And there he lay clutching the keyboard to his chest, unspoken truths still discernable on his faint breath...
Will we ever know what indicates what in this confused world?
Oh, Dov, do not abandon us in mid-sentence, leaving but a glimpse of hope in your last words...

Lol,

really what were you about to say?

Whoa...can't remember. But I edited that piece now and hope it does not get the undies of some hotheads all in a bunch. I am also a bearded fanatic, don't worry...

Dov,

I tremble as I right to you directly, I await with eager trepidation for you to pierce through my addiction filled heart and all it's crooked notions...

But still, I was at the levaya (that narrows me down to one of 300,000 people), and I couldn't help but feel how R' Elyashiv's passing should pain me tremendously. Hey, my only hope to recover is to know that my only hope to recover is from Hashem, every generation that passes on distances us one more step from that epic Maa'mad Har Sinai from where our emuna is drawn. There was a person we saw who came from a different world and lived there even while dwelling in our midst, now our unbroken chain has descended a link, it's only gonna be harder to feel how much our life and sobriety is dependent on Hashem. Right???

I know that SA is for all religions, but wer'e Jewish so it happens to be that we surrender to our G-d, every tzaddik who leaves us makes it so much harder to give up my addiction to Hashem. As it is it's so hard with all the gashmius and lowness in our world, we need our Gedolim!

Chaim

What are you talking about?

(admittedly not a very good way to start a conversation...!)

Lets not confuse G-d with Rav Elyashiv zt"l. If you are an addict, then G-d helps you in recovery, not Rav Elyashiv. I know that what you wrote is sensitive to the loss of a Tzaddik - we are all certainly less because he is gone.

But Hashem is no less. We need Him no less. Let me try to explain with a 9 Days idea...

When Klal Yisroel sinned enough that it was reall a big mess, what did Hashem do? He took away the beis hamikdosh. Not only that, but He took away the nevi'im, the nissim in the land (and the mikdash) and many of our Torah sages and good people. And He even took most of us outside of Eretz Yisroel!

Now, how does that make sense? If we messed up when we had prophets and cohanim telling us the truth about how we should each individually serve Hashem....if we messed up when we had direct proof of Hashem's power and existence in miracles anyone could see....if we messed up while in the Holy land that has air that brims with inspiration and Kedusha...

...then why make it all even harder by taking all those things away?!

Now He expects us to get better? There's more hope now?

Sounds a bit goofy, no? And it's especially goofy if it is all punishment. For then it is clearly a case of a god who likes to cut off his nose to spite his face, no? (This is not my question, but the GR"A's.)

But it all makes perfect sense if it is all just the way to discover that all we have is Avinu Shabashomayim. The way to see how much He loves us and how dependent we are on Him is when there is no palace and we are out in the cold - and He still loves and helps us and takes care of us...that's love. That's a relationship. All the distractions are stripped away. (This is the midrash's answer, not mine.) And about distractions:

When Hashem said through the novi that He despises our Shabbos and Yomim Tovim and says, "who told you to stomp about in my courtyards, anyway?" (remos chatzeirai), what could He possibly mean? He told us to! Aliyah l'regel is a mitzvah! What could He mean ?

When he told us He does not want - and never wanted - our korbanos (read the novi, it's even in the haftorah), what could He mean? He told us! Korbanos are a mitzvah!

(The nations of the world say He indeed meant he really does not want those mitzvos at all and never did, which is ignorant, of course. But that's their way in, by denying the unchanging truth of the Torah. But then what is His logic?)

He means that the korbanos and biyas mikdash were vehicles for getting a relationship with Him. That's what He wanted, and all He wanted. Haskel veyado'ah osi. He gave us mitzvos in a context - we created a new context - doing them for honor and competition.

Bil'am seemed to do His Will, too, right? And Hashem's malach yells at the guy....huh? Make up my mind. But the answer was that Bil'am was using Hashem's command to do his own will, not Hashem's. Hence the haftorah that week about Sha'ul's mistake doing his will rather than Hashem's

In sefer Chovas heLavavos, R' Bachya writes that the entire purpose of the mitzvos is to have a real relationship with Hashem. 'Know me' is all He wants. And we do that by the Torah and mitzvos. But the purpose is the neshomah of it.

But when the acts of mitzvos become distractions to knowing Hashem - to having a real relationship with Him...something's gotta go. So He took some of the mitzvos (hatluyos ba'aretz) away from us. He took the Mikdash away, and He made us more lost. So lost that ein lanu al ma/mi lehisho'ein ella al Avinu Shebashomayim. We have been killed and tortured and confused for millenia, all to come to Him with our entire selves.

Yes, the tzadikim show us the way to do that - but they do not do it for us! I know Rebbi Nachman and the sforim talk of the tzadddik being the catalyst to have a relationship with Hashem. But guess what> In the end, that relationship is yours, and yours alone. You feel the pain and you feel the s'char.

So please do not worship Rav Elyashiv for he is not G-d, and please have no trepidation from me at all, for I am just a recovering pervert. I masturbated myself into recovery and into Hashem's 'arms' and deserve no respect. But I'll gladly tell anyone how I did it. It's the steps worked openly with other recovering addicts. But it all comes down to having an honest relationship with your own G-d. We need Hashem, period, end of story.

