Rebakiva!
come back and join us we love you!
pleeeeeese.

cande'

Thanks harav cande for reviving me, I had no intention of leaving, just had a very hectic Chanukah schedule, and a couple of simchas the week before Chanukah, which left me with almost no time to login.

I'm bh doing great, a couple of slight slips here and there, some regular day to day stress, but overall I'm bh doing fine.

Thanks again to all of you who reached out to me in private, concerned about a fellow GYE sibling, it has really warmed my heart to feel all of your love and concern, who knows where I would've been today without my GYE brothers.

With love ke'mayim punim le'punim, Akiva 

My favorite Vort I've heard on this weeks parsha.

Yosef Hatzadik brought his 2 sons Menashe and Ephraim before his father Yaakov Avinu so he should bentch them before his passing, but Yaakov crossed his hands puting his right hand on Ephraim, and left hand on Menashe, after he finishes Yosef tells his father that he's mistaken for Menashe is the eldest, to which Yaakov responds, 'ידעתי בני ידעתי וכו.

Apperently there's some disagreement between Yaakov and Yosef, as to whom should get the right hand, there's a lot of explanations for this, but one that always resonated with me in a very deep way, and fully belongs here on GYE.

I heard from a certain rav {won't say who, as it might be identifiable} that if we look back to parshas Mikeitz, Yosef named Menashe because "כי נשני אלוקים מכל עמלי" meaning that Hashem rewarded me with something that'll make me forget all my previous hardship's, and Ephraim is for "כי הפרני בארץ עניי" meaning that Hashem made me thrive and prosper within my pain and hardships.

Now Yosef thought that seeing Hashem rewarding him for his courageousness' and hardships, is really something to be celebrated and made as the ikkur of his legacy going forward, that he went through so much, and in the end it paid off, therefore he named his Bechor Menashe, and he should be the one deserving Yaakov's right hand.

But Yaakov told Yosef, "ואחיו הקטן יגדל ממנו, וזרעו יהי' מלא הגוים", meaning that Ephraim's kids are going to be the ikkur between the goyim, because Ephraim is the symbol of the struggling jew, the jew who feels all alone in the world as if he's the only one struggling with kedusha, P&M, and evrything else, as much as he's trying to stop and help himself, he just continuously falls again and again, whatever he tries, just doesn't work, he cries silently in pain for his life hoping to one day become the Menashe who's just a real holy jew, but to no avail, he falls and gets back up but eventually falls again, as the navi says "אפרים מתנודד", he's a shaky person "יעלו שמים ירדו תהומות", but with all that said, Hashem says "הבן יקיר לי אפרים" I love Ephraim more than anything, "כי מידי דברו זכור אזכרנו עוד, על כן המו מעי לו" every time I think about him, my whole body flips over and over again...

Now to take it one step deeper, we find that when Yakkov was going to bentch Yosef, the Brachos were only for his kids, not at all for him, also we find that instead of Yosef being rewarded for his courageousness' with eishes potifar, his zechus in the shevatim goes to his kids, and gets split into 2, instead of him becoming the main sheivet, or something like that, so why is it that it's all about his kids instead of him?

Says this rav, be'sheim sefarim, that Yosef achieved such a high level in kedusha, that a regular human being can't be סובל, so it wouldn't have been able to be נמשך down to us in this galus, therefore it had to be split into 2, the kedusha of during the hardships, the rises AND the falls, and the kedusha of after acheiving true lasting freedom, only this way can the kedusha of yosef be נמשך down to us, but had it been all in one person Yosef, it would've been too much for us.

So now we understand why it's all about Menashe and Ephraim VS Yosef, so Yaakov explained to Yosef that "זרעו יהי' מלא הגוים" that in this dark galus the main character will be the struggling jew the Ephraim, the one that Hashem says "הבן יקיר לי אפרים וכו' על כן המו מעי לו" he's the main one to be celebrated, yes it's an awesome thing to achieve true lasting freedom, but our main focus should be on internalizing Hashem's love for the Ephraim the struggling jew, therefore Yaakov put his right hand on Ephraim.

