ovadia wrote on 01 Sep 2010 08:57:


Yiddishkeit is very sweet!    Darcheha darkei noam.



May you be zoche to speedily reach the stage of Vihi noam Hashem aleinu..... Lachzos b'noam Hashem.

It doesn't start that way, but you will get there! May Hashem lead you to it quickly & easily!

Funny, I was just thinking of this during tefila this morning. (I know, I shouldn't be wandering, but at least it was about tefila and not shtuss.)

I believe HKBH wants us to have a close and fun (!) relationship with Him. And He would like nothing better than to reward our attempts to be closer. Think of a Master and a dog (l'havdil elev havdalos).
> Do we chase His stick because our grandfather did and it's in our DNA (how pointless we'd feel about it)?
> Or do we chase the stick because He is ordering us to and we have no choice (how exhausting and unfulfilling!).
> Maybe we chase the stick because we want to make Him happy but we simply drop it at His feet and run away for another round (how disconnected from Him).
> Or, the highest level, maybe we chase it because He wants us to, and we bring it back to Him personally, and hand it over, and brush up against His leg, and look up with a little tail wag and a bark, and wait for Him to reward the act of love and subservience with a smile, a treat, and another toss of the stick showing that we're still His top dog.

(Similarly, quoting R' Shiefer (sp) of The Shmuz, if the stick hits us should we be mad at the STICK, or should we look for the loving reason the Master has hit us with the stick. Maybe to stop us from running into the swamp or something....)

Anyhow, I bet the dog who can bring love and closeness into the relationship will find a Master who's just itching to reward him more than any other dog.

Am I even coherent in this....?

I don’t know what yidishkiet is, but I now know that it is not about feeling good. 


yiddishkite

is about serving Hashem


who can serve Hashem?

HUMANS

now being Jewish gives you an edge

for 2 reasons

#1 you get the instruction book the Torah(rambam shilchan aruch etc)

#2 you dna has it patterned in fro our forfathers and even you own parents and grandparents


but lets go back to HUMANS

Humans run on two tracks one is specific calulated thought and the other is emotional feeling that involves no rationalizing


as long as you are Human you will FEEL things

love hate fear graditude lonliness happiness inferior  fear  excitement etc etc

humans crave enjoyment

yup we do

HASHEM made us that way

your job as a jew is to find enjoyment in your serving HASHEM

oh its not so easy

why?

there is an obstacle course out there

set up by HASHEM to "challange" you

so you will have to actually work hard

that is also a Human thing

that we only "enjoy" what we actually work for

so my good chaver

why is it so difficult??

aha!!  you will only find the enjoyment AFTER you worked worked worked without any feeling

of enjoyment or success

keep on trucking

bardichev

Hmmm....As long as we try to live a double life, then indeed, trying to connect with hashem in any real way will hurt, and make us feel miserable.

If you can get to the point where you feel comfortable not acting out; where you realize that that is truly who you are, and the other voice in your head isn't you...then you will feel good. You're feel happy, and proud, and satisfied.

It's there, and you can reach it.

Guys, sorry for the mantra.

• Another day. Just one more day.
• PLEASE HASHEM HELP ME KEEP ON TRUCKING JUST TODAY.
• Recovery is the most important thing in my life.
• Yiddishkiet is not about feeling good.

Thank you all for your responses.

Barditchev I feel privileged that I was zoche to a shmooz. (BTW is there any significance in what the Rebbe writes in lower case letters or upper case letters?)

Briut I would appreciate it if you could clarify your point.

SB as always you put across the point beautifully and concisely. (BTW Mazel tov. I am sorry but when you got engaged I think that I was not posting very much).

I would like to clarify a bit more of what I think is for me a major change in my way of thinking.

When I get the urge, besides for the actual physical feeling that I want or need to fulfill I have another instinct. For a while I might tell myself, that it is wrong, not worth it etc, but eventually I give in, not necessarily because the urge is so strong but because the inner struggle wears me out emotionally and I find myself saying “just do it, get it over with and then you will calm down”. (I am sure that this is nothing new to anyone and BTW Rav Dessler ZT”L warns against fighting the Y”H head on and so it says in the Attitude Handbook No.15)

I remember years ago making a conscious decision in these areas that instead of tearing myself apart and anyway failing it is better for me to give in to the nisayon and remain calm. I am also the type of person that has a natural tendency to feel that this world is not for enjoyment so when after the Aveira I would feel that I am going to be punished, go to hell I think that it actually made me feel that my relationship with HaShem had become enhanced.

It was only two days ago that I realized thanks to Dov, that absurdly I am able to daaven better on a day that I had act out than on I day which I had struggled.

Well, is there anything more perverted than that??!!

Very insightful....

I find something similar by myself: I feel dead when I don't have what to worry about!!
Worry has had me so busy for so many years that life without it is dull.....

I am slowly learning how to enjoy calmness and constructive stress.....

Another day, another week.

Slichos, mikva, daavening, feels really spiritual. Right?

Wrong.

