Oh, I thought AA Batteries were the ones that say, "My name is the Energizer Bunny, and I am an alcoholic."

or more accurately "and I'm a workaholic"

Pidaini wrote:

That would be WA batteries, I think.

Today is א' אלול, ה'תשע"ג, August 7, 2013 (when it's Rosh Chodesh Elul, does it really matter what the goyish date is?)

Today I am clean. Boruch Hashem a lot going on at work today , not so much time to hang out on GYE and post .

Checking in. Today is ב' אלול, ה'תשע"ג, August 8, 2013.

Today I am clean. Thank you Hashem for today.

sparkly shiny beautiful words ya got there

Just wanted to update y'all. On Shabbos afternoon, I had an "accident" (for lack of a better term) during my Shabbos nap! I guess it shows me that I still have to work on watching my thoughts. I never really thought of myself as a big fanasizer, but now I see that this must be an area that needs some attention (or really, lack of attention ).

Anyways, at first I hesitated to update my chart with "still clean," but I realized that was not really a "fall" according to the official chart definition. It was not intentional. It did give me a little wake up call though. Here I am posting away on GYE every day, staying clean, and then this happens. I see I still have what to work on.

Anyways, today I am clean.

While it is that you do whatever you do in terms of therapy etc.- the one thing that should accompany you in your journey, as well as all of us in our journey is the following:
we dont have any "problems". Anything that seems to bother us or hinder us etc. is only there for our benefit and for our good. When we reframe "problems" "challenges" etc. to what they truly are underneath and inherently, which is nothing but goodness from the one above and only there for us in the first place for our benefit - for otherwise, it wouldnt exist in the first place and we embrace it lovingly as a caress from above etc.- the process is one that we are not afraid of, as we know if its there to benefit us, theres no such thing as failure etc.(even when it seems to the contrary) and it fills us with love and contentedness and calm. He paced the so called challenge and problem - so he knew all that we would undergo in the process and that is PRECISELY the way he wanted it, without the minutest difference.

First of all, it seems like that last post from sonoftheking was not directed to me. it was directed at endofmytether and makes sense in context on that thread. I am not sure how it got copied onto my thread, but whatever, I don't mind.

Back to the topic at hand. Today is Tuesday, ז' אלול, ה'תשע"ג, August 13, 2013. Today I am clean. I am halfway to 90! Let's try that again, I said TODAY I am clean, and that's all that counts!

I am starting to get bored of posting updates on this thread. Sometimes I have something interesting to say, but sometimes I don't. But I figured something out: That means that NOW is the time when it is even more important to just post updates, because now the updates are לשמה. Now is also around the time when I started to slack off in my first "life" on GYE.

So, I will push myself to continue giving you all regular updates.

don't leave, please :'(

we'd miss you terribly!!

Don't worry, I'm not leaving. I never even had a hava amina of leaving GYE. All I was saying is that the plain old "Today is blah, blah, blah, today I am clean" posts were starting to get old and I was tempted to stop doing those posts. But even that I feel is important to continue, even if it is not as exciting as it used to be.

On that note, today is Wednesday, ח' אלול, ה'תשע"ג, August 14, 2013. Today I am clean!!!!

Today is Thursday*, ט' אלול, ה'תשע"ג, August 15, 2013. Today I am clean.

*Except in Lizhensk, where apparently it's always Shabbos.

I just shared a beautiful vort with someone in the chat room (you know who you are ) and I thought that I should share it with the rest of the oilam. So, at the risk of possibly exposing myself (or at least what yeshiva I learned in) let me share with you a vort on Middas Hagevurah and Yitzchok Avinu that I heard from a rebbi back in my yeshiva days (which was not all that long ago):

The Torah tells us in great detail about Avraham Avinu. Avraham excelled in מדת החסד. His life is covered in the parshiyos of Lech Lecha, Vayera, and Chayei Sarah. The Torah goes on and on about Avraham Avinu's Chesed with the malochim who came to visit him, with his regular guests, etc. Most of us here could probably give a long drasha about how we learn from Avraham about what chessed means, how to do chessed, how to give unconditionally, to give only for the best interests of your recipient, etc. etc. etc. We also see how Avraham was tested to go against his nature of giving, and to be prepared to schecht his beloved son Yitzchok by the Akeidah, and he passed the test with flying colors. We all learned all of this as little kids, and we have a pretty good understanding of this.

