry about leaking oil and whether the car will start each time he turns the key in the ignition. If this is readily understandable in terms of our neighbor’s car, it is certainly understandable in terms of more meaningful things in life. We see their families, we see their position, etc., etc. How does the Torah command a person not to be jealous?

The Ibn Ezra cites a parable which allows us to understand the proper approach to the prohibition of not coveting: No commoner ever thinks he will marry the princess. He knows that the princess is out of his league. It is human nature that one only has desires for things he can relate to. A person does not covet things which are so far removed from him that he considers them to be “out of his league”. When the villager goes into the big city and sees the King’s palace and sees the King’s beautiful daughter, he does not even think “Oh, I wish I could marry her.” He knows that such an occurrence is strictly beyond the realm of possibility in terms of his lineage and background. It is just not going to happen.

The Ibn Ezra says that an intelligent person must realize that people do not acquire spouses or possessions based on their wisdom or cleverness, but only based on the Will of G-d to grant him such. If a person has a beautiful house or car or wife, it is because the Almighty wanted him to have that. For whatever reason, it is G-d’s Will that Reuven have these things and Shimmon not have them. The antidote a person must employ to avoid coveting, says Ibn Ezra, is Emunah [faith]. Namely, the faith that all his possessions are what G-d wants him to have and all of his neighbor’s possessions are what G-d wants his neighbor to have.

Aka Hashem wants us to work on avoiding triggering the anger/lust. Not "fixing it" and taking it away. If anger/lust does get triggered, we cant just "fix" them. All we can do is work on the triggers.

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:28:

Cordnoy responded to human being
Thanks for writin' the Ibn Ezra I mentioned, you then went and corrupted what he said with your explanation in the last paragraph.

Human being wrote on 07 Dec 2022 21:30:

Human being responded to Cordnoy
That is the hashkafa i was given over by my rabbeam. Those highlighted texts show the ibn ezra telling us not to trigger the desire. Not to destroy the desire.

"bego" post=389019 date=1670325907 catid=19


Bego responded to human being
The Ibn Ezra doesn't say what you said. Cords is right.

Jackthejew Responded to human being
From the APA (American Pediatric Association) website on CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

CBT is based on several core principles, including:

1. Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.
2. Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.
3. People suffering from psychological problems can learn better ways of coping with them, thereby relieving their symptoms and becoming more effective in their lives.

From Psychologytools.com:
 The ‘CBT way’ of understanding emotions says that what we feel is a result of what we think and how we act. It suggests that if our goal is to man- age how we are feeling then we will need to make changes in our thinking and behavior. CBT has a repertoire of techniques for exploring and changing the ways we think and act.

Chancy wrote in reply to the topic.
We have gone widlely off topic here. 
Coveting or ' Lo Sachmod' is one of the hardest things to understand, there are many explanations to what the Torah means by that? because even the Ibn Era doesnt really answer the question, how does Hashem want someone to stop desiring? even after understanding that its not mine, a thought is a thought and the Torah has never explicitly forbidden thoughts only on Idol Worship. So how come this is different? I dont know the answer to that. 
But cords, what are you saying that we are suppose do do? shoot ourselves in the head? 

chancy wrote on 06 Dec 2022 16:45:

Cordnoy responded to Chancy
Thank you.

The first thin' we must do is not warp or distort what the Torah or the commentators say (I'm not sayin' to agree or follow or whatever, just misconstruin' them is not justifiable.)

The Ibn Ezra does attempt to answer the question, Beis Halevi and others as well, but it's a difficult task.

We need to live life, so figure out what works. I have at times, but other times, not so much.

Godspeed to you

Eerie Posted on the topic
Yes, we have gone wildly off topic, but we have some things to clear up here.

I guess I wasn’t clear enough with what I meant when I differentiated between the desires. Allow me to explain. First of all, The rambam writes in Sefer hamitzvos-my translation- (lo saseh 265), "The Torah has commanded us not to do anything (לעשות תחבולות) in order to buy something that our friend has…and these are the words of the mechilta “one might think that if he covets with words alone he is oiver, the pasuk says…so, too, here he is only oiver if he does an action. We see from here that this lav is warning us from resorting to actions that will bring us the thing that we covet." עד כאן לשון הרמב"ם

It is very clear that one is only oiver lo sachmoid if he does actions to get the thing he covets, and coveting alone is not lo sachmoid. You were right that I was referring to the din of chamsan, but that is lo sachmoid, they are not separate things. That being said, the Rambam in the next aveirah lists lo sis’aveh, which he explains to mean to desire someone else’s thing and he goes on to explain that the difference between lo sachmoid and lo sis’aveh is that lo sis’aveh is referring to coveting somebody else’s thing in your heart. The Rambam explains clearly that the reason why the torah forbade coveting in our hearts is because the desire in our heart for somebody else’s thing will bring us to steal or force him to sell it. In the technical sense, (and all halachos of the Torah have technical parameters), the issur of lo sachmoid and lo sis’aveh are only when coveting somebody else’s thing, and the Torah commands us to work on ourselves to eradicate that desire. The Ibn Ezra expains how to work on it, be it from the angle of Bitachon, or the Bais Halevi's way, but again, the Torah is referring to desiring somebody else's things. When I pointed out that we are discussing sexual desires I was not saying that sexual desires are untouchable, I was saying that when it is not desiring somebody else's things then it is not lo sachmoid. You seem to be very bothered when people twist the Torah's words, and rightfully so. But where does it say that desiring something forbidden is lo sachmoid? It seems you went a little far with it. Now, we can possibly extrapolate that the Torah wants us to work on our desiring specific things that are assur to us. And there are ways to do that, along the lines of the Ibn ezra and the Bais Halevi or otherwise. But that would definitely not be the issur of lo sachmoid in a technical sense. The Rambam in shemone perakim, where he discusses which is greater, having a desire and overcoming it or not having a desire, differentiates between eishes ish and other arayos. He writes that for an eishes ish a person should not have a desire, as he should realize that it is totally off limits,(the Rambam includes it in the list of the mitzvos she'haseichal m'chaivon, which he says one should not desire) but with other arayos it is natural to have a desire, and the Torah wants you to  overcome it. The Rambam seems to indicate that there is no din to eradicate the desire of things that are assur but are not wrong from a logical standpoint. Another important point is that many times I, and I'm sure others, think we are bad because of the desire in and of itself, not desiring something which is clearly assur, but just plain feeling the urges within. That desire, which is something that we all have, and must have in order for the continuation of the world, is something we must all learn to control. But the desire, drive, base urge, that is not something that we find the Torah wants us to eradicate. Work on not desiring forbidden things? Yes. Lo sachmoid? I don't see it. Work on controling our desires? Absolutely. 

Sorry if I wrote too many g's:)