On the way to work, walking through the pritzus. Bad sights everywhere. Feels really treif. The bus. Surrounded by pritzus. Having to tear my eyes away. Not much of a spiritual feeling. No shtieging here. Even if I tear my eyes away, but I have already “seen”!! Right?

Wrong again.

Yiddishkiet is not about feeling good.

Ribono Shel Oilam. Only You know which one is the emmes....... ליודע מחשבות

PLEASE HASHEM HELP ME TO KEEP ON GOING.

ovadia wrote on 02 Sep 2010 08:28:
Okay, thanks for your curiosity and my apologies for forgetting to add a nimshal.

I was just trying to say that our relationship with our Master could be seen as sorta like a pet (dog?) and his master. Some dogs will chase the stick because they feel compelled to, even against their conscious desire. Some dogs will chase out of obligation but they'll quickly get exhausted and disinterested. I wanna be the dog who loves doing it, who knows the stick is the Master's, and wants to use the game to get closer to the Master as well as just doing some stick-chasing.

In other words, the mitzvos should not be optional but should ALSO make me happy, should ALSO make me closer (and feel closer) to the Master, should ADD something to the relationship. And I should never, ever confuse the stick I'm running around with in my mouth... with the Master who threw it so lovingly.

Does that help? Or am I still stuck in the moshul?

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 01 Sep 2010 15:29:


In other words: Yidishkiet is not about instant gratification... It is about hard work...

But the rewards of hard work and real true accomplishments are priceless (HERE IN THIS WORLD....)

I once saw from R' Tzvi Mayer Silberberg how when we get to the world to come we will see how some of our worst moments spiritually when we felt totally lost and in the pit were actually the times that we accomplished the most and were on high levels in Ruchnius... We don't always feel it at the time...

The Steipeler Goan writes in a letter (Kreina D'igrasa) that we accomplish the most in Yidishkiet during a zman Yerida... To keep on going during a zman aliya is easy...
To keep up when we are down, feel far, hopeless, defeated, etc... nothing compares to that!!!!

P.s. I sometimes see in myself that if I keep on failing at reaching my goal, that the goal was too stringent in the first place....

R' Mayissyahu Solomon said (printed in "With hearts full of faith")  that although compromise is against our Messorah, GRADUALISM IS ACCEPTABLE NECESSARY AND UNAVOIDABLE!!!

He once said that on V'noson Lonu ess hatorah nothing ever changes, but on V'karvanu Lifnei Har sinai it changes according to the matzav....

It can be hard to lower the short term goal but it may be the right thing...

I don't know if any of this applies to you, but I was told to follow this M'ahalach in some areas and I've B'sieata D'shmaya seen progress...

YES! its starts with one! then add another. Keep up the good work.

ovadia wrote on 05 Sep 2010 09:13:

whether or not yiddishkeit is about feeling good, you should feel good every time you walk to work and avoid taking that first look or avoid letting your eyes linger, or avoid taking the second look and turn you eyes to the ground or think of any ways to guard your neshamah from the temptations.
every victory is precious and is money in the bank and even if it might not feel spiritual and holy it is precious in Hashem's eyes.
Hashem imcha gibor hachayil

5771 – Another day, just one more day.

It is Aseres Yemai Teshuva. In previous years I would feel that obviously I could never act out now. Not with Yom Kippur coming up!

This feeling would last until the first frustration or trigger. Yeah I would justify this to myself. All the seforim explain why one should do chumros during the AYT, even though you know that afterwards you will not keep to it.

I hope that now I have a new approach.

Rosh Hashono, AYT, Yom Kippur, Chanuka – it’s all the same. The addictive mind is as active as ever. Maybe the above thinking is even part of the addictive thinking. I can NEVER let go of my guard!

Please HaShem just today!!

I would like to share something which happened to me on Erev rosh Hashono.

On Erev Yom Tov because of the amount of preparations for Yom Tov the pressure in my house was intense. My wife had been up most of the night and we still were not finished.

Despite the fact that I would have liked spending Erev R”H in the B”H, I realized that that was just not an option. I stayed home the whole day helping to look after the kids. By the time I got to Yom Tov my patience had worn out and I was feeling very frustrated. Although I had tried very hard not to get upset or angry I think that at the end I was unable to hold myself back from showing my wife my frustration.

I got to Shul with mixed feelings. Then I thought to myself that imagine I would have spent the day in the B”H, I would have arrived to R”H in the proper frame of mind etc. Instead I was feeling frustrated etc. But....

Now how can I possibly know which scenario has more real value?

Tried-123 wrote on 05 Sep 2010 15:05:


One more thought.

I think that that ultimately I am supposed to realize that the more difficult scenario, the one which tears me apart, when I feel that I am wasting my time looking after my kids and helping my wife etc. and frustrates me is as “sweet” as “flying high” daavening, learning etc.

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 01 Sep 2010 15:29:


I don’t think that this is a clich?, it is an avoida. 
Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 01 Sep 2010 15:29:


Amen

I know you can do it . You are always mechazaik me so much. Take out a tehillim and cry to hashem to save you. You will feel much better afterward.