Yes please, I am looking for people with a positive perspective on this...

Interestingly, last night I was thinking about who might be good to listen to on this Inyon...

I thought that R' Kelerman would be a good place to start, was planning on pursuing it...

In regards to your image of Hashem, see what Dov posted here.

Attach yourself to Bardichev

guardureyes wrote on 06 Mar 2010 18:23:


Thanks..

I read it like 3 times, not really sure what he's saying...

Yup, that's how you know it's Dov!  :D :D

Just kidding - his stuff is really truly deep...the more i learn from him, the more I respect him. And I respected him quite a bit at the beginning, too!

It definitely sounds like he knows what he's talking about....

I PM'd him, hope he responds one day

Just finished a shiur from R' Leib Kelerman (Thanks SilentBattle...)....

He had an interesting take:

1. Judaism is not a Religion, it's a Relationship!

2. In a relationship the more you give , the more you love...

3. G-d wants us to be able to have a loving relationship with him, therefore he gave us Mitzvos etc...... so that we can give to him, and thus create a deep relationship with him......

The thing I don't get yet is:

How can we give to G-d?
G-d doesn't get anything when we do a mitzva.....

Also I wish he would've given a source, does anyone know where it says what he was saying?

Gotta think this whole thing over....

P.s. I just realized that in Nach there is so much about our relationship with G-d being a Love Relationship.

Shir Hashirim, Aishes Chayil (which is said to be talking about the Torah...)

If we guys here all have a strong need for Connection/Love Etc., Can we perhaps channel that towards G-d?

I have no clue how that would work.... or even if it is a correct approach....

One thing is sure though, G-d is not a frustrating, confusing Entity who's main preocupation and interest is punishing people for their sins.... (A quote from Dov's post..)

He created this world to Give, and to give to Us....
Punishment I think was created as a tool for Us to use in our battle...

It is not there to make life more complicated, or make us suffer....

Debilitating fear is useless...

What do you guys say....?

Dont know what the guys say, but this gal says 'right on'!

Tatty loves you more than you can ever imagine.
And He is waiting for you to search, and find Him

trying123 wrote on 07 Mar 2010 11:48:


www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Tips/baalhasulam.asp

guardureyes wrote on 06 Mar 2010 18:23:
Dear IT25,
Ditto - I'm crazy about Yechida's quote of the Holy Barditchever's words to that guy. How lucky he was to have heard that from the peh tahor!
There were a few nice interchanges some fellas and I had a few months ago about how childhood, friendships, marriage, and parenting, are a progression/continuum that was made specifically to help Hashem's children eventually grow into having the kind of relationship they will need to have with Hashem - especially at the end of their days here. Cuz that's all there really is (please see the "Bilvavi" series for more on this).

Nu, getting to your business, whatever I have in terms of a relationship with Hashem is "home-grown", meaning: born naturally out of  living sober, rather than anything I specifically or consciously "worked on".  And my tools are using the steps in a chevra of others using them, to bumble through Life with G-d's help. His credentials are quite good  : so I ask Him for help frequently through the day, remember that I can't hide anything from Him, and accept that He has nothing more important to do than to help me - or He wouldn't have made me at all! He certainly wasn't forced to make me!
In fact, "working on myself" is not really in my lexicon any more. Good living brings these things out and seems to cause automatic growth in every single department of my life and in every relationship. Bad living makes me so miserable that I get the heck out of it whenever I start living poorly (that is, strictly for myself and in myself)! Self-focused living is like a vacuum cleaner - it sucks. ;D

