Chevrei, I was just reading in the Sefer Shomer Emunim (p. 16), where he brings a Zohar regarding one who spills his seed and is pogem briso, and says, "How great is the bitter punishment, such that one does not merit to rise at techias hameisim, and he is judged with terrible judgements. It is because of this sin that all the exiles come, and all the tsaaros. And conversely, if Yisrael fulfills the eternal bris, no Nation and no Language can subdue us. Unfortunately in our many sins, many of us, including our young bachurim, spill the seed l'vatalah. But HaShem will change our hearts to the good, and to do teshuva. Oy vavoy to the ones who flee from such help! How will you be able to rectify those terrible, wicked p'gamim of the disgusting ta'ava-- this vile and disgusting lust of temporary passion. If we don't take HaShem's help and overcome it, we are giving over our souls, our Torah, and our tefillos to the sitra achra to be judged for all generations."

Gentlemen, we have a great opportunity to do some serious damage to our enemies by saving our souls, and overcoming our passions. Just think, by reading this mussar vort quoted above, and striving and shtaiging to defeat that wicked impulse for znus that we are all struggling with, we are mamish fighting against all the manifestations of the sitra achra. We are blowing up those Hamas rockets on their launching pads, we are changing the course of those rockets to explode harmlessly out at sea. We are bringing extra shmirah on all of Klal Yisrael. We are taking the Torah, Tefilla and our neshamas back from the Satan, and giving it all back to Klal Yisrael to be a meilitz yashar.

Amen.

For those this works for, hatzlacha!

To those for whom abstract ideas don't work and just makes them feel guilt and depression for "causing" all kinds of punishment on themselves and others, please move on and don't dwell on this.

skeptical wrote:


I think that the issue here is not whether "abstract ideas work or dont work", but rather
whether this is an abstract idea or not.
The dictionary definition of "abstract" is apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances:.
What we have to realize is, that the holy words of the Shomrei Emunim ARE CONCRETE REALITY! they DO refer to very SPECIFIC OBJECTS, and are completely relevant to ACTUAL INSTANCES!
Many people make this mistake, thiking that there's the words, the ideas, the lessons, the torah taught in the seforim, and there's "real life".this makes the words of the Seforim "ABSTRACT"
What if you were told by the "head of operations in the IDF" (and you believed him)that
they had come up with a plan how to capture ALL the leaders of the Hamas at one time,but in order to do that you had to "keep the lights turned of in your house at night for the next 3 days, would you do it? or would you say "It's an abstract IDEA" and I dont think it will work.
If we realize that what the S.E. is saying is NOT theory, not Philosophy, not Ideas, but FACT, - KEEPING SHMEERAS HBRIS WEAKENS THE ENEMY GREATLY!! and HZL gives added power to the enemy!! then we wouldnt have this issue with whether it works or not,
ITS A CONCRETE ACTUAL REAL LIFE FACT!!

I didn't post to argue, but I will clarify what I mean, and hopefully resolve your issue with what I wrote.


R' Levi Yitzchak of Barditchev once pleaded to Hashem (not an exact quote):

"Master of the Universe, You put spirituality into books and made all the physical pleasures of this world so accessible to everyone. Naturally, everyone will gravitate towards the physical pleasures and leave the books on the shelves.

How about putting spirituality out on the streets and put the physical pleasures in the books. Then everyone will delight in the spiritual and leave the physical pleasures on the shelves!"

Now, to R' Levi Yitzchak, spirituality was as real as anything physical, but he recognized that for most people, this is not the case. We live in a physical world. If we can't touch it, hear it, see it, smell it, or taste it, we have a very difficult time experiencing it. We may know that when we do a mitzvah, we are having some kind of effect on the world around us, but we don't know how and are not experiencing it.

shvisi


Before I answer this, I would like to point out that your example is not exactly equal. We're not being promised that all the leaders of Hamas would be taken out in one shot, if we hold back on our taivahs for a temporary amount of time. We are being told that our actions are vile and disgusting, brings incredibly bitter punishment, and gives vitality to our enemies.