I'll finish off with a prayer that we all truly be zoiche to internalize Hashem's love for us the struggling jew, we should feel his love in an open way, in a way that we can understand that it's good, and this way stay motivated to keep winning this battle of our generation, and IY"H achieve true lasting freedom, with happiness health and love.

So it's been a while I'm currently going through a very stressful situation in my life, which unfortunately led me to let my guard down a bit, BH not terribly but let's just say my shmiras einaiyem in the streets {only} is not the way it should be.
Which brought me to a very deep understanding of myself and the way our beloved majesty the honorable YH works his way around us.

I've bh come a very long way, p&m has become a thing of the past, and a complete no-go, it's BH not an option at all anymore, and when experiencing an urge my newfound second nature kicks in and subconsciously sends my hand to my phone to call or text one of my GYE friends.More so, my marriage has BH made a 180 degree turn for the good, as R' HHM puts it, I stopped focusing only on the icing aka s*x, instead my main focus now is on the cake aka emotional connection to my wife.

But {and this is a big and very deep but} the YH managed to get around me to some extent, now that I'm in this stressful situation, and slipped up a bit in my shmiras einaiyem, because p&m is a no-go and s*x is not my focus in my marriage, he managed to twist my newfound view in marriage to be seeking emotional s*x instead of only focusing on emotional connection, not that I was looking for s*x, to the contrary I was genuinely looking for the emotional part of marriage, but it was for emotional s*x, I know it's not clear what I'm writing here I'll try to explain to the best of my ability but I'm not the best writer, so please try to think yourself to understand what I'm really trying to say.

Basically what happened was that my wife came to tell me one day last week, that she got her period, and unfortunately my reaction was a really grumpy reaction {to put in a nice way}, which got me thinking a lot over shabbos, "what's wrong with me, if I'm truly seeking an emotional connection with my wife, why should I feel this way when she's not clean"?

In the beginning his majesty YH tried twisting my mind to think that it's an "emotional separation" trauma which is causing me to feel this way, but BH I didn't buy into it, because if physical s*x is not my main focus, then there technically shouldn't be any separation, emotionally we can still be one, love each other to no end, so that doesn't answer why I was feeling this way.

I couldn't really understand what's going on, I was in a "ruach shtus" mode, but hashem berov rachmov vachasudov put it into my mind to sit down with my wife shabbos night after the seuda and the kids sleeping, and we played a game that both of us haven't played since around 4th grade, one of select few games that are maybe ok to play during nida time, {A my name is Alex and my husband's name is Abraham we come from Australia...} and I for some reason felt a bit better with myself, but on the other hand confirmed that YH is wrong, there absolutely is no separation.

That's when it dawned on me that I'm not focusing 100% on the emotional connection, just rather I'm focusing on "emotional connection followed by physical s*x", again not to say that we weren't 100% emotionally connecting, we were really connecting emotionally the past 3 months, just that I still felt that it really needs to have the ability {not actual s*x, just the ability} to lead into physical s*x.

Basically this time around I've come to the deep understanding that the nida period is meant to focus "only"  on the emotional connection, a connection that doesn't have the possibility to lead into physical s*x, not to say that when my wife is clean I'm doing something wrong and I should continue to focus only on the emotional connection, IMHO that's not realistic, hashem created the concept of marriage with 2 components, the woman = emotional connection, and the man = a desire for physical s*x, so yes I'm allowed to have a desire for s*x, obviously it should only be the icing on top of the cake, it should be coming in a way of connecting emotionally so strongly that to top it off we both want to provide to each other a physical closeness in bed together, but the intention is a topping on the emotional connection.

So yes when my wife is clean I should have such a desire for the 2 components of marriage the emotional connection, AND my desire for physical s*x, {again, not the necessarily the actual s*x, that's not an option every night vs emotional connection which is for ever on-going, just the ability to lead to s*x} but when she's not clean, it's supposed to be a special unique time to have only one component which is the emotional connection without the ability to lead into the second component the physical part.

So now I understand that till now it was one big mush by me I was looking for "emotional connection followed by physical s..." Which is why I felt let down when my wife told me that she got her period, but hopefully now that I've changed my perspective of what the Nida time is all about, I hope I'll never feel this way again.