And please do not have any self-pity about how you can't approach G-d yourself now that that great tzaddik is gone. Hashem fills all worlds and surrounds all worlds, as the Zohar says. He does not need anyone to help Him reach you, chaver.

Now, if you are still porning and masturbating yourself, then certainly Rav Elyashiv could not save you. For guess what? Even Hashem doesn't save addicts until we allow Him in by being sober and working real steps of getting sanity back. As the Kotzker put it, Hashem only comes where people allow Him in. Sounds kind of funny, but that's the way it works.

I do not even know if you are an addict! You may just be a regular guy who likes the way watching porn and masturbating makes him feel (except afterward!) and can quit but just doesn't want to. But if you really are sure that you want to quit and try and fail, then you may be an addict. Few porn and masturbaters probably are, I think. In which case all this is for you, friend, so use it if you want to. BTW, my real first name is Dov. What is your real first name? Charlie? That won't do - is it being open? Hop on the reality train with the guys who are taking real steps, not just virtual ones, amigo.

- Dov (another sober and recovering porner and masturbater, free one day at a time for a while now, b"H)

Sorry about the arichus.

Let's go backwards. I used to be Mefatfait (remember me?), much of why I changed my name is to Charlie is to use my real name Chaim (like I signed my post yesterday). Yes I'm pretty sure I'm an addict, having been unable to stop M (not P, I barely know what that is) for many years.

As per R' Elyashiv, I obviously didn't mean that he is at all my relationship with Hashem, but like I said that we learn how to live our connection from our teachers and Gedolim. Hey, your'e right that golus is to strip away the externals so that all that remains is Hashem, but why did it never happen that Hashem would take away all the Gedolai Hador and all that will remain is us small people - then we'll really only have Him! The answer is that the gedolim aren't externals, they our the very fabric of our mesorah. All alone we wouldn't ch"v be able to connect to Hashem as a jew. Our Torah is alive and is transmitted only through live people (I don't mean all the mussar that doesn't help us, but the relationship to Hashem the Torah teaches us, the אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו לא יכול לו).

מיום שנחרב בהמ"ק אין להקב"ה בעולמו אלא ד' אמות של הלכה
את השם אלקיך לרבות תלמידי חכמים
קשה מיתת צדיקים כשריפת בית אלקינו

And yes, I do respect you (oh well!)

Chaim

Dov,

Your words are amazing. Are you a badchan by any chance? I always laugh at the way u finish up ur "arichus". Ur words are amazing- always! And straight to the point. U cut no corners. Thank you.

Let go and let Hashem

Somebody pointed out to me a great vort in sefer Arugas Habosem Parshas Pinchas. He writes that when Chazal say, אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו, it means literally that only Hashem can help you succeed against the YH, i.e. it is not your own doing. So he asks the kashya, if so, why do we get schar? And what determines whether one person gets more schar than another? And he answers that the schar we get is based on how much we really acknowledge that it is all Hashem’s doing.

I found that to be a powerful vort that people like us can relate to. Hope you agree.

MT

Hi guys,

Just returned (yesterday) from a 3-day out of town trip. There were airports, plane rides, hotel rooms, hotel lobbies, hotel pools etc. B"H it all worked out successfully. As I shared privately with a chaver, I know only one way to stay safe. And that is to be determined from the start that there is only one way. Treat lust as 'chometz', i.e. it is ossur be'mashehu. למחצה לשליש ולרביע לא שמענו

MT

P.S Made it back in time for the Siyum Hashas B"H.

Welcome back MT. Glad to hear you were Mekayem "Bal Yeroeh"

Gevura wrote on 02 Aug 2012 18:33:

Sorry but technically you're wrong: ואין האיסור שלא "יראו" חמץ כדכתיב "לא יראה", עי' ברא"ש (פ"א סי' ט): ועובר עליו בבל יראה ואע"פ שאינו רואה, דהא לא כתיב לא תראה חמץ אלא לא יֵרָאֶה, משמע- לא יהא לך חמץ במקום הראוי לראיה ואע"פ שאינו יודע שהם בביתו, מ"מ בל יראה איכא.

Technically this part is very relevant



We should not have "Chometz" available in places it might be seen...

Over years and years of failing, I learned not to treat it as chometz, and not as an issur, at all. But rather, as a bodily sakonah. For what I and many others do with lust becomes a sakonah in every sense of the word. And as we all know, sakantoh chamirah me'isura. Hence the steps, program, meetings, honesty, surrender, etc...

This is not my pious imagination, here. If any addict writes out his entire acting out/drinking history from the start till the last time he used his drug and then shares it with another person, he will see that he is definitely on track to lose all he has - if he keeps using the same losing tactics he has always employed. (Of course, 'there is always the next time I'll beat it (be"H)'...the fantasy that if he just tries a biiiiit harder he'll 'make it', or if he reads this sefer, or whatever...that he just has to do x, y, or z to finally deserve Hashem's Chessed - though, of course, Chessed is by definition not deserved!)

For addicts only get worse, never better.

And no, I am not speaking for anybody else. Certainly for the majority of people, these behaviors are issur, and not sakonah. But addicts are different. We are sick people. Acceptance of the truth about me was very, very hard.

Nu.

Dov means "Chamira sakanta MeiIsura"- that's just my perfectionist voice- but technically we all know that chamira means chametz, right?

Right. Like we all know that beer is chometz, as it says in the brocho, "Al beer chometz".