eyes wrote on 19 Sep 2023 11:51:

You're in luck - They're manual! Click away!!!

My Kabbalah: Not to read news online during aseres yemei teshuva

Heeling wrote on 14 Sep 2023 19:24:

Additional (and realistic) kabala - not to go on to non-Jewish news sites. 

redfaced wrote on 18 Sep 2023 15:52:

I use Esa Einay. 2 volumes. It’s great. 

I also downloaded and printed the Kuntris from R Shpitzer that Benny posted a while back. I just started it and it’s gooood stuff. 

Just bumping one of my first posts... and with it a bit of a story as to what went on behind it.

Although I'd been struggling with P and M for about 15 years, things starting really sliding out of control. I had had a really rough year, probably my worst ever. For most of the year I had completely unfiltered internet on a computer, plus an unfiltered smartphone that would sometimes make it's way into my pocket for large parts of the day. Coming in towards the yomim noraim I realized that it was going to be my first time going thorugh RH and YK with an unfiltered device. Putting on a filter was not an option in my mind, as I really "needed" this stuff and didn't feel like putting one on Erev RH and uninstalling it on motzei. I was therefore desperately looking for a way to "show Hashem" that although I couldn't put on a filter; I was still trying. I didn't know how to get out of this mess, but I desperately wanted to do something, anything to put my foot on some sort of path towards getting out of the mud. And so the yom hadin club was created. I was hoping to show Hashem where my true sheifos were even though I wasn't holding by doing much.

I don't know exactly how they viewed this in shamayaim, however I do know that a large part of my success today came about through this little club. Both eerie and chaim oigen "joined the club" and reached out to me saying how much they liked the idea and offered to be in touch. I took them both up on the offer, and the relationships that I eventually created with both of them had a very strong effect on my success in pulling out.

With that introduction, I'd like to reinvite the gantze oilam to join the club for the coming Yom Kippur.

B"h the past year was an amazing year for me in this sugya. However, there's always something to work on and so my kabala for this year is as follows - being that I really don't need internet for much, I am mekabel that until Sukkos, I will not search anything at all in a search engine. Any website I need, I will type the website straight in. I hope to avoid the slipping and sliding that I sometimes do by clicking through the various websites that google tells me about.

תהא השעה הזאת שעת רחמים ועת רצון מלפניך

גמר חתימה טובה

BL"N No following news or sports for me until after YK. Also, to try to say Krias Shma Al Hamita, not laying in bed (usually falling asleep in the middle), not walking around (busy doing other things), only sitting down (and trying to focus on what I'm meant to be doing then).

amevakesh wrote on 07 Oct 2024 12:28:


Ok this is a hard one because there's a lot of news these days. 
Gonna call my filter company and ask them to block news and sports till after YK. (And YouTube) 
Hope I can survive (I might actually end up learning more Torah in the "few seconds" a day I spend on YouTube/news/sports)

I am working this week on not dwelling on it when unwanted thoughts pop into my head (like during 13 Middos by slichos today(!)), or when I noticed something I would have rather not, while driving. Getting bogged down about the mud is, by definition, getting bogged down in the mud. I will not enter the mud. I am not allowing these to take hold or define my thoughts or state in any way. Who I am is the overwhelming majority of my thoughts and feeling that are pretty damn impressive. And I’ll keep getting better.

This includes trying not to get bogged down by generally negative depressive thoughts (which are a different form of Hirhurim Ra’im). Which have been a bit of a challenge the past few days.  I can’t usually control the initial thought but I can control not getting bogged down… 

#Just keep trucking. 
#UPLIFTINGTHOUGHTS

I don't know for sure whether the intention of a small kabbalah was so that it can be something that a person can hold onto forever but I think that this was the intention. A big kabbalah can hold for a few days or maybe a little longer whereas I believe a small kabbalah was meant to be something that a person can hold onto for the whole year, or dear I say forever. You can also take something upon yourself until Yom Kippur but that would be a big kabbalah because you can't commit yourself to that long term.

I looked into the booklet Teshuva Within Reach which was distributed through GYE a year ago. The book defines a small kabbalah as something that the Yetzer Hora wouldn't put up too much resistance if we kept it long term. It seems from this that if you made a kabbalah until after Yom Kippur it doesn't meet the criteria for a small kabbalah. Think of something bitesize that you can keep long term.

For those of us who are clean for a very long time already it is possible that it is more important to make a kabbalah in something unrelated to GYE. I made a small kabbalah related to davening.

Rav Leuchter has some excellent shuirim about a kabbalah ktana. He suggests it's something small enough you can keep under any circumstances, but that can be a pesech to greater avodah. A talmid of his, R' Levi Lebovits, has a couple excellent and approachable pamphlets (one is available online here) about making a good kabbalah. 

I'm bl"n being mekabel to not do any recreational internet use at work before working 5.15 hours. A little overly ambitious perhaps, but I think it's doable. (And yes, I hit that early today so here I am on GYE.)

This same Rabbi Lebovits has suggestion for a Vaad to meet together with some friends, perhaps just once a month, and talk about the kabbalah throughout the year. We all know how powerful friends, and accountability with friends, can be. Maybe some of the guys here want to get on a call once a month and talk about the kabbalah they've made and how it's going?
(I'd love to join, but I'm a little swamped with other vaadim. On that note, if you haven't joined the vaad project yet - hit that link baby.)

Edit: Wow totally was spacing out while reading this. I thought IWRL's first post on this thread was from this year and was soooo confused.  What a difference a year makes! Wow.

amevakesh wrote on 07 Oct 2024 12:28:

Had this thought too, add me to the list! At least the news part...I think football scores will still be checked...

chosemyshem wrote on 07 Oct 2024 20:03:

I think that's what Shem meant to say. 

Huh, I had no idea football was a Burmese pastime. Go figure!

Not that kind, silly! What you Americans call soccer...

I know this is a bit late of a post but here are my things I'm not doing during the aseres yemay teshuva that I hope to carry on through the year and beyond
1) No youtube shorts
2) No checking notifications during davening even though "it's only my watch" (I don't check my phone, only my watch if im in davening)
3) Say Aleinu properly (by properly I mean with all the words and trying not to rush)
4) Something at the back of my mind is Barchu bc I never think about it but we have it atleast twice a day. It's unexpectedly difficult to remember to think about barchu while saying it.
There's probably a few more I just can't think of now.

Keep on Trucking, One Day At A Time!!