Even Your Private Successful Battles Make a Difference - Great Story

Shmuel, over at the Tikun! blog, has a great story told to him by the Giores wife in a young couple who ate by him Friday night. She grew up in a Catholic home in the Philipines. In her story, she told of seeing someone's private successful battle against the yetzer hara. The story's a big chizuk to us.

Key quote:

She couldn't believe it! To be sure, she turned around to see if he would maybe turn back after they had passed each other and sneak a peek, but as far as she could tell, he kept going on his way without stopping.

In a place where everyone is looking to satisfy their urges, could such a thing be possible? Who was that boy? Upon returning to her apartment, her roommate informed her that the boy she had seen on the street was a Jew. Until that point, she had never seen a Jew, didn't know what a Jew was or looked like, knew nothing about Jews at all.

Give it a read to read the whole story.

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Running After the Emptiness of the World and Becoming Empty

During this past weeks Haftarah, I was struck once again by the powerful words of the Navi Yirmiyahu (2:5), "וַיֵּלְכוּ אַחֲרֵי הַהֶבֶל, וַיֶּהְבָּלוּ," "that they have gone after emptiness and become empty."

It made me think of the powerful mashal in the old Greek myth about the Sirens. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the Greeks had a myth that sailors would hear the sound of beautiful women singing near certain islands at sea. They would be so drawn by the beauty of their voices that they would drive the ship in the direction of the voices where they would inevitably crash on the rocks from which the Sirens were singing. Ironically though, the Siren's weren't even women. They were strange birds with the heads of women that waited on the rocks, just to lure sailors to their deaths trying to reach them.

It wasn't bad enough that the sailors would be lured to their deaths in search of these beautiful Sirens. The beautiful women that they sought were not even beautiful women at all. Rather, they were merely strange, ugly creatures that were part bird and part human. They ended up not only destroying themselves, but destroying themselves for nothing, for an illusion of beauty.

It is the same with aveira and ta'ava. The things we desire seem so beautiful and enticing. But the reality is that not only do those pleasures destroy those who run after them, which most of us already know, but those Siren songs are absolute emptiness. There is nothing on the other side worth chasing after. It's all illusion, dimyon, and fantasy. None of it is real.

Especially in this time of the three weeks, may you and I become fully conscious of the fact that if we choose to go after the emptiness of this world, which is both false and destructive, we empty ourselves of everything good.

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Fighting Against "Lust Addiction" A Website to Help

Guard Your Eyes.com - HT Avakesh. From their website:

Welcome to the GuardYourEyes community, a vibrant network and fellowship of religious Jews of all affiliations, struggling to purify themselves and break free from inappropriate behaviors stemming from Lust addiction.

With the advance of technology and the ease of availability and privacy that the internet provides, it has become a daily struggle for many religious Jews to remain Erlich (morally and ethically upright) even in their own homes. Jewish Leaders, Rabbis and Experts worldwide, are beginning to speak out about this serious problem more and more.

Our network is comprised of a website: www.guardureyes.com, a dynamic blog-site (under development) at www.guardyoureyes.org that offers new material, tips, stories and articles each day, RSS feeds (coming soon) and a pulsating forum where members post logs of their journeys to recovery, ask questions and exchange tons of Chizuk with the rest of the community. Besides this, the GYE network provides weekly phone conferences, hotlines - both in the U.S and Israel, and two daily Chizuk e-mails, 1. “Learning how to break free of lust addiction” and 2. “General Chizuk in guarding the eyes”. We also help people find accountability partners and sponsors.

For the first time, a religious Jew has where to turn to for help in this area, as well as an entire network of tools, tips and group support to help break free from the insidious grasp of this addiction. All our work is free of charge (although donations are our life-line) and we zealously protect the complete anonymity of our members. On our forum, charts and on the hotlines and weekly phone conferences, only pseudo-names and non-revealing e-mail addresses are used. For starters, you may want to make yourself an anonymous e-mail address before joining our community (something like baLetaher@gmail.com).

