כתבו התוס' בעבו"ז דף ח: דבכל התלמוד לא מצינו שהיו עושין שכר משעורין אלא מתמרים ושאר דברים שלא מחמיצין
guys i'm sorry for all my learned comments, but while I was off the internet I did some learning :o

Wow! Impressive!
ועי' מתני' פסחים מ"ב ואלו עוברין (עליהם בבל יראה ובל ימצא - רש"י) בפסח, כותח הבבלי ושכר המדי, פירש"י לפי שבאותן הימים אין נוהגין לעשות שכר אלא מתמרים ובמדי עושין שכר ממי שעורין כעין אותן שלנו קרי ליה שכר המדי

MT

I'm reading all of Zeidy's ^{[url=www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=5318.msg136782#msg136782]Here[/url]]} posts that I missed, and while there were many good stuffs that I missed out on, I couldn't just pass up on this one without proclaiming that I LIKED it
dov wrote on 08 Jul 2012 21:50:

Anyone else see a relation between these two Vorts [Warts-Vortim-Verter-Vertlach]?



Machshovo wrote on 15 Jul 2012 17:20:


Machshovo wrote on 24 Jul 2012 15:46:

The following may help explain the 2 vorts:

Machshovo wrote on 20 Apr 2012 16:04:


MT

Interesting observation:

Recently I was flying on an international flight. Before takeoff, there was an important announcement: "A passenger on the flight is highly allergic to nuts. All passengers are requested to please be considerate and refrain from eating or handling any nut-containing products throughout the flight."

Now, why not the following announcement: "A passenger on the flight is highly allergic to lust. All passengers are requested to please be considerate and refrain from displaying anything that may trigger his lust."

MT

Cute, but the Rebbe Reb Bards used to say: She may be a problem but she's not MY problem.

Dear TZ,

Please see the GYE handbook:

It is also important to understand that once the addiction has advanced to a certain level, it will likely be there for life, as the saying goes: “Once an addict, always an addict.” What that means is that once we have trained our minds to use lust as a type of drug, we must learn to keep far away from lust. And no matter how much progress we might think we’ve made in this struggle, once we let ourselves take that first “drink”, we will feel powerless all over again. In the 12-Step literature, the addiction is compared to an allergy. If someone has an allergic reaction to peanuts for example, they can’t get close to them without getting an allergic reaction. And even if they haven’t had peanuts in 20 years, the moment they ingest peanuts again the allergic reaction will return in full force!

MT

(P.S. Where did that "like" disappear to, you wise-guy?)

Close, but unlike peanuts, you can only feel lust if you see it.

[Like!]

(like)

here are some allergy and lust free peanuts from R' A.J.Twerski

At the risk of garnering suspicions that I enjoy disagreeing with you, MT (I don't), I want to say that TZ has a point. While you are right, that it seems inconsiderate and actually rude for many women to dress the way they do, TZ is referring to the idea that explains something interesting in my own life. I will try to avoid explicitness, here:

I am very sensitive to lust. Especially now that many years have passed since I last had sex with myself or used images for sexual fantasy, it has gotten a lot easier to stay clean in my head. But I found that my sensitivity to lusting is greater than it ever was. Not my sensitivity to scantily clad women - but to my lust.

In other words, it used to be that I could look for a few hours at naked people on the computer - before I had to masturbate or act out in some other way....but over the past 15 years in recovery, I have discovered that my threshold has progressively lowered. I cannot even enjoy porn for a few seconds any more! (Does anyone secretly feel a bit sorry for me?) In fact, the behaviors that used to be part of my acting out - but not essesntially sexual in nature - like lying, enbellishing the truth, sneaking a look through other people's belongings, looking into other cars or windows, risky surfing of the net for (clean) fun - are all becoming more and more triggering to me. For they are parts of my old acting-out pattern and they are also not right. They started actually giving me an unwanted sexual rise inside when I did them. I just can't seem to be as naughty any more without feeling strangely like that familiar old, dirty masturbating feeling I used to have. Strange...

