Rabbeinu Yonah explains this posuk, (as heard from Rabbi Mattisyahu Salamon Shlit"a) that hashem leads people who were nichshal in a chet on the proper way, ze hu mah sheshalech nevi'im to teach us the proper way.

BORUCH HASHEM! We were zoche to be directed to this eida kedosha, a truly holy gathering of people who are Hashem's ONLY freinds in this lowly world. [i]Bemokom shebalei teshuva omdim ein tzadikim gemurim yecholim la'amod![/i]] We may not be like the tzadikim of previos generations, but in the dark, dirty, dingy, discusting, and degrading society we were put into, {in his infinite wisdom... we belive we are lucky to be in this generation, otherwise we wouldn't be here! HE doesn't make any mistakes!} we can accomplish even more than the amolige tzadikim did! WE CAN BRING THE GEULA! After all, a small 4 watt nightlite bulb will make all the difference whether you bump into the walls or not in if you put it in a room which is otherwise in total darkness; whereas a million candlepower searchlight does little good when used in bright daylight. As CHAZA"L say: Shraga betihara mai ahanye.

This forum is for personal intoductions, well... an "anonymous introduction" is quite a difficult feat to pull off. Just kidding, I understand the purpose, to start our connection with others and give/get chizuk.

This writer is a yungerman who has been looking at re'ios assuros even before he knew that he shouldn't be looking at them. He was doing the ma'aseh before he knew that it is an aveira, r"l. At 14 I happened to see the last chapters in the Sefer Kitzur Shulchan Oruch and discovered the rotzon Hashem (after double checking with my Rebbe that I understood what I read. I am married now with a few children, Boruch Hashem, and have been struggling with the yetzer horah since then.

Since  I do consider myself somewhat of an oved hashem, after all I am jewish too, the last couple of months I generally managed to withhold from looking at the worst, but I did indulge in looking, searching, and staring at pics which my filter did let through as they are not classified as dirt in the lowest sense of the word, but were enough to be meorer the ta'avos in my heart. They were against the rotzon Hashem. The proof is that yetzer horah was pushing me to do it,and even more so, the results of these pics were often tumah ma'asim.

Brov rachamov vechasodov, I was zoche to be directed to this great and holy site by a Rabbi who knows about my struggles (I am forever indebted to him for this refferral!) and with much siyata dishmaya and the chizuk I recived from this site, I was zoche to have a highler level of shmiras einayim for the last 29 days that I haven't had since before I was a Bar Mitzvah!

Yasher Ko'ach to all the good jews who set up this site, to all those that post on this site, to all those that help fund this site, and to all those dear friends of Hakodosh Boruch Hu who value true kosher SIGHT!!!

Thank you for posting and sharing that with us - you're helping give us all chizuk!

Stick with us, and keep growing!

Hey Yosef,

You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders filled with Torah. I am sure that you will find this place very inspiring and for some people thats enough to overcome this. For most though, it is more than inspiritation. It might take some sort of real change in YOU. Dont worry Yosef, it is for the better. You'll appreciate Hashem and everything He gives us even more than you do now. And maybe youre going to say "How about I just get rid of this addiciton thing and stay the way I am?" Well I cant give you a good answer excpet for the old adage "You cant have your cake and eat it too." So you choose. Stay who you are with the addiction or change your whole outlook on life and be free....

I think the choice is obvious.

-Yiddle

WOW I found a chavrusah!

Reb Yid, I like the name and th ekavanah behind it. I've been shomer einayim, lechumra for the last 4 years, so feel free to send me a pm or email about anything related to it.

After you do it long enough, you get special siyata dishmaya, that allows you to do things with your eyes that aren't supposed to be possible. Just give it a few years, tefillah, and a measure of mesiras nefesh in this inyan


The Chofetz chaim brings in his shmiras halashon (from sefer chassidim) that one should pick a mitzva. and be nizhar in that one mitzva, to never fail in it (albeit, "sheva yipol- and poel yotzei mizeh- tzaddik vekam lo"). This will be your ticket to olam haba. He gives a mashal of trying to hold onto a tree. There are so many leaves, that if you attempt to anchor yourself by holding onto all of them, you will not have enough of a grasp to hold onto. But if there was just one or a few leaves to hold onto, with all of your koach.... Such a task you can succede in.

Be'emes it's a gemara somewhere. "Amar ---?---, Avuch Bemai Nishar Tfei?" Mybe in kedushin, ???