With the guidance of R’ Avraham J. Twerski, a world renowned expert on addictions, author of over 50 books and a true Gadol in Klal Yisrael, we present a set of guidelines to help anyone, no matter how far they have fallen, to find their way out of the vicious cycle of Lust addiction.

Our sages have called Shmiras Habris “Yesod”, meaning “Foundation”. The foundation of a building is “underground” and no one sees it, yet it holds up the entire building! Shmiras Habris is the hidden part of a Jew, it’s the real you. If the foundation of a Jew is weak, his whole spiritual structure is in grave danger of collapse. At GYE we are finally joining together, for ourselves and for all future generations, to strengthen the foundations of our people.

This area has been Taboo in the religious community for far too long. There is such a desperate need for our work today. Finally people are finding that they are not alone and that there is true hope in overcoming this addiction.

The very fabric of our society is at stake here. Families are literally being destroyed. Husbands, wives and children are all being affected in some way. The ease of accessibility and privacy that the internet provides, is the all out attack of Amalek in our generation.

At GuardYourEyes we are saving lives and marriages every day - literally, not to mention giving people back their sanity, self-respect and connection to spirituality, all of which they had given up for lost, thinking that they had no hope to ever break free… See here for how wide spread this epidemic seems to be in the religious community today.

And please see here for Testimonials of how our network is helping people all the time. See as well the testimonial section of our new site over here. And download a PDF file of the latest testimonials, just from this past March and April, 2009, over here.

Is there anywhere else in the world where one can find such an awakening of such deep levels of Teshuvah and closeness to Hashem like what is happening on our site and forum every day? Read the testimonials and see for yourself! How many countless times people write to us how they simply broke down crying when reading the website and the posts on the forum, and when they realize that they too have hope!

GuardUrEyes is the main, if not the only, religious network in the world today that deals with this issue in such a comprehensive manner, with so many tools, a forum, a blog site, e-mail lists, phone conferences, hot-lines, 12-Steps, etc…

And what we have now is only a start. Ultimately, we hope that our work will spread throughout the Jewish world. We are developing a network of sponsors and partners, and a growing community of people who want to be part of this revolution.

And we hope that these handbooks that we are working on now will ultimately evolve into published books. And we hope that our message will one day be translated into other languages as well, such as Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, French and more!

The Zohar writes that Shmiras Habris is one of the main areas holding up the Ge’ulah. We literally are paving the path for Moshiach. Be a part of it! Join the revolution. Every time we fix ourselves, we are fixing a whole world. (See here for a cute parable).

Help Us Help Others. We can’t do it without you.

Help support GuardYourEyes according to your means. Perhaps you can set aside a percentage of your Ma’aser money and become a monthly sponsor to “partner” in our holy work.

And if you know of any other ways that we may garner financial support, for example, other people who may have Ma’aser money and who would understand the importance of what we are doing, or organizations that work towards these same goals, please let us know.

The very fabric of our society is at stake. Be a part of saving Klal Yisrael in what is perhaps the most difficult test of our generation.

In the merit of your help, Hashem will give you special divine assistance in your own struggle. This is based on “Midah kineged Midah”. If you help others heal and help us spread the message of hope, Hashem will help you as well, in ways you never believed possible.

Perhaps you can help us spread the word and let the Rabbanim, mechanchim and community leaders know that there is hope. Or perhaps you can help us get articles published in Jewish newspapers, magazines and on-line websites. Maybe you even have your own website and can put up a banner that links to our site. See here for some available banners. And see here for a Flyer that you can print out to hang up in your neighborhood shteiblach, bulletin boards or the like, or use to sponsor an ad in your community or neighborhood magazines.

Chazal say that there is nothing Hashem despises as much as Zimah (promiscuity and licentiousness). Yet, without these intense struggles, could we really become great men and Tzadikim? So Hashem knows that we need to have this Yetzer Hara, but only so that we succeed to break free in the end, and in the process, we learn to give Hashem our hearts. And that’s what GuardUrEyes is doing: Helping people get back their sanity, their lives, and their connection with Hashem and his Torah. We are fixing the world, one person at a time.