But to answer your question: If I had an incredible desire to turn off the lights in my house at night, and an IDF official came out and said that if I would keep them on, it would help them obliterate Hamas, I can see myself trying really hard not to turn off the lights for a night or two. But then I may start rationalizing. "Well, I'm 6,000 miles away. How can my lights here really help them over there? Soldiers are getting killed, Hamas still hasn't been taken care of. I have to turn off my lights, it's driving me crazy!" And then the desire may just be too strong and I'll turn off the lights. When I hear of casualties the next few days, I'll tear myself up - it was all my stupid fault! I killed those people and prevented Hamas from being obliterated - all because I had no self control for something as simple as keeping my stupid lights on!

So yes, the action is real, and the effects are real. But if I can't experience how my actions are affecting the world, the idea is abstract in my mind and doesn't have much real impact on me. My very real physical desires and pleasures may win out, and then the hard crash will come as I beat myself up for doing something so vile and disgusting for some fleeting feeling, giving life to the enemies. And then I will need to make myself feel better.....

May today be the day that R' Levi Yitzchak's prayer will be brought to fruition, and we will be able to see G-dliness wherever we turn, with our very eyes.

Chevrei,
I'm just trying to give us some chizuk. And this is what works for me. I just turned 50 this year, and for years have been struggling with the taavah of waiting for my wife to go to sleep, and then turning on the computer and looking at gilui arayos.
So now I find that if I turn on the computer at night, and come to this website, and use my talents to post some chizuk, it helps me a lot.
Of course the message is meant to be helpful to all of us. I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is the way to go. This is my way to go, and what helps me. So bli neder, I want to try to keep my messages flowing.

Says the Shomer Emunim vaiter: "Pity your souls, pity yourselves, don't sell yourselves for a momentary pleasure of ta'avah into the hands of the wicked, terrible Enemy. Observe how all the terrible troubles have befallen Israel, how they are increasing day by day for several years [and guys, he was writing this in Europe in the 30's as Nazism was rising]. This is because of two pegamim: Pegam in emunah and pegam in yesod [i.e. shmiras habris]... Everything depends on teshuva. Don't rely on bitachom shel shtus -- vain security promises."

And then look what he says next! Wow, so scary, but such a chizuk to shut my eyes, turn my gaze away from pritzos, and not give in to the ta'avah to look at assur images:

"Many years have gone by, and our eyes haven't seen any goodness due to our many sins. Rather the horrific, terrible tsaaros come upon us from every direction" [Hamas, Hizbollah, European anti-Semites, radical leftists in America, media, academia, fashion gurus, rock stars, they are all screaming for our death in one fashion or another. It's Kristalnacht of our generation.

"From the outbreak of WWI, we have only seen tsar after tsar, affliction after affliction, evil decree after evil decree. Who is the fool who thinks that in a minute, the tranquility and respite will finally be here? We've sunken in our avodah, and are now in the hands of a depraved people who mock us and curse us, and disparage our holy ways -- like it says in Sotah 49b: 'those who fear sin shall be despised.' We have sunk a terrible yerida, and now the arrogant chatzufim multiply over us, and they trample on the heads of the Am Kadosh."

B'ezras HaShem, may He help us to win victoriously in our struggle against the internal Satan of our ta'avos haguf, and the external Satan of Galus Yishmael.

Thank you very very much Skep for clarifying that so well.

Today's chashuv zach that the Shomer Emunim teaches is in an area that, for me personally, is an area that causes great distraction from being an Oved HaShem. Says the Rav: [A true Eved HaShem is] one who does not chase after the stupidities and vanities of the world, nor after political conversations, nor lies. He dedicates himself and all that he has to HKBH, and such a man is extremely chashuv. Especially in this lowly generation, which is nothing like the generation of Matan Torah..."

It's so crucial to not be drawn after the mundane matters of physicality and bodily enjoyment. All this involvement in olam hazeh-dik concerns tethers us to gashmius and bodily drives, and to guys like us, who struggle with bodily lusts, this just makes us all the more susceptible to smut and gilui arayos.

The shomer emunim is a beautiful sefer , i read it from cover to cover . I love those shomer emunim chasidim and some of them are my friends.

Somehow when lust came knocking on my door , my head was blank , my memory gone. my latent and passionate love awakaned . . . When Lust was gone after it did what it did,
i said wow i have to lovers the shomer emunim and lust.

here at GYE we learn not to listen to the knocking of lust if we did listen , oy vey do not open that door , let us add another lock and another until we are sure it will keep out FOREVER.