dov wrote on 12 Apr 2010 18:25:


Ouch!!!

ok - since it seems like nobody cares about the giraffes...

I have to tell you...

they have 7 vertabrae - just like a human.

neat huh?

and not only that - ever notice what happens if you get up too quickly... you get a head rush, and a little dizzy.

so how come the girafffe is able to behind her head down - drink some water in a puddle...and then right away pick up her head and eat the leaves from the top of the tree???

HaShem designed the giraffe with a special reverse pumping system from teh heart to the brain - to prevent the giraffe from geting dizzy!

isn't Hashem cool!

and yet how many times do we forget , and WE think we are in control.
they say - If Hashem is your Co-Pilot, you better change seats.

(I have only been talking aloud to myself...but if anyone has been listening in I dont mind)

No, you haven't been talking to yourself my friend. There is a giraffe in my head that is recording every word you are saying and transferring it to the mother ship.

Yep, too much spirulina goo in my lunch again....

eeeek!

Dov are saying you are from another planet?

me too!!!

I've been lost annd trying for almost 46 years to try and find my way home...

I am only starting to realize I've been dialing the wrong number. Seems I shoudl have been dialing:

1-800-GUARD-IIs
_{(the only thing missing is: UR)}


(I forgot to read the small print - before dialing)

ET Phone Home.... (hold your nose tightly while saying this...)

I don't really know what it is supposed to mean because I realized that I no longer know or understand anything.(I've been working on my ego..ego a go go.) But, I am sure 100% that the very same Rabbi Akiva who said this, did not miss 1 day in the mikva.

I never meant that Rabbi Aviva was saying we don't need the watery kind of mikvah, just that he was reminding us that it isn't the mitzvah (any mitzvah) itself that has power, but it is the fact that it's G-d's Will that is the power. That is perhaps why most rishonim hold "mitzvos tzrichos kavonoh". Doing an act that is technically a mitzvah without attaching it to G-d is just a dead fish....in a mikvah. ;D And I feel that there is a very thin line between kishuf and believing in the automatic power of any mitzvah, without a focus on G-d in the act. Maybe there is a line, but it looks real thin to me! Mitzvas anashim melumada is not a good thing.

And please don't mistake what I am saying as having anything to do with doing things truly l'Shem Shomayim or not. That is a much higher level than just knowing that "this act is G-d's Will". All I am talking about is being aware that it's not the act that Hashem wants, it is the awareness in us that it is His Will. Whether we mix ulterior motives in with that is another issue, and a lifetime's work, I guess.

So, maybe yes, maybe no, but all I know is that if I am not sober today my chances of being able to ask Rabbi Akiva in person real soon, go way up! ...at least maybe I'll be able to yell the question to him while I'm passing by on the down escalator!

dov wrote on 12 Apr 2010 15:54:


The quote from Rabbi Akiva is that "just as mikveh purifies the impure - AUTOMATICALY! The mere act of being completely submerged in those waters of life work their 'magic'. So to to the mere (?) act of giving it over to Hashem, connecting to Hashem - completely, will purify us from our blemishes - AUTOMATICALLY!!!






Rabbi Shimshon Pinkus Ztz"l says (on the topic of Brochos): Just mouthing the words of a Brocho - even without ANY kavana whatsoever - will work like magic. When someone drops a bomb it will explode! Does it make a difference if he had kavana that it should explode or not? The Halacha is that only in the first Brocho of Shmono Esrah is kavana me'akev. Any other brocho will accomplish its goals in the Upper Spheres without any additional work from us! Of course, with more kavana it will be even more effective. {Possibly something like precision bombing? (my note)}

[For the sake of completeness, we must continue the quote from Rav Pinkus: He does add one caveat though; In order for the brocho to work, the brocho must be a brocho. Every word MUST be enunciated clearly. just saying, "Bu'chato Adoleinu Mel'cholam Borei Pri Ha'etz" is not a brocho. It is a useless mumble that won't accomplish anything at all!]