R’ Noach Weinberg Za”l, Rosh yeshiva of Aish Hatorah used to ask people if they thought they could change the world. And they would say, “what can I do on my own?”, And then he would ask them, “If Hashem helped you, could you do it then ?” And they would agree that with Hashem’s help, anything is possible. That was Rav Noach’s life-time philosophy. He knew that he could do nothing without Hashem, but with Hashem, he knew he could change the world. And he DID.

He was also once asked how he had been so successful in building such a colossal world-wide Kiruv movement. He replied that he had once seen a crane lifting a 10 ton block of cement, while the workers on the roof guided it into place. Explained Rav Noach, since the prophets have already promised that the Yidden will do Teshuvah before Moshiach’s time, Hashem is already holding the 10 ton block for us. All that is left for us to do, is guide it into place.

It is the same with Shmiras Habris. The Holy books write that before Moshiach time there will be a great awakening of purity in these areas. All we have to do, is to be there to guide our Jewish brother’s hearts back into place.

Happy is the lot of those who are a part of this!

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Deriding Those Who Emphasize "Repairing the Covenant"? & Beyond BT "Torah As Tool" Posting

I have two guest posts that were posted today. The first is from A Simple Jew, where he asked about why people deride Breslov Chassidus for its emphasis on repairing sins of an illicit nature, in the area of shmiras Habris. Here is his question, followed by a link to my answer:

A Simple Jew asks:

I have often heard people criticize Breslov Chassidus because they perceive it to have an overemphasis on the concept of shemiras habris. Given the fact that this concept pertains to overcoming one of a person's strongest and most powerful desires, would you attribute the criticism of shemiras habris to a critic's conscious or unconscious realization that they have great difficulties living up to the ideal? To what do you attribute Western society's derision of shemiras habris in general?

Dixie Yid Answers...

P.S. Two points to anyone who can guess why I chose the picture above...

Also, Beyond BT has reposted my post from a while back about whether those of us who come closer to Torah later in life should focus on Torah's practical benefits or its spiritual benefits when trying to fight out yetzer hara. Beyond BT: Should We Teach That Torah is the Best Worldly Tool?

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The New Internet Filter I'm Using

I'm hesitant to write about this Internet web filter until I feel like I can really get to know it and fully see how it works. But we just took the big plunge and bought and subscribed to an Internet filter called Kleen Web, from a frum Internet filtering company. I'd heard about it before, but a recent article in Jewish Action Magazine that I read by Yitzchok Adlerstein, a frequent contributor at Cross-Currents, renewed my interest in giving this another try.

There are several free options for cleaning up your Internet service but none of them really worked for me. I have tried one called K-9 Internet Protection, a free web filter. It prevented my computer from working properly and I couldn't get it working again until I uninstalled it. Furthermore, it was too easy to uninstall, which makes it less than safe for the kids anyway, who could more easily get around it. And I've also tried a program called x3watch, an Internet buddy program. X3watch is supposed to monitor the sites you visit and send a list of the questionable ones to your internet buddy, which would encourage self-monitoring of the sites one visits. #1, it doesn't really prevent kids from seeing things they shouldn't. And anyway, it never worked properly, even when I paid for customer support and my "Internet buddy" never reliably received the e-mails with possible "questionable" sites that were visited on my computer.

I therefore came to the conclusion that, at least for now, I had to bite the bullet and pay a little something to keep myself, and my children safe from the horrible things on the Internet.

So far, my computers seem to function properly on Kleen Web and it has a few advantages. #1, it's very flexible. I'm even able to run this blog with all of it's image, video and blog searches without too much of a problem. I'm able to set it to allow certain computers to access images.google.com and the like.

Another good thing about it is that certain things that would be universally considered inappropriate are never allowable and it causes the Google "safe serach" option to always be on. Also, it will sometimes selectively not display videos or pictures that are embedded in other sites if the source site for that picture/video is not allowed. For instance, it will not display a YouTube video that's embedded on my blog, even though it will display everything else, unless you have set it to allow YouTube on that computer.