Similarly, Yaakov Avinu represents מדת האמת. The Torah spends more parshiyos discussing Yaakov's life than any of the other Avos. Part of Toldos, Vayeitzei, Vayishlach, Vayeishev, Miketz, Vayigash, and Vayechi all discuss, at least in part, Yaakov Avinu and his honesty. And we could all give a drasha about what honesty means (especially Dov ) and how important it is, etc. And the Torah tells us in great detail about how Yaakov's honesty was tested, in "stealing" the brachos, in dealing with Eisav, in dealing with Lavan, etc. etc. We all know this.

What about Yitzchok Avinu? The Torah tells us much less about him than his illustrious father Avraham and his incredible son Yaakov. It seems like he is just sandwiched in just to connect the dots. What does the Torah tell us about him already? The end of Parshas Chayei Sarah and most of Parshas Toldos talk about his life. What do we learn about him there? That he dug some wells? That he was tricked into giving the brachos to Yaakov? Where do we see the beautiful lessons about his beutiful middos?

We know this can't be the whole story. We know that Yitzchok must have had his own special greatness to be included in the 3 Avos Hakedoshim. So, the question is, what was his middah, and what did he do?

We are told that Yitzchok's middah is גבורה, which we generally translate as strength. Did Yitzchok beat anybody up? What is gevurah?

Avraham was a chiddush in the world. He brought the concept of Monotheism, belief in One G-d, to the world. That was a game-changer, in that time, and quite unpopular. So Avraham had to go out and teach and show the whole world, what it means to believe in G-d, what it means to be a Ba'al Chessed. He was a very public person, and he had to change the entire world's civilization.

After having such a father, you would think Yitzchok would also go out and be a teacher, and a kiruv rabbi, and a public figure. But he was very much the opposite. His job, was to, in a quiet way, continue the avodah of his father Avraham and give it permanence. He dug the exact same wells that his father dug, and gave them the same names, so they should not be lost. But it did not have to be done with a whole song and dance. Just a quiet, private, avodah of NOT DOING. That is the middah of gevurah, NOT DOING. Restraint. Restraint takes a lot of inner strength. When you feel the need to get up and DO something but you know the right thing is to sit tight and do nothing and say nothing, that is restraint. That is gevurah. When Yitzchok knew that Yosef was not killed but rather sold to Mitzrayim but he could not tell Yaakov for years, he was quietly exercising the midah of gevurah.

איזהו גבור? הכובש את יצרו, שנאמר (משלי טז לב): "טוב ארך אפים מגבור ומשל ברוחו מלכד עיר". The middah of being koveish our Yeitzer Harah is achieved through restraint, NOT DOING that which we have the urge to do. It takes a lot of strength to exercise restraint, as we all know.

Hashem is also a גבור. We see this in pesukim and we mention it in davening. What is Hashem's way of using restaint? The answer One answer is could be that he chooses not send down a bolt of lightning every time someone flicks a light switch on Shabbos or looks at porn. He also chooses not to issue a halo and make the room light up every time we sit down and learn Torah.

We have a mitzvah of והלכת בדרכיו, of imitating the middos of Hashem. What can we do (or NOT DO) to be גִּבֹּרֵי כֹחַ עֹשֵׂי דְבָרוֹ ?

Thank you! beautiful and well-put

btw, R' A.E.Kaplan in Be'ikvos Hayirah has an essay about Yitzchok and how he seems to have been 'sandwiched' between Avraham and Yaakov, as you pointed out.

THANK YOU! I have had that question about Yitzchok for a long time now.

But a related question I have is that Avrohom was tested by going against his middah of chessed. Throwing out Yishmael, Akeidas Yitzchak. Yaakov was tested by going against his middah of emes with Eisav and Lavan.

Where do we ever see that Yitzchak was tested by going against his middah of Gevurah?

ZemirosShabbos wrote:

Nu - can you enlighten us some more???