rashkebehag wrote on 15 Feb 2010 20:55:


Disclaimer: Dov’s words are intended for people who have tried struggling with the Yetzer Hara for years and keep losing, not for people who are only slightly addicted and may be able to beat the addiction with "will-power” and messilas Yesharim.

Rashke, your running to your friend to put in the restrictions, reminds me of Yossef Hatzadik running out of the house of Eisher Potifar! You are surely shaking the heavens!

All Dov is saying, is don't make your "running away" the goal of your life. Instead, run away so that you can LIVE AS HASHEM'S BOYCHIK!

bardichev wrote on 17 Feb 2010 18:34:
Oh stop it rebbe your always looking for excuses. :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\ :-\

First of all, much thanks to all who daven for the ill of klal yisroel. May we all have a refuah sh'leimah. Enough said.
Second, it's good to be back here with y'all. Missed you lots.

Dear Rashkeshlit"a - sort of like what Guard said, but ah biss'l ahnd'rish: The 12 steps I know of are all about learning how to run. Not away from the addiction, but to run to Hashem instead of the addiction. To keep my focus on running to Hashem and use every circumstance in life for an opportunity to be with Him - to recognize that He is with me. My desperate need for Him is of course trashed every time I act as though I can control and use lust. It's similarly trashed whenever I act like I can withstand lust by my own power - or tzidkus, if you will. It seems to be some peoples' job, but not mine. And, b"H, I have been sober for 13 years now. The childlike dependence on Hashem is my greatest treasure - why would I want to ruin it with "madreigos"?! "Lo sa'aleh b'ma'alos al mizb'chi asher lo sigaleh ervascha olov" applies to me if it applies to anyone !!
I guess some people are destined to be more like Noach who had to walk with Hashem's help every step - others are like Avraham, who walked before Him seemingly on his own power. As of today, I choose Noach, at least in this issue...sue me. (just kidding please don't sue me!) The steps (over time) taught me how to do this.

Reb b - Your heartfelt viduy was beautiful to read. You will surely have a day that is "like yom Kippur"! Or is it the other way aroud?
V'nahafoch-HU!

Dov. I can't control my lust either. I run to you and read your posts and that takes care of the problem.

Oy. And I run here.
You know, the Sfas Emess has a shtikle on the "Mah pish'i uma chatasi, kee dalaktah acharai" of Yaakov Avinu to his shver. (he was a truly shverer shver!) He brings (as discusses also the Nefesh Hachayim, I am told) that all the b'riyah runs by magnetism to it's shoresh. One oilom to the malchus and oilom above it. That's dalakta, chasing. That's the "Avrom ro'oh birah dolokess ve'omar: Me ba'al habirah?!" He saw that things are cause and effect and each effect follows after the cause. How he saw that I have no clue. But he asked Mee ba'al habirah because he wanted above all else to come to know the Prime Cause, the Shoresh of all.
So we all run to eachother.

.

We have seen throughout chaz"l, that those who have any type of taiva what so ever, cannot even begin to hold by, and/or go up any madreigos. Madreigos only begin when the taivos are gone.  This use to put me down. When I realized that being an addict-always having taivos, that this means I can NEVER expect to go up to ANY madreiga. zilch. Then, I comforted myself. Hakol MinHashamyim.......Hashem is here with me, and he expects me to serve him where I am now. Madreiga Shmadreiga!!!

I don't buy that if one has a תאוה  he can't go up in מדרגות as long as he keeps his תאוה under control. secondly the main thing is doing mitzvos and serving Hashem, who said anything about Madreigos?

rashkebehag wrote on 24 Feb 2010 21:19:
I would guess to say that "me" meant as long as we are acting out on our taivos or as long as we are not working on them. because if not it is very hard to believe we cant go anywhere if we have taivos.

Me, mind to explain a little??

So, the question is:  What is a madreiga?  Obviously we are not talking about Kiyum Hamitzvos, (we are all still doing mitzvos), obviously we are not referring to working on being m'taken middos, we see that we can still do some of these as well) So, then....what IS a madreiga.  I guess I can't answer it fully since I was never holdiing by one. :D

But really, 

We know that the Arizal was holding by a madreiga. Can anyone here claim to be able to do what he did? The
Ba'al Shem Tov,....he was holding by madreigos, anyone here can close their eyes in the middle of shalosh seudos, and know what's going on in shemayim, as we all heard of his stories?  They were so far from any kind of taiva. These are surely madreigos!

rashkebehag wrote on 24 Feb 2010 21:19:

