Be'H I will complete my second year of no porn / zera livatala very soon. To me, shmiras habris is the most important thing in the world. My first year's tactic was to read GYE and other material as much as I could. This past year, I decided to just not think about it at all, because thinking about not thinking about this kinda stuff still leaves it in your head. It did work in a lot of ways, and it did wonders for keri too, but since I am not constantly reiterating the importance, I've been feeling the need to be mitchezekrecently and so I hope to start posting more on this forum.
Lev tahor b'rah lee elohim. The words and tune repeat themselves in my head and on my lips as I read and reread through the postings on this site. So many Yidden, so many truly pious Jews, hanging on for dear life, begging for a chance to move on.
It's been a huge struggle for all of us, hasn't it? Is there anyone out there that can understand each unique place all of us come from that leads us to where it does, while we struggle to tear ourselves away? It seems we've tried so hard. This upward slope, ridden with pitfalls. Pushing through the rough terrain, we have those times that we see the meadows. But much of it is spent in the darkened forests of a world which threatens to drag us in... to destroy us at the very core of what make us Jews.
Kedoshim t'hiyu. It's who we are. But built in, is the Yetzer Hara! What does he truly want? I believe R' Tzadok Hakohen writes a song of the Yetzer Hara. It is his job to take us away from our true potential, from who we can be. But silently, the Yetzer Hara himself hopes that we will win over him. Even as he turns his power on us and we fall to his wiles... All that time, he is silently rooting for us to beat him.
Lev tahor. That's the goal here. It's what we all want. And yet, as we promise ourselves and Hashem, day in and day out, we attain levels, and sometimes there are slips... falls... r"l... But in all of us, all the while, our hearts are crying and screaming to Hashem that we just want Him. TATTEH, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK??? Can it be that Hashem will turn us down, when all we are doing is requesting His presence, requesting His closeness, His embrace?
It is a gift we've been given, to even have the will to combat it in the first place - in today's world. What does Hashem want? He wants the same thing... "asei ritzono kirtzonecha - make His Will like your will". We've done just that. Our wills are in congruence with each other. We want to find Hashem, and Hashem wants us to find Him. Through the struggle, through the temptation... in the darkness... through the tfillah... we find Him. All we can do is keep asking Hashem: "Al tashlichayni milfanecha... v'ruach kadshecha al tikach mimeni". Al tikach? Don't take it away? Where is it? We have it. We must have Hashem's ruach hakodesh, being that we are asking Him not to remove it. It is with us. It always has been. It's who we are. And no matter what, we can't let anything tell us otherwise. We just have to keep asking for what we want. Because merely by asking for closeness, we are already attaining that closeness.
Let's ask again... together... right now.
- Shmiras
"Leap - and the net will appear"