It seems to me that ego deflation is a big part of it...maybe the biggest part. In other words, the old way of "working on myself" - and always looking back to see if tzidkus, tahara, middos tovos...was catching up on me yet, simply doesn't work for me at all. In fact, it's poisonous for me. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that consciously working on one's self in a measured fashion is a valid derech of yidishkeit and was probably used successfully in one style or another by bazzillions of our forebears for hundreds of years in europe and elsewhere. It's not the flavor I get from medrashim and s'forim about earlier generations, though, but what do I know?
Well, what I know is that it screws me up when I try to use that derech. It puts me at the center, not Hashem. It quite possibly helped to create this addict. Please forgive my frankness, but there is no one I know who has himself at the center of his universe more than me in that trance, staring at schmutz or masturbating. And I believe that anyone who has done that r"l knows exactly what I mean. Do you? It's all - the entire desperate lusting experience - about "me", isn't it?  What feels more "real" or more "powerful" than that? No wonder! That's what makes it so consumingly consuming! Nebach.
Got me so far?
So, "all about me" - like acting out on lust - means no apparent connection with my Shoresh at all, no apparent connection with other people, and no apparent connection with Hashem. I'm "on my own". Good luck. It's the curse of the nachash (S'fas Emess: He has food everywhere so he's "on his own"!) - while Adam got a "curse" of a choosing between more sufferring on his own (lots of weeds) or more dependence on Hashem. Choosing the nachash's way - to go it alone (with my lust "friends"!) - leads to hell on earth, eventually.
Nu. What can we do? It's sure is hard to convince anyone that they can really find whatever they are looking for in Hashem, so most of us need to lose stuff, first. It's not a punishment, challilah - it's just the Truth: there's nothing - really -  there! That "powerful", "vital" experience I have with me and my porn...it's useless. A mighty scary realization, if you ask me! I depended for so long on isolating with my schmutz when the going got really tough! When we see that with our own eyes, it changes the game. The shmuessen may not help. We need "Toh Chazi", not "Toh Shma", it seems.


Oops, I went on and on again, and Purim is over! What I am trying to lead to is this: If you are having a tough time getting to Hashem, take a tough and honest look at what you are really still hanging onto instead of Him. There is no shame here. We know that many of us hang onto money, food, other people, whatever...they serve them instead of Hashem. They can get away with that and remain essentially good, frummeh yidden.
But not us. We can't afford to play that game. At least we can't tolerate it as well as normals can.
And this is "working" step 2.
As a result of working step 2 out of the need to remain sober at all costs, I have begun to find a relationship with Hashem that goes with me everywhere. Even under my blankets on a cold morning when I feel like crapola and don't want to do anything! Even when I slip into self-absorption and self-pity. Even when life hurts like crazy.....I can still be with Him, talk to Him and He can help me be useful to Him and to people! Because He is at least nearer to the center of "my universe," now.
Have a nice day and I hope this helped you with something, IT25.

PS. Though the 12-step program seems like a self-centered way to work on yourself, it's not. It's a way to allow G-d to work on me. It gets me out of His way, that's all. Those folks who work the steps like another "self-help program" are no suprise to me. They are doing self-help - but the Program is G-d-help! It's about starting to do His Will for His sake rather than for s'char/not getting punished/being happy/whatever, and it's about being useful to people. And while my motivation may be my own survival, I don't consider the basic survival instinct selfish...sorry.

PPS. I am, of course, 'all for' the yeshiva experience, mussar, and us Jewish people working on ourselves. But I feel that for an addict that may need to be tweaked quite a bit by slowly but surely shifting the entire motivation to G-d and for helping other people. Anything but my personal desires of kin'ah, ta'ava, or kavod, basically. And no, there may be no way to know which kids are getting screwed up by the self-centeredness of the whole thing, vs. who's thriving. Perhaps the really smart people need to get together and talk this one over. It's way over my head.
[But I would put a stop to those silly mirrors for "checking tefilin" (take a peek and watch if the bochur then checks his face out ;)!) and to the GQ-ish business of dressing nuveau-yeshivish. Maybe I'm just a judgemental old fool, (I am!) but to me, those shinanigans may easily [i]replace[/i] our bochur's fledgling concern for pnimius with the quite natural (stupid) teenage motivation for  chitzonius. Yakity yak-yak...   

trying123, I think you are raising very important issues. I can fully relate to what you going through, for years  I had a paralyzing fear that whenever I did an avaira, especially  spilling seed, Hashem would get extremely angry with me and consider me  an evil murderer. I would lie in bed crying out of despair. I think there are a lot of people who from a young age suffer through this fear silently.