The maharal says something simmilar in 'Tiferes Yisrael' I think it's in perek 4. That the mishna of R chananya ben Akashya omer. Ratza Hakadosh Baruch Hu lezakos Es Yisrael, Lefikach....why not give us 2 mitzvot, and then we'll be shomer every imitzva , without running the fear of being a mumar ledavar echad? I mmagine that "[amar abayei] Ilmalei Lo zachu Yisrael lekabeil pnei evihem shebashamayim pa'am achas bachodesh..."  Just immagine we only had that? Says the maharal, not everybody has the same tendencies. And where'as some people excell st certain mitzvos, others have it harder. And by having the abbility to apply ourselfs to over 613 mitzvos (the monei hamitzvot use many categorisations, thus excluding many more) you can find thoe few 'leaves' to grasp onto. (Tochen Devarav) the nearest maharal has got to me over 200 miles from me! (ok alittle mugzam)

Dear Yosef Hatzadik,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

29 days is a great start. Keep up the good work!

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

YOSEELLLE!!!!!!

WHERE WERE YOU WE HAVE BEEN WAITNG YOU

KEEP ON TRUCKING

POST AWAY!!!!

BARDS

Welcome aboard your profile fits with many (or just some) of us. Please make yourself at home.

Thank you to all for this very warm welcome! I feel heimish already.

To R' Yiddle2 (reply #2): Here is proof that someone can have lots of Yedi'as Hatorah and still live in Olam Hachet... (Ameilus BaTorah is different.)

To R' sHeMiRaTeInAyIm (reply #3): To add to your comments, I heard many times, the way I can know which mitzvah is the one "I" was sent to this world is. Is to see which mitzva the Yetzer Hora puts his greatest efforts in tripping us up. Seeing that shmiras eyenayim is sooo dificult, it would seem quite likely that this is our whole purpose in life!

Thank you again.

yoselle do you own a bottle of woodford??

Ah, the most important question! :D :D

And more important is, do you know how to drive a truck?? im sure bardy meant to ask you that but he was probaly drunk!!

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 18 Feb 2010 19:27:


Yes, and that is the cheit of the entire dor. see this post of mine from the beis medrash

R shimshun pinkus brings from the zohar. That in the Ikvasah Dimeshicha (the final period b4 mashiach) the world will be a "vaad Liznus".

cool, no? If only it had some more meaning. The translation of Vaad, is an 'asifas chchamim' an gathering of men of intellect, for the furthering of intellectual pursuits. Yes, i know that this makes a humorous defenition, but give me a second to show you the truth in it.

In our current day and age, the advancements in technology are so fast paced, that few things are thought of as impossible. It is merely a matter of time until someone writes the software, or increases the efficiency of existent hardware. There still remains a vibrant industry in technologies outside of the entertainment center, primarily focused on improving productivity. But the single greatest feild of scientific advancement is entertainment. TV VIDEO, INTERNET, ELECTRONICS you name it. And people are so caught-up in the pursuit of these, that everyone takes issue with the "uselessness" of NASA.  Are we crazy, the great advances that they have achieved in the study of astrology dwarfs anythinng that secular science has ever known. The advent of telescopes, the hubble included, shame our previous way that we have related to them as mere "constellations". today we can see their colors hues shapes and movements. and in vivid color!

Yet despite all this, many people see these studies as a waste of money. The reason behind this, is that we DON'T CARE about a Vaad for sciences, since all we desire is a VAAD LEZNUS. We want to see our greatest minds and talent give us a reason to laugh and smile, and feel the thrill of znus. Whether it be in dirty jokes, vivid videos of celebs or merely watching actors portray their "bedside manners". We see this as the single greatest goal that science can attribute to.
This is the mindset of our generation, as delineated in the ZOHAR in the time of R Shimon Bar Yochai.

Dear Yosef Hatzadik,
Hope you are doing OK today. Reading your posts was sweet, and it's so nice to see people who are tired of pretending they can ride the storm on their own power finally begin to really be mischased im atzmom (as Guard wrote above: "Your'e worth it!"), give up the life-draining and silly game of tag with lust, reach out for help, and join with others who are getting Hashem's help to stay clean today. GYE is one of the places you can find a Hope that grows. Right here, yidden find Hope that they really can - with some work, time and a lot of help - live progressively more free of the ball-and-chain of lust and accomplish the beautiful and useful things that Hashem has in store for us and for our mishpochos. For many of us, like me, this dream was foolishness, and we had many secrets we felt absolutely sure we'd take to our graves - at best.
Enough lonely pain. Dayenu!
Hatzlacha.

Dear Tov Veyoshor,
After posting the megillah above I forgot what I wanted to say to you, so it'll just be: Hey there!, for now.
Be well,
Dov

Rabosai, I need some help/advice in time management. A week has already passed since I started posting in this forum and I can't seem to stop. I, B"H, don't have internet access at home, so all these posts are coming during work hours. I get paid by the hour, but with all my time being spent _{[or maybe it should be called earned?]} reading this forum, I hardly get some work done at all. How do I keep from lookng at GYE???????????? :o

(B4 GYE it was other sites, but there I had a guilty conscious to help me minimize it somewhat.)

:-\HELP!!!!! I'm addicted to GYE!!!!! HELP!!!! :-\

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 24 Feb 2010 19:24:


Why doesn't anyone answer? Is this furom only for ill people? Too much medicine can me someone sick too?