One other advantage that makes it good is that it cannot be uninstalled from any computer that it's installed onto, unless you call in to their offices and give them certain security information over the phone. This adds another layer of protection so that kids or anyone without the security information can't remove the program. We've also taken the additional step of having passwords placed on all of our computers so that after five minutes of inactivity, you have to retyple the password to get onto the computer.

Also, if it's on a laptop, you're protected everywhere. Since the filter is not server-side, but right there on the computer, if you go to some other wireless network at some other location, the filter is still there.

My plan is that once I've set things up the way I need them, I'll have my wife change the administrator's password to something that I won't know about, which will protect me, in fulfillment of what Chazal say in Kesubos 13b that "אין אפוטרופוס לעריות," no one can trust himself when it comes to illicit matters.

Like I said before, it's very early on. We've only had the program for about 2 weeks now on our computers. But our oldest child is already nine and a half years old. And our three year old son is already getting proficent in how to use a computer. From our school's understandable perspective, they would prefer that families not have Internet in their homes at all. However, as that is not shiach for us due to my wife and my work, some solution is very very necessary to prevent a takala, a calamity in our home if our kids gain access or are exposed to some of the intensely bad stuff out there.

IY"H, I'll keep you posted on how it's going. But I am writing this to once again, make sure that this issue is front and center and hopefully others will take whatever steps they can to protect themselves and their children.

Feel free to contact me or comment with your experiences with any of these options or with any help or about any problems you are having with KleenWeb.

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of KleenWeb)

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Sanctifying the Heart - Having Breakfast With the Bilvavi

I was just speaking to a heiligeh Chassidisher Yid from Boro Park yesterday and he shared the following vort with me, as an explanation as to what he felt the gadlus (greatness) of the Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh seforim in our generation is:

He asked a question in the name of the Bais Yisroel of Ger. Why does the pasuk say "וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם," "You shall not stray after your heart and after your eyes" (Bamidbar 15:39) in that particular order? Doesn't one usually first see something that then stirs his heart to desire it? Shouldn't the verse place straying after one's eyes before the idea of not straying after his heart?

The Bais Yisroel explains that when one is working on guarding his heart, thoughts and eyes from focusing on the wrong things, it is best to first start by being mekadesh (sanctifying) his heart, his inner-most mindset, thoughts and feelings. Once his heart is purified, then that which he may see (by accident of course) will not draw him. It will not register, just as if he would be looking at a door or a mouse. (DY: This would be the pshat in the Gemara's statement that women seemed like white Geese ("קאקי חיורי") to Rav Gidel. [Brachos 20a])

My Chassidisher friend said that to him, when he learns the seforim of the Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh, they are so clear and so illuminating, that they have the effect of being mekadesh his heart, sanctifying his heart. He said that now, he feels that shmiras ha'einayim, guarding his eyes, is 60-70% easier than it was 6 months ago because when one's heart is with Hashem consciously, there's just no attraction to retzonios kozvios, false desires.

Along these lines as well, I was zocheh to have breakfast with Rav Shwartz Sunday morning, after he arrived in New York. In response to a question, the Rav's host told him that that he felt that in the past year, he had improved in the area of shmiras ha'einayim, guarding his eyes. Rav Shwartz asked him if this was because he was fighting harder, or because he didn't have to fight as hard? He explained that although it's a madreiga, a level, to fight harder against the yetzer hara (evil inclination) and succeed more, the best thing is to bring Hashem into the consciousness to the extent that one doesn't need to fight harder to win against the Yetzer Hara.

Whether it be through the Bilvavi Seforim, or whatever other method, may we all bring Hashem into our thoughts and consciousness so that our hearts will be sanctified and we will no longer desire any of the false temptations of this world!

Rav Shwartz's schedule for the rest of the week in Baltimore, Monsey, Woodmere, Far Rockaway/Five Towns, Englewood & Boro Park is available HERE.

