This thread is hereby marked for a Dovish Air Force (DAF) nuclear strike..

take cover...

Thanks everyone for the warm support.
I found the website of Dr. Sorotzkin, these two articles shed a lot of light on this discussion, especially for FFB's
http://drsorotzkin.com/bechira.html
http://drsorotzkin.com/pdf/pursuit_of_perfection.pdf

Just a random Q. if som1 dose an aveyro you feel really bad about it after...Is that feeling just the guilty consence that you have done something you have been thought all you life you are not allowed or is it a deeper feeling like your neshama crying...??? i just think about it sometimes and would love to get an answer from som1 who was not brought up like that ! i wish you loads of hazloche on your path to sucsess...

I was brought up frum, too - but maybe both our true! When we do an aveirah, our neshama cries. But very often, we're not in touch with that - it's only when we start to become aware of the value of our actions, that we realize that certain things are wrong.

But, there's a third option - the yetzer hora can make us feel bad so that we'll get depressed, and fall even further.

Our job is to focus on getting healthy again, not on regret. Remember, even in halacha, "azivas hachet" comes before "charata"...

As a rule of thumb, if you want to know of a feeling of regret or pain over aveiros - is real and sincere, notice your attitude towards the future.
If you have a strong desire to correct everything and do as much as you can to make up for it - then oh baby is it real.
If your reaction is "I'm such a rasha (evil low person) that there's no use in me doing mitzvos" And the feeling does not drive you to correct your misdeed - then it is the evil inclination in the clever disguise of 'regret over sins'. And naturally, you should completely disregard that feeling.

help613 wrote on 31 Dec 2009 17:11:


Excellent Question! See the Nesivos Shalom in Chizuk e-mail #341 on this page (scroll down to get to #341).