Now, Rebbi DOV, your turn. Refute every point I made. Break it up. Show its absurdity. Tell us why it didn't work for you, & why you doubt it will work for anyone with a problem. I know that it didn't work for me either. After all, "I" had all this knowledge for years and "I" still couldn't control "myself" before coming to GYE!  (But, I didn't do the 12 steps, I didn't concentrate on handing back to Hashem the nisyonos that he placed before me. I just used this forum & the encouragement that it pumps into me -along with the tiny bit of Yiras Shomayim that i possess from my education - and I am okay for almost 3 months!! BORUCH HASHEM)

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 16 Apr 2010 16:09:


Not sure what Dov would say...

but it makes no sense to me that if you don't do the twelve steps that everything you do is useless... that is absurd....

Like you said... the 12 steps and what not can be compared to a brocha with Kavana... but a brocha with out Kavana is also worth tremendous....

Oy.... Gevald......

First of all, maybe the stuff you are doing is actually the 12 steps incognito. After all, they are really simple ideas and practices that some folks intuitively accept and do w/o any outside help, at all. Just cuz I needed a lot of assistance to learn to use them doesn't mean that everyone will, perhaps I'm just a really hard nut to crack. Maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe my brain is mostly calcium....noodles?

Third of all - just checking - Second of all, I didn't say there is no magic in mitzvos. All I said is that there is a very thin line between looking at them that way and kishuf, or mindless rituals of savages, for that matter....


Second of all - never mind! - the Zohar hakadosh tells us that any mitzvha w/o yir'ah and ahava "leis parchin l'eila" - it doesn't fly up (literally). It compares yir'ah and ahava in the mitzvah act to "wings". Now, I ask you. Is this to be taken to mean that we are not yotzei the mitzvah w/o ahava and yir'ah? Can't be. That'd be one mama of a machlokes between nigla and nistar - which more than only the Gr"a agrees cannot really happen. Rather, I believe that the Zh"k is telling us that there is a lot of different that our mitzvos accomplish. One of those things is to "fly up", whatever that means. Nefesh Hachayim goes into this issue quite extensively, I think. I also believe (uh-oh) that what "flies up" isn't just the mitzvah, it is the person (or perhaps the neshoma of the person) who is doing the mitzvah. He (or his neshoma) has an aliyah through the mitzvah.

So, perhaps there are a lot of things that going to the mikvah will accomplish. I'm just trying to say that for freedom and recovery, addicts like me need an attitude of simple reliance and expectancy of help from Hashem, much more than we need tikunim like mikvah. And if that's agreed, then I see a danger when my mind offers me shortcuts to that - even if they do, do something...there's nothing like the real thing, baby. And the more I focus on the shortcuts and automatics, the more I fear that I'll lose the Real Thing! Our religion is not about serving the Torah, it's about G-d. The derech Eitz chayim is the Torah - but it's still only about G-d. And a personal G-d! Maybe the average yid doesn't need to see the difference, but I sure do. I'm sick and need strong medicine!

Chassidism came to Europe to teach that, I believe, and it got the same kind of reaction from the good-ol' frum yidden: "What? The next thing you're gonna say is that the christians are right and all we need to do is believe and that's it!" They discovered that the Chassidim were injecting life into kyum hamitzvos, that's all. It was the people they were changing, not the Torah.

Nu. I went way above my head. And it's still a hard nut to crack. I may not have refuted anything, Yosefhatzadik, but we did have some fun, no?

Gut Shabbos!

dov wrote on 16 Apr 2010 17:24:


Pikudei Hashem yesharim misachei leiv, right?

The Zohar Hakodosh refers to the 613 Mitzvos as Taryag Itin, eitzos = suggestions. They are 613 suggestion on how to connect with Hashem.



Just because someone went to the mikve in the morning, he will not yet be immune to the Yetzer Horah's overtures. It is not a vaccine against tumah. There is such a thing as Toivel v'sheretz beyodo, immersing in a mikve while a clutching a Tumeh emiting device in his hand is absolutely worthless!!!