Could be I'm not clear enough, but this is the best way I can explain myself, if any of the great writers here have a better way to write it, I'd be honored to have you rewrite so others and I myself can better understand this concept.

Wishing y'all, all the best, Akiva

rebakiva wrote on 12 Jan 2025 02:56:

I'm Sure you wrote a very inspirational mushy post. Yet I only saw this.
Your name is ALEX  and your husbands name is ABRAHAM?!!??
Way to come out of the closet !!  While playing a game with your wife too!!!

( Dont you dare say you meant Alexandra)

EDIT- for the sake of honesty I read the whole post twice ( not just to see if you messed up anywhere else) . Truly an inspiration

I didn't read the post. But the first google result says Alex is a gender neutral name. The second one started saying something about cis-het-quad-afabaf.

Point being how dare you assume he's coming out of the closet and not identifying as a turnip?!

rebakiva wrote on 12 Jan 2025 02:56:

its ok to be sad when your wife is אסור,
like the גמ' says the reason why מילה is the 8th day
is because we dont want everyone to be happy and dad and mom to be sad because their אסור.

be sad and here's a warm squeeshy hug
cande'

I haven't posted in quite a while, I've been very busy plus very stressed out due to some worldly stresses.

I had some slips here and there, some small one's and some bigger one's, I was in a bit of a darker cloud over the past few weeks, which prompted me to do some deep thinking into my situation what's going on with me, why am I slipping up, and what's causing it ?

Today I think I finally got to the botto of it:

I signed up here 5 months ago back in September, I was in a very bad state, I felt resentful of myself, hating myself for being a screwed up hypocrite living a chashuva life on the outside, but a very dark low life on the inside, I wasen't even depressed I was just so screwed up that I came to terms with being this disgusting creep of a human being, but was upset about it.

Than when I signed up here, got in touch with HHM and all the chevra here, I suddenly started to get a whole new lease on my life, I was no longer alone, I was told that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I began to feel the warmth flowing through my veins, which gave me a crazy motivation to just conquer the beast, not because I wanted to reach 90 days or a big streak, "just because I was desperate to be the person I was portraying in public, desperate to break out of my sort of depression, desperate to stop hating myself for being such a traitor", so I was desperate for the hope I saw GYE has to offer.

But what happened is that at about hundred something days, {nothing to do with the streak issue} I began to feel very comfortable with myself, I felt that I was really experiencing the light at the end of the tunnel, was coming to terms with my new self, a good person who's not a traitor any more, and I stopped hating myself.

Now that's really a great thing, but here's the catch; Because my motivation to conquer this beast was coming from a desperation to feel good about myself vs hating myself, now that I sort of achieved that, my motivation began to fade away {at about 100 days (again not talking about streak issue, just motivation issue)} which led to me letting my guard down a bit, which led to me looking at people in the streets where I shouldn't have, which led to me slipping and filter poking just a tiny bit, which led to me letting my guard down a bit more, looking a bit more, poking a bit more... וגלגל החוזר

So for the past 20 something day's I was in the dark, slipping up, but I just couldn't figure out what's going on with me.

But today after a lot of deep thinking and getting down to the root of my issue's, I finally chopped where my mistake is, my motivation to acheieve true lasting freedom, shouldn't have been coming from my desperation to break free of my low and bad feelings about myself, but rather it should've been "a motivation to change for the sake of doing what's the right thing to do, changing and achieving lasting freedom".

I'm not sure if I myself know what I'm talking about, I think it's more of the idea of something like, "don't fight because you're running away from the beast, rather face the beast and fight him there head-on" or something like that.

So going forward I hope to change my attitude to this fight, so that I stay motivated to keep it going forever, although I'm not really sure/clear as to what my perspective should be in order to keep the motivation going, so I'd really appreciate all responses, like help me clarify the point I was saying, or if anyone has other ideas please bring it on, I really don't want to slip up again...

Thanks, love y'all.
Akiva

great post! as this is something i'm struggling with as well, i'll add one more point that i'm thinking, maybe we should be motivated in order not be motivated again by the desperation....... waddya think?

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that

I wish I was holding were you are to give you advice but I got a while till that