Hi MT
Keep posting as your toichen is gevaldig. One comment on this truly tragic story is that if the wife of this yingeman would have read "yechidas letter to wife of an addict" it probably would have saved the marriage.

Best,
Maalin

Thanks for the positive feedback, Maalin (pleased to meet you).

Yes, I've read that letter by Yechida and I agree with you. Additionally I was thinking all along, that it's very possible that this yingerman is nebach trying his best, and maybe he's one of our fellow strugglers here. Also, fortunately or unfortunately (depends who you talk to), my wife thought she is telling me a story about some strange yingerman, and does not realize how strongly this hit home, and how I cannot stop thinking, "Gevald! That could have been me!"

Like I said, Hashem yishmoreinu.

MT

This is it. You just said it all. It's why He loves us and takes great care for us even if we are drunks, masturbaters, and whatever - if we put ourselves on Hashem, we will be healed from the bondage of the addiction. Hey - if Hashem did not take care with His great love and undeserved Chessed (that's what 'Chessed' means, of course) of addicts who were still drunk and porning their (our) brains out...then the first drunks or sex addicts would never have ever gotten sober in the first place! He would not have lovingly given them sobriety, recovery, AA, SA, etc. He must have loved them so much while they were drinking or on their knees between shiurim in the bathroom masturbating. While we are acting out He is loving us and caring for us more than we love and care for ourselves! And He gets us into recovery. Wow.

And in recovery, we may still remain resho'im, technically. For all that (sobriety) is only Derech Eretz - lifestyle and inner peace, and has not avodas Hashem nor Torah. Avodas Hashem is far beyond sobriety...it is an extension of recovery. It is what we can do with our recovery - if we choose to.

And He leaves the choice up to us...as usual: The RMB"M writes, reshus nesunah beyad kol odom livchor lihyos tzaddik oh rasha. That is talking in recovery, and has nothing to do with addiction, boruch Hashem...

And when it says "afilu rosho" in your quote above, it means afilu goy, too. It's just the way it works. Its why so many hopelessly drunk, drug addicted and sexaholic goyim are sober, too, and never become Jews.

Whoa, that was a rant....bye!

Nice pshat, TZ,

Reminds me of an almost similar pshat I heard about 12 years ago in Yerushlayim ih"k. There was a large gathering (chanukas habayis & hochnosas sefer torah), and someone remarked that it is very 'farshtipt' (mobbed). So a choshive yid responded that one of the previous Tzaddikim said pshat:

Rabim - Multitudes (i.e. large crowds)
Machovim lerosho - Are a pain to the rosho (he is bothered by them)
Vehabotai'ach ba'Hashem - But an ehrlicher yid
Chesed yesovevenu - Is surrounded with pleasantness (he enjoys it)

MT

MT
If you see a meshugena walking down the street in prituzville ny mumbling to himself and looking at his blackberry,its me talking to hashem to take away my lust and only lust for him.

Ok, Maalin, I'll be lookin' out for you (when I'm in the neighborhood).
BTW, don't let passerbys hear you. They may realize you're a tzu-LUST-ah briyah .

MT

לכבוד חג השבועות

By Matan Torah the Yidden accepted and said "Na'aseh venishma". So the Kashya is, why then did Hashem need to put the mountain over their head and 'force' them to it (see tosfos). And the Toldos Y"Y answers, so that when the going gets hard, one should realize that he needs to keep at it no matter what.

This is something we should think about on this heilige yom tov. We need to be mekabel that no matter what obstacles we will face, and no matter what urges we will experience, and no matter what triggers we will encounter, we must stick to our guns and not allow ourselves to slip. Otherwise 'shom tehei kevuraschem' - our lives will be out of control ch"v.

======================

The Avodas Yisroel (Kozhnitzer Maggid) says:
עד ממחרת השבת השביעית תספרו חמשים יום
Until the end of the Sfira days one can still be 'metaken' and make all his 50 days count.

====================

The Zohar (brought in Tikun Lail Shvuos) says, "Fortunate is one who was 'metaken' all the sfira days - וחושבנא לא איתאביד מיניה - he did not mess up the cheshbon.

The Minchas Elazar of Munkatch zt"l said pshat: Even if a person messed up during sfira, but he makes a cheshbon hanefesh of where he went wrong and what he needs to do to for the future, that's also called - וחושבנא לא איתאביד מיניה- just like one who owes a lot of money and can't repay it at once, so he goes to his creditor and works out a cheshbon - this way they'll leave him alone and give him a chance to resolve his debts.

Chag Someiach

MT

After posting my Shvuos stuff, I stumbled upon the following from my/our dear friend:

TehillimZugger wrote on 08 Feb 2012 13:52:

Not too late for Kabolas Hatorah

I heard the following derher from a prominent rabbi: If one forgets to make a Shehecheyanu on Shavuos, there is a seven day tashlumim period and he can say Shehecheyanu even after Yom Tov. This teaches us that even if a Yid 'missed the boat' and did not fully connect with the spirit of Kabolas Hatorah on Yom Tov, he can still be mekabel the Torah all week. Especially today, Isru Chag, as tzadikim said pshat: Isru chag ba'avosim = bindt tzu di Yom Tov mit grobbe shtrik - Tie down the Yom Tov with thick ropes. It's not too late to jump on the bandwagon and join the Kabolas Hatorah parade.

Kol tuv

MT

As an addict, I for one, would rather be mekabel sobriety today, than be mekabel the Torah any day. And I believe b'emunah sheleimah that Hashem agrees. And it is never too late for that...it is just a question of how much I want to lose before giving up and getting out of His way. He is our loving Tatty - of course He grants us sanity!