Agreed!
Let some folks just get a bumper sticker "Whoever dies with the most Madreigos wins!"
Ella what?:  We are winners if we are with Hashem - period. That's the attitude that I have seen works best for addicts. All the rest - paraphrasing Rebbi Akiva - is commentary.
Serving Hashem by doing His Will rather than my will (or anyone else's) is the ikkar for me (and as described in the 12 steps), and madreigos are tofeil. And they always will be, I believe.
To me, discussions based on what's right are nice, but are of very limited - if any - value. Ah, to be young again! To be able to sit back, picking and choosing the best derech for me to be yotzei alleh sheetos..."does it fit well with a Rav Dessler, a RMB"M, a gemorah in Succah?" Nu. Such luxuries neither I nor my wife and children always had. I wonder who does. There was a time when I was far too busy just staying out out hell. Early recovery was the very worst time for me to think about madreigos and worry about hashkofa. And guess what? It's the time when folks are the most consumed with it!! I was for about 10 years, as I got worse and worse...I blamed el nino', I guess ;D. The Chofetz Chayim used to say, "Besides being not doing aveiros, Hashem also doesn't want one to be a fool". Acting out with lust happens to be my own personal "foolishness", cuz it ruins my life. For others, it's drinking...if they worry about "the source" of the lav for drinking alcohol, gambling, heroin, etc., over much, they flush their lives down the toilet, and often die. Plain and poshut. Right? So, please tell me: What lav, exactly, is "flushing"?    Hah, hah....
So, my most basic hashkofa was this: Hashem doesn't want me to flush five lives down the toilet. And the devil isn't in the details, cuz I don't have to deserve to be with Him - I just have to start to give my life and my will into His care and continue doing just that. Of course, as a frum yid that means halocha, but it's a work in progress. That's a madreigo? Don't believe it! It's just enlightened self-interest! Good enough for me!

Sorry for the crassness, nu, I'm tired now. Wanna split a happy-pill, anyone?

Its taanis Esther, time to think about Purim. the gemora says that on Shabbos yidden talk about Torah while the goyim spend their party time discussing which nationality produces the prettiest females. אחשורוש bragged that his wife was the prettiest of all etc. you know the rest. To me it sounds that they were a bunch of addicts especially considering what they demanded of Vashti. So what happens? His beautiful wife gets killed as a result of his drunken stupidity. Now that is an example of throwing lives down the toilet. this means that when one is out of control there is no end to what he may do. Imagine bragging how pretty your wife is and then murdering her? ???
And that reminds me of another infamous addict, Mrs. Potiphar, who admired yosef's beauty to the point that she had him framed and jailed. Her husband became impotent and poverty stricken in the end. All a chain of events that she started.

Since we are talking about Esther, look at we can learn from the Purim story.

Esther, a tzadeikis, was put by Hashem into the depths of tumah. An Eishis Ish, in the depths of shmutz.......living with Achashver..... as his queen. It boggles the mind that she was put in such a situation, (you asked previously if we are responsible for our predictaments, or Hashem). Well, for Esther HaMalka, we see that it was Hashem who put AN Aishes Ish in this place, and what! What happened?!?  Hashems says to us, do you really think that this...this is the end of the story?  NO, no way. We don't know anything. We are all fruitcakes. We don't understand anything.
  Hashem, says to us, "and here, Esther Hamalka, hatzadeikis, who is in the darkest of all places,.......it is from here, that I will bring the Yeshua. From the dirtiest, darkest, smelliest places, Hashem brings to us the yeshua.  This is to show all of us here, who have found ourselves in these same types places, and  same situations, that davka from here, Hashem CAN/WILL bring the Yeshua!

OK, we are on a 'roll' (now I'm really hungry!)...

Purim was a neis nistar, Hashem was hidden all through the story - all through it. We dress up in diguise or funny costumes, and are hidden, too. So?
Well.
Hashem saved me from my own hidden life. My own disguise I wore all the time - it was incredibly draining!
And stupid.
Life was and is so much better without lust - the thing I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I couldn't live without! It's real, it's geshmak, it's useful, it's real, it's consumingly interesting and full of suprises, and...did I say that "it's real"? 
Gevalt! What a fool I was! Nu, but that's an addict. A real fool.

And I am still a "fool". It's just that this here fool is a fool for Hashem! Share my mistakes with others? Lead with my weakness? Give up to win? Good for free? Trust in an invisble G-d? What am I nuts!?!  So it seems....

Lets all have a l'chayim and say this foolish thing together: "To heck with me - what can I do for You/you?"
Kinda silly, huh?
:

Hi Dov:




I just had a thought. A foolISH person is one that does foolISH things.

But, when the person recognizes that what he did/does is fool ISH,  then he becomes the second part of the word. When we recongize our foolishness, then we becomean "ISH"...fool ISH.  Or, maybe we can say that the foolISH turns into FULL ISH, (i.e. a complete gever.  So, it's kind of like what I wrote up above about Esther. From the very depths of tuma, came the yeshua, and here too, from our own personal depths of FOOL ISHNESS, when we are zocheh to recognize it, it is then that we become FULL ISH, a complete  איש]


BTW Dov, I would guess that you would agree that it would be Fullish for us to become drunk on Purim , od d'lo yadah. what do you say?