-Dixie Yid

P.S. After Rav Shwartz returns to Eretz Yisroel, I hope to post all of his shiurim online. Also, I may be able to post a couple of video recordings of some of the shiurim in the next few weeks.

(Picture courtesy of inner.org)

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Birthday Tikunim and Ta'avos

Parshas Vayeshev, Shishi - Part II at A Simple Jew

The Rebbe then told me that the Arizal said this taiva is something that every person struggles with since it is THE nisayon of our generation.

-Dixie Yid

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Practical Eitzos From Others on Shmiras Ha'Einayim

Please read THIS POST at A Simple Jew for several eitzos that he's collected from regular people out there who are working on being mechazeik themselves in the avoda of Shmiras Ha'einayim. I highly recommend this post and I hope that it will be a catalyst for people being mechazeik themselves in this inyan.

-Dixie Yid

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Eitza from R' Elimelech on Controlling Thoughts - "The Nuclear Option"

A friend and member of my Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh Chaburah pointed out a really powerful eitza from Rav Elimelech from Lizhinsk to completely take control of your thoughts. I think that this eitza is so powerful, I would characterize it as "the nuclear option."

In Tzeitel Koton #13, found in the sefer Noam Elimelech, he writes that one should keep track of and tell over all of his machshavos asuros to either his rebbe, or a very close friend, every day. Not only will this force a person to control and eliminate his forbidden thoughts because he doesn't want to be humiliated in front of his rebbe or good friend, but it also has the bonus benefit that the rebbe or friend may have good advice for him in changing his thought patterns.

This advice makes me think of a couple of things. One thing is that it shows that with proper motivation, we have the ability to control our own thoughts, notwithstanding today's conventional wisdom, which says that one cannot control their own thoughts. For instance, if I knew that my employer would withhold a day's pay from me for every time that I had a forbidden thought, then you could be darn sure that I would lose one, or at maximum, two days pay for the rest of my life! I would know and be conscious of the consequences of my thoughts and I would find a way to control them, notwithstanding the difficulty. Reb Mailech is pointing out that this great truth can be channeled into practical application by creating a similar disincentive by telling over all forbidden thoughts to a rebbe or trusted friend.

The other thing that this makes me think of is computer programs that one can install that monitor one's internet use and them creates periodic e-mails to an "accountability partner," that lists all of the questionable internet sites that he has visited during a certain period. I have not found an effective and fully operational program like this, but the concept is the same. He is essentially taking what a program like that does for one's internet use, and then expanding it into his entire brain! His rebbe or friend becomes his "accountability partner" when it comes to taking responsibility for his every thought.

I hope that someone out there finds this eitza effective. May Hashem help us all to be goveir on our thoughts, such that they should only be thoughts which bring us closer to Him, and not, ChV"Sh, the opposite.

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of LoriWilliamsOnline)

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Vital Video Shiur by R' Lazer Brody on Shmiras HaBris

Protecting yourself on the internet- Buddy System Alternative

Shimon at A Jewish Blog has researched another solution to the problem that I brought up here about the spiritual dangers on the internet for Yidden who must use the internet.

The results of his research and experience can be found on his post here. I think this issue must be addressed by anyone who uses the internet. The gemara says "Ain Apotropos l'arayos." No one can guarantee about himself that he will not engage in problems relating to Gilui Arayos, shmiras ha'einayim, or hirhur aveira. Therefore, we must all find aitzos that do not rely on our own self-control to stem this problem. If you use a filter like Shimon suggests, then someone else (your wife, mother, whatever) should have the password to control it's access. Not you/your children, etc.

Here's the link to Shimon's post on this subject.

-Dixie Yid

If you think you have a bad environment at work...

I saw the following story in the sefer Sipurei Chassidim by Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin in the Shir Hashirim section on Pesach.

Shir Hashirim 2:2: "K'shoshana bain hachochim, kain rayasi bain habanos." "Like a rose among the thorns, so too is my beloved among the nations"

There was a ma'aseh with the Shpoler Zaide. One of his Chassidim had to make his living working in a tavern. He came to the rebbe for guidance.