And we are Jews - of course we accept the Torah - it is in our blood!...once we are first living sanely. It's when we insist on putting the cart before the horse that we get in trouble and end up very, very frum...professional masturbaters.

Boruch Hashem for hai yoma! If not for the day I used porn, masturbated, and finally had enough pain and gave up, kamma Dovi havi beshuka! I meet these guys who are crying about still cruising around the shuk every day...

Lechayim u-l'brocha!

Dear Dov,

I'm not sure I understand you, and I'm not sure I want to understand you. As established previously, we each follow what we think is best for us. May Hashem lead each of us in the path that is best for us. And may Hashem protect us from knocking other people's derech even when it differs from what's best for us.

With best wishes of hatzlacha to all of us and each of us

MT

Chaver!

I couldn't agree with you more! Everyone ends up needing to do what really works for him - not what he'd like to work for him, but what really works.

But I am referring to lust- or sex-obsessed people, here. And that's where it gets 'complicated'.

There are so many - that majority of people out there for sure - who do not need anything like the 12 steps that I know, and they certainly do not need to go to meetings with a group of sex addicts like me, either. They just need honest chizzuk in Torah and true avodah that is given by real people like them who know what it is like to struggle and lose in this area of kedusha. That is the beauty of your posts - and it is the singular beauty of GYE. Agreed?

But that does not usually work for the minority: people who are addicts like I am. It usually backfires terribly - for years and years.

I wrote the below specifically because I have met so many (yes, we are a minority - but we definitely are here) who spent their entire formative and yeshivah years developing tremendously in ruchniyus...and in dependence on masturbation .

Actually, our avodas Hashem and our dependence on hiding using lust and/or masturbating developed in tandem. One fed off the other in a very practical way. We sincerely thought we were engaged in the battle for our neshomos...but thinking that way simply made us obsess even more! We were convinced of the evil of zera levatola and of the beauty of Teshuvah (we even know about the "Hei" tacked on the end of this Teshuvah) yet we just get sicker and sicker. Eventually, Teshuvah gets uglier and uglier to us.

And that is a good thing when it happens - for it's no longer about Teshuvah at all by then. It's about dropping the double life and learning how to live honestly. It's about telling the truth to those closest to us and being tocho k'baro. And it takes siyata dishmaya that we cannot get from people who do not personally know exactly what we are living through.

People like us are experts at putting our ruchniyus and psychological cart before the sanity and honesty horse. At framing our struggle as 'a ruchniyus one'. It's more respectable that way, no? So we get nowhere but deeper into the lies (and the zera levatola).

For people like that, is there any question about what they need first: sanity and honesty (sobriety and recovery) - or higher standards (Torah)? What good will higher standards do us? Their pain over the standards they do not live up to is part of what fuels their acting out. The way they relate to Torah is part of the problem, not part of the solution for them.

Yes, of course the end result ought to be higher standards - but that is not the process, because that is not our problem.

People like me need sobriety first. Abstinence.

Then we need to learn how we can learn to live a little differently. We need real sincere people around us doing the same thing - or else we will not really believe it is possible!

Then we need to learn that unlike the well-meaning religious people were telling us, our problem is not lust, tayvoh or masturbation - it is living without it. That we have no idea how to do. And that is where the 12 steps come in, with Hashem's help.

Sorry I really went long on this. But when Chaza"l say things like "Evil as they may be, Hashem does not destroy an evil generation - if they have unity like the dor haflogah did"...it means something. If they say if a person keeps Shabbos then even if he serves avodah zora like dor Enosh, he is "OK" in some respect...it means something. They are not varfing.

And though I am not Chaza"l, I reserve the right to say that in a sex addict, I prefer honesty and sobriety to what he calls "Kabolas haTorah" while he is not sober. If an addict does not have self-honesty, then his Torah is not Torah. It is some other religion that just looks a lot like Yiddishkeit but leads straight to gehinom in olam hazeh as well as in olam haboh. Avodas Hashem does not lead to gehinom.

I am not puting down any derech of recovery. I am saying that the wrong one is tragic for a person - even if it is called "kabolas haTorah". And that is a very, very unattractive idea to many frum people. That is the single reason I came to GYE a few years ago.

And on the way, I have b"H been instrumental in helping many people on this forum find their way to the same kind of recovery that I need. And by the same token I have dissuaded many from it who obviously did not need it. And it's not to save sperm that I am doing this, nor to bring Moshiach. As I read it, that is Hashem's business, not mine. Rather, I am doing it because I love these sweet people and I love their sweet families. I am trying to do my part to reduce the sufferring. They are just as crazy as I am and they sufferred so much. And there are so many people out there - not you! - burning to 'be mekarev' them. They want to give them the schmuz that 'will finally work', then chizzuk that will finally 'do it'. Gevalt, it is just more of the same sickness! They do not realize that because their minds are so screwed up, Torah is part of their problem now! More higher standards is not what they need - higher sanity is what they need.

Nechos darga vnasav it'sa. For some addicts, Malchus (nukvah) and true avodah comes only as a result of breaking. Having a leiv nishbar. The broken ego is the only one that works for us types. The lowering of the person to derech Eretz is the only way I know. And it is the only way I have seen that actually works with people like me. Not with others. They need gobs of Slabodka - as long as it is honest. "Is it working?" is the main shayloh. "Does it fit with the shprach at the Agudah convention?" is just political correctness.

Enough out of me....

Thanks Dov for making things clearer for everybody. We sincerely appreciate the effort that goes into such a long shtickel.

האמת והשלום אהבו

MT

...and we can meet at the gate, too...and even share a lechayim!

i liked that idea- put me on the gooood mood!
thank MT!