So am I weaker now? Now that I can only look at porn a little bit before I 'lose it' - while 16 years ago it would have taken a few hours for me to get 'worked up' to that point? Was my 'better' tolerance to porn and lusting in the old days because I was on a higher madreigah then?

Can't be. And many other recovering people share this same phenomena in their lives.

Q: Gevalt, what does it mean?

A: I do not exactly know, and I do not exactly care. There, the issue is over.

And here is the point I wanted to make that makes it all even more weird:

Fact: I can still, b"H, engage in normal, pleasant sex with my wife - and it does not set me off that way. Not in a second, and not in whatever time we take in the entire eisek. Strange, no? It does not turn on the thing in my gut that I used to get with five hours in front of the screen - or now with a second in front of the screen if I'd look at the 'good old' porn!

Gevalt! What does that mean? You mean, sex and lust are not the same??

Surprise: No!

They are not....if we are sober a while and surrendering lust for a while. Sex and lust begin to diverge pretty quickly, and the divergence increases over time. That's nice, no? For the many married guys who have success staying sober when away from home or in abstinence - but keep acting out during weeks that they are having relations with their wives, sex and lust are still probably the same thing inside them. Nu. They just need more time and surrender, I guess.

So seeing her image will 'do' only a little bit to me. My body will notice it and I will have a choice still, and can surrender the beauty and the pleasure - and be OK as me without it, be"H. I can daven for her and care for her as Hashem wants me to (mainly by ignoring her appropriately) and the lust in my body will certainly diminish. I can let Hashem in, or my lust in.

But even one second of my intentional bringing it in to use it? That will quickly overpower me. For that is the only thing I really have an allergy to. Not skin, but Lust. Using her skin is my problem.
I do not mean to oversimplify it, MT. You are right if you say that it is not so simple! But the shoresh is simple, I think. And applying it takes practice and siyata diShmaya, and patience. But we can all get there and stay there for today.

Thanks Dov for your insightful (I didn't say inciteful) words. As we established previously, whatever works for you, and whatever works for me - that's what's important. Fact is that years ago such plane trips would end up very bad for me, but now B"H I breezed through it successfully and without any fight or any stress at all. So if for me it helps to look at it like 'chometz ossur bemashehu' or like a peanut allergy (kitniyos?), I'll stick to that, because B"H it has been working wonders (albeit not 14 years, but a day at a time for a while now). And perhaps it may work for others as well - that's why I share it - like you share what works for you. Any problem with that?

MT

I once heard from R' Orlofsky on a tape he was answering questions, and one of them was why should it be our problem (I think a woman asked or a man was asking how do we answer this) that men cant watch there eyes. Well dress how we WANT and they have to deal with it themselves. He answered that although it may be true that its not the womans problem how other people look at her she should be considerate.

So thats a little different from peanuts because peanuts will involuntarily potentially end a mans life, while having a lust problem or looking at a woman as an object is more of the persons own fault and hes in control. or should be

JKG: That aint why the Torah instructs them to be tznius.
To be precise- a women must dress modestly because the Torah says so. If you want to tell me the Torah says so because men can't yadayada, that is irrelevant.

It is my problem if I give a nazir a grape. It ALSO happens to be his problem, AND the reason it is my problem is BECAUSE it is his problem... But as a responsible Yid, I am responsible wherever the responsibility falls in my lap to insure to the best of my ability that ALL OF KLAL YISRAEL does the right thing.

Rabbi Orlofsky does give shiurim to those less frum, who may need a less strongly worded answer. When I get a chance I will BL"N ask him about it. As always I am mevatel daas to those older and wiser than me.

Hatzlacha!
Meir

Machshovo wrote on 09 Aug 2012 14:18:

Careful Zaidy. I hear some hostility there.
[Read: that's not the way Reb Akiva Eiger would've written it ;) ]