I think this attitude makes it really difficult for frum people to overcome sexual addiction.
An alcoholic will not have the same paralyzing guilt that sexually addicted people have because there are such strong Torah sources condemning sexual sins.
A few years ago I spoke to a rav about spilling seed, he talked to me a lot about what I see Hashem as
And that my problem was that I view Hashem as “Godzilla” I thought that this was not my problem but after a lot of thinking I realized  that deep down my bad attitude about Hashem was  the cause of a lot of my problems.

I read lot of Rabbi David Aaron’s books he deals directly with your questions. I highly recommend you get hold of his books, they have really help me a lot check out some of his shuirim over here http://www.simpletoremember.com/authors/a/free-kabbalah-mp3s/

Relationships take time to build, the same is true with our relationship with Hashem .
I constantly focus on the fact that Hashem has more compassion on us then we have on ourselves,
Ponder and meditate on that! When we feel alone and depressed Hashem feels more compassion on us that we do on ourselves.
It is of infinite importance that we instill Hashem’s love in our hearts then we can strive for purity with happiness and, sincerity.  and if we fall we will not feel that Godzilla is going to torture us in hell for our evil acts of rebellion, instead we will have a loving father eagerly and compassionately helping us stand tall
And slowly but surely become conscious of Hashems infinite oneness that’s filled with love.

Wow I am so pumped that Dov replied and also welcome R' Happy...

Happy is something I like (I think.... :-\ :-\) but I definitely like you :D

ANY WAY

I have a 12 step meeting starting soon gotta run...

I talked to hashem for maybe the first time in quiet a while....

Just said "I pray that G-d in his infinate wisdom and vast kindness help me be able to have some type of relationship with him..."

not sure if this makes sense... and it felt so wierd....

Gotta run but I'll keep everyone posted (just just thought I should calm down all the guys that can't wait to hear ffrom me.... :-\)

The meeting I went to was canceled....
But I was home all day; going to it got me out and going...

I realized that I am very hesitant to embrace G-d, because then I gotta constantly face him...

I can't do it.... I can't have him breathing down my neck... (Yikes, didn't mean it like that....)

I am not enough on the right path to have all my actions done with G-d's company...

I mean what will I tell myself when I:

Miss Davening...
Miss Shema...
Don't learn...
(Miss Tefilin... Yikes :-[  :-[ :-[, that hurts...)
Watch a movie...
Don't Bench...

I mean ye, I know that these things are wrong but I am simply not up to it...

(I am trying to take a gradual approach to Judaism... I was told by my Frum therapist that I need to... I am certain that I can't tackle all those stuff now, and if you doubt it... PM me and I"ll explain...)

But I can't have the feeling that G-d is right there in mid-action of all my well not so ok stuff...

OY Vey... Please chevra don't send me on a guilt trip here... not good for me.....

Peace and Love Holy Friends....

P.s I left out brothers or Guys...  (one for you 7up...;) ;) ;))

guardureyes wrote on 07 Mar 2010 20:29:



I read through your link....

He says to be a taker, and enjoy, but not for yourself; but for G-d....
My little brain doesn't get how in Gehenims name that's possible...

And he does say that, this concept is for someone who fasts the whole week...

I'd get too hungry too quickly...  ;D

Not my style...
These really lofty stuff scares me :o > ??? (still trying to figure out which emoticon to use :-\)

But thanks for checking in, R' Guard

[quote="Tried-123" link=topic=1899.msg56861#msg56861 date=1268020497]
I mean what will I tell myself when I:

Miss Davening...
Miss Shema...
Don't learn...
(Miss Tefilin... Yikes :-[  :-[ :-[, that hurts...)
Watch a movie...
Don't Bench...

I mean ye, I know that these things are wrong but I am simply not up to it...
[/quote]

I suggest reading through this page: www.guardyoureyes.org/?p=296