That said, we must still recognize the distinction between 'someone who is fighting the Y"H' & 'someone who is fighting the Y"H along with an immersion in the mikve' (be it via the 12 Step method or otherwise). By harnessing the 'magical' powers that Hashem put into mikve we are changing the rules of the game! {Remember some of those Nintendo, Game boy, computer, cell phone games where by hitting on certain blocks the character doubles his firepower?}

Nu, halevai, vehalevai - and off I go to the mikkie myself! Gut Shabbos!

i humbly wonder if i started to go to the mikveh...if my wife would also remind me to remember to use SOAP!

  Unfortunately, we don't know what "ahava" is, nor "yirah". We certainly don't no what "L'shma" is either. And, this is why before each, and every mitzvah, we are M'kasher ourselves to the tzadikim that did/do know what L'smah is.  Before learning, we say, that my learning should be attached, and connected to the tzadikim, "shochnei Afar",and to the tzadikim in our dor, the living who's learning, and who's tifilos are L'shma.    This is the only way the little ol "me" has a chance of getting my lifeless mitvos to go up.

Dear Me,

I love this point you bring up, and assume you are still not saying that a yid is not yotzei the mitzvah of t'fillin, shofar, kibud av vo'eim, etc., unless they attach themselves to the tzadikim, right? I presume that the eitza you are talking about is addressing the d'chilu ur'chimu issue, only. For example, I don't recall the Derech Pikudecha (B'nei Yissochar) listing the kavono you mentioned as a requirement for being yotzei. I guess we agree that we are talking about a deeper, but still essential, aspect of kiyum hamitzvos.

All I was trying to say above is that it is important to me that I do not mush together all the aspects of kiyum hamitzvos. One of the worst problems we folks who run into zera l'vatoloh problems have (in my opinion) is the raising of issues that are fine details of yiddishkeit to the level of ikkarei ha'emunah/de'oraisah's. Many of us focus so much on mikvah and kavonos that we get lost in our own little isolated worlds of "avodah". I know I did. I was so busy with p'ratim of t'shuva and kavonoh that I was able to gloss over the fact that I was regularly using schmutz and engaging in horrible hirhur aveiro and behavior. I was clearly playing into the hands of the YH. (I have never used that term before on GYE, BTW.) I do not believe that much of what's dealt with in s'forim such as "Shomrei Emunim" (the one by R'A. Rottah) and Yesod Yosef, are dealing with modern-type "chot'im", but with people who have temptations or were oiver a few times in some z'nus or z"l. My friends are americans who are submerged in a culture of znus and who's track record is habitual and chronic. That's why I consider those sforim poison (even for me b"H sober for a while) and do not use them, at all.

Perhaps this will explain why a bit more clearly:
I sincerely believe that replacing a focus on the simple basics of derech eretz with an emotional focus on higher madreigos of tahara and yir'ah is a common and ugly mishega'as that explains why many of us get nowhere for so long. Y'ravam was a "shokul" - knew 129? pirushim in Toras Kohanim (not sure of the exact # - check Yalkut on that), but destroyed Klal Yisroel in avodah zara, at the same time. He balanced himself in dinei Shomayim - he thought. (Apparently it worked to some extent as hashem invited him to walk with Him and Dovid haMelech in gan eiden if h'd just clean up his act. He never invited me!) I think that the "shokul" is a similar phenomenon to the addict who balances his tremendous guilt with intermittent and intense "teshuva" and with a few practices that involve "mesiras nefesh". It didn't work for me - except to perpetuate the problem and to poison my perception of my relationship with Hashem to a wild pendulum. Either crisis and agony (Take me back Tatty!!) or depression and ecstasy (You took me back yay!! We are soooo close!)...have you witnessed this endless cycle?

Since getting sober, things are returning to some even-keeled perspective, b"H. Balance is a big, big deal. And the basics are everything for me, when I'm doing OK.

Enough out of me. Do you see any of this as an issue? I respect your opinon and experience!



Do you see this in your own experience, or on the forum?