"Every day I have see drunks and low-lifes behaving like animals and talking about the most disgusting things. I'm really worried that this will affect my mindset and will lower me to be more like them. What can I do?"

The Shpoler Zayde answered him: "It sounds to me like you think that if you had enough money to live on without having to work, and you had beautiful cloths, plenty to eat, and a beautiful clean Bais Medresh full of seforim to learn in, then you could really serve Hashem. But that you can't really be a kadosh, a tahor, and an eved Hashem in the environment you have to me in now.

Well let me tell you, Hashem already has tens upon tens of thousands of malachim serving him up in shamayim like that already. If He needed one more of those, you would have been created as a malach. Hashem put you in that place of tumah right now so that you would long to be close to Hashem, and look forward the whole day to those few holy words you can utter before your Creator. That longing and desire and purity and holiness of the mind that you can have in the midst of that tavern of yours is more precious to Hashem that the service of all of those malachim up in Shamayim.

The words of the Shpoler Zeide are more important for us now than ever, as we are surrounded at work and on the streets (and those of us who bring TV and internet into our homes; there too) with nivul peh, pritzus, and base conversations. May Hashem help us be mechazaik ourselves to hope and live for the moments of avodas Hashem that He grants us!

-Dixie Yid

Dangers of the Internet - The Internet Buddy System

I want to share a vital shmira, and I received this from my rebbe, that any Jew who must expose himself to the internet, for whatever reason, must make sure that he does not access the internet without some sort of supervision or accountability. This would usually be accomplished in the form of some kind of internet buddy, where you install software on every computer you have access to, which reports any problematic sites you may visit to whatever trusted person you designate (wife, chevrusa, whatever).

I heard one person comment that if computers existed in the time of Chazal, then they surely would have made an issur yichud with a computer. Since that is not the case, for those of us who do need to use the internet, I'm putting this out there as an important safeguard on what we look at with our eyes.

I don't feel comfortable sharing the link to the software that I use for this purpose at this time, until I can find out if it is appropriate to share the name of the website that manufactures it publicly in the Jewish community.

I did just want to share this idea to help us not fall into the various pitfalls of blogging and being involved with the internet. Kol tuv!

-Dixie Yid

Ben Porat Yosef - Parshas Vayechi

The Slonimer Rebbe explains in Nesivos Shalom the meaning of the blessing when Yosef's father Yaakov blesses him with the words "Ben Poras Yosef, Ben poras alei ayin, bnos tzoados alei shur," ("A charming son is Yosef, charming on to look upon; young women climb walls to gaze at him).

He says that according to the Midrash, the young women would even fight for a place to get a good view of Yosef when he would pass by. And that they would throw jewelry at him to get his attention so that he would look at them. And he never did. He explains that Yaakov was praising Yosef for this midah, that he always guarded his eyes from seeing that which they shouldn't see. And that this is in accordance with his general trait, which is as the merkava for the mida of Yesod.

But he points out that Yosef withstood much greater trials with the wife of Potifar, and passed. Why is his father praising him for this aspect of that trait of purity?

He answers by pointing out the well known expression that "The eyes see, the heart covets, and the body sins." The eyes are the gateway to the whole person. When a person allows his eyes to serve merely as tools for his own enjoyment, then he allows the Sitra Achra, the other side, to rule over him. But one who guards over his eyes, only to look at things for purposes of Kedusha, then holiness rules over his life, rather than the opposite. This is why the pasuk says about Yosef, "Hu hashalit, hu hamashbir." He was the ruler and the sustainer (of the people of Egypt). He was the ruler over himself and that is why he merited to be the ruler over the nation of Egypt.

The fact that the way one watches his eyes is the key to his entire success in the middah of Yesod, in shmiras habris, is why Yosef's conduct with his eyes is his main reason for praise by his father Yaakov. And that is why Yaakov focuses more on praising Yosef in that area, rather than for his success in the test with the wife of Potifar.

-Dixie Yid