What got me thinking especially about the times when I'm right (as in the shul and beis medrash cases) is the 12 step teaching that no matter what someone else might do, if we are hurting then we are in the wrong somewhere.

I now can understand how gedolim used to be able to give admonition and actually be listened to. They didn't do it from a place of personal pain and aggravation, for themselves they were ok, it didn't disturb them personally for they had worked on themselves already and thrown away all gaavah. Rather they only felt for the other person, for his neshama, they truly cared about the other party so they were listened to.

I believe writing down your resentments is part of Step 4, "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves".

www.12step.org/docs/Step4_Inventory.pdf

Not sure if this is the proper forum for this, but I guess I have to explain...
Calvin & Hobbes is a comic strip written before the days of the internet; when not every time a cartoonist put pen to paper did they use it as an opportunity to be nichshal us with over-the-top portrayals of oversexed women.
It tells about the life and childhood of 6-year old Calvin, a child with a ridiculous imagination, and his "stuffed" tiger named Hobbes (although it seems he is only "stuffed" in the figurative sense - with tuna sandwiches - as he appears to be alive and well whenever adults are not around).
Calvin's exploits include, but are not limited to, asking santa for a flamethrower, putting signs on his lawn in the hope that aliens will see and save him from his parents, wreaking havoc and destruction on his parents' furniture and emotional well-being, organizing anti-girl clubs (G.R.O.S.S. - Get Rid Of Slimy girlS), and giving us subtle and not-so subtle hints about how television turns our brains into tapioca pudding.
Hope that kind of clears things up.
Thsi is not a haskama. Just a clarification of the best comic strip of all time. (Sorry Snoopy )

Pidaini - spot on!

skeptical - thanks for the visual- really brightened up my day seeing that little blonde troublemaker!

On my way to work this morning, I was distracted by a large truck. What's so distracting about a truck, you ask? Well, I won't even mention the name of the company it belongs to, because I know that would trigger me. (Funny thing is that the company has nothing to do with women - I doubt they even have very many female employees - just that their ads are absurdly provocative.)
Suffice it to say that had it been possible not to see this ad in my peripheral vision, it would probably be an indication that I am too blind to legally drive a car. Or bicycle. The "ad" literally covered the whole truck.
So, in a deviation from my usual method of not starting up with the YH directly, I picked up my hand to block out as much as I could (it wasn't in my lane, one over), while still leaving enough of the road visible to drive safely.
Funny, thing is, it didn't really seem forced like "I'M NOT LOOKING AT THAT DISGUSTING AD" which I know would have backfired. It was just matter of factly protecting myself from something I didn't want to see. And I think it worked.

During daving this morning I noticed something beautiful. We say in davening "u'v'yadecha l'gadel u'l'chazeik lakol." We praise Hashem every day for giving us chizuk! (Well, some days, anyway.) Here I thought it was you guys all this time (joking of course; harbeh shluchim lamakom)

Can somebody tell me how to post in hebrew? Transcribing these ma'amarei chazal is getting tedious.

Good Shabbos to all.

Great stuff!

Was that my truck?
What's so triggerin' about that?

You might wanna go to a Hebrew site (Chabad has) and copy and paste from the siddur.

b'hatzlachah

Definitely not your truck.
This one wasn't just a trigger - it was like a loaded AK-47.

I have nothing against Chabad, but, as mentioned previously, I'm trying to stay away from any website other than this one and gmail. Just an effort to avoid becoming a "click vegetable." (I think that was R' Wachsman's line; correct me if anyone heard otherwise.)

Bigmoish wrote:


So The Far Side doesn't even get honorable mention??
אני מוחה בכל תוקף.געוואלד!!

It would, but it definitely has content that would qualify as triggering for some people, so on this forum, nope. No mention at all.

Shabbos was pretty good. My wife got a little uptight in the last minute erev shabbos preparations, because she wasn't perfectly ready when I was ready to go to shul, but we discussed it after the meal and I managed to help her see that lighting candles "only" an hour before the zman (instead of an hour and fifteen minutes like she wanted to) isn't the worst thing in the world. I really tried to focus on being positive and making her happy, and it helped us connect a little better.

I saw my sister-in-law on shabbos (I mentioned earlier that this is an issue for me) and I felt kind of gross after that. I know that it's just lust, and I try not to think about her. I didn't talk to her or stare at her. It's just frustrating sometimes, because my wife is pretty close with her, and I don't want to ruin their relationship. On the flip side, the fact that I am basically forced to spend time in close proximity to her on a regular basis makes me pretty uncomfortable. I'm very wary of mentioning anything, because I think that my wife would probably feel pretty hurt, and it just seems selfish to me to attempt to turn my problem over to my wife and burden her with it, too.

On passing 7 clean days tonight (ODAAT of course - I think of it as 7 "day 1"s strung together), I got the following email from GYE:



Somehow, I just don't feel like a shaleim yet. Seems a little premature. One day, one day, one day, I just try to keep stringing 'em up. Maybe I'll get to know what real shleimus feels like.....one day.

Hi and thanks for all your sharing

Bigmoish wrote:


Try this gate2home.com/Hebrew-Keyboard

May HaShem grant us sobriety, sanity and serenity.

That's assuming you don't have a smartphone, which I think you said you don't have. For android, just swipe the space bar.

תודה רבה חזקי

That was a lot easier than opening up microsoft word, inserting all the hebrew symbols, then copying and pasting them here. That was gonna be plan b.
Thanks.

Bigmoish wrote:

there can be many portions of shlaimos in a broken entity.
For example a person can be handicapped but his feet are shaleim. so you have attained shlaimus in a certain aspect.

Over the last few days, I've been finding it difficult coming up with something to say. I'm afraid I reached a comfort zone and I don't really think anybody is that interested in hearing about monotonous days with basically the same things happening.

During kinnos this morning I was thinking a little about the people in the days of Yoshiahu and their connection to us. Yoshiahu was under the false impression that no one was doing serving Avoda Zara anymore, while some of the people still had idols on the backs of their doors, so only when the doors were closed could the full idol be formed.
I think we all know someone who is a tzaddik in the street, but has issues with certain aveiros "behind closed doors." (literally!)
Thinking about it that way allows me to see the matzav of that time in a different perspective, especially when considering that the Gemara in Sanhedrin describes how strong the tayvah for Avoda Zara was in those times. We can all relate to that.

I was also thinking about a few of the reasons the Botei Hamikdash were destroyed for.
Sinas Chinum - as I mentioned earlier, I feel that GYE is a great example of Ahavas Chinum. Yidden from all walks of Yiddishkeit come together just to bring each other close to the RBSO. (This is also reminiscent of the actions of the Malachim we say in davening - they raise themselves up toward each other instead of bringing each other down, as is common among humans.)
Giluy Arayos - Isn't that basically what we're here for?
Shfichus Domim - Although I usually focus on the gashmiyusdike reasons to stay clean, as I feel that mussar has not impacted me to stay clean, l'mayseh, masturbation is closely connected to shfichus domim from what I understand.

Hopefully, the z'chus of our attempts to be m'sakein these aveiros that caused the Golus HaShechina will bring the ultimate Geula Shleima B'karov Mamish.