Dov wrote:

Mazel Tov on 4 years, and thank you very much for your continued presence on the forum and the valuable advice you share on your thread, Dov Quotes, and elsewhere!

Allow me to say my piece about the murder and demons
while you guys are all right, that advertising this stuff won't make an addict stop. That doesn't change the fact that all this stuff is true. And there is no basis for belittling these facts or the people that publicize them.

tehillimzugger wrote:


There is in fact a basis in the sefer Keser Rosh (in the back of the Siddur Ha’Gra):
(I found this in one of Dr Sorotzkins articles)



Those chasidim (stringent ones) who are stringent and state that there is no correcting this sin... they are the ones who induce an increase of sinning among us, and cause people to distance themselves from Hashem, since the sinner, when he hears that there is no repentance for this sin will abandon all attempts to improve himself. [These chasidim] cause the Shechinah to go into golus and rather than be called chasidim (stringent ones) should more properly be called “chaseirim” (lacking ones) and their punishment will be very severe.

gibbor120 wrote:

Nice.
BUT
There is a difference between saying "Everything is true but Torah is a tikkun." And saying "Hah- those mekubbalim- what do they know of addiction, of real life..."

I think the chiluk may be this:
When someone is still in the midst of his addiction, there is NOTHING WORSE than these booklets and talks about demons and murderings.
However, if someone has been clean for a large number of years, and he wants to do a proper teshuva, and be mesaken all that he did, then he needs to know what he is being mesaken. So that's when this is important.
I may be completely wrong, but then again, maybe not...

tehillimzugger wrote:

I don't think anyone said that. Am I missing something??? I think we said that it was damaging to put out leaflets saying that. I still beleive that to be true.

Hey TZ, all I prefer to say about your good point is this:

Have you ever shot and killed a man c"v? Do you know any murderers? Just a few days ago, a 4 year old boy here in the States picked up a gun to play and shot it, killing his own (US Marine) father, R"l. Can you imagine what damage it will do to this boy when he is a teenager and discovers the true circumstances of how his father died and processes that? The cloudy 4-year-old-memory of a loud flash of a gun, screaming and confusion...sure he has no clue what happenned now, but what will happen when he finds out and understands?

Here is my point:

If these masturbaters who read this stuff really believed they actually murdered a person - nay, fity or a thousand people - they would be catatonic and possibly kill themselves. And these were not 'just people'. These were their own children and grandchildren!! And I suspect such suicides have occurred, R"l. And I also suspect that a few of the teachers of these things may have actually felt relieved inside that that young person killed himself. For, what's the life of one before the lives of thousands? Hasn't another risk of mabul to the world been removed? Too bad it had to happen this way rather than through stopping and Tikkun, but the entire world is a good thing and k'dai to save under any circumstances, no? I am serious. If they are truly sincere (and I believe some of them are), then I feel sure that some of them could see it this way.

But isn't that goofy?

Ella what? It is plain to me that the message is not getting through and actually believed as reality. Rather, it is only being accepted enough to be a self-whipping tool and an excuse for self-hatred. If it were really being believed, I think it would be very effective at stopping the masturbation of the many who learn of it. But it isn't effective, cuz no one actually experiences it as the murder of thousands!

So why doesn't it make more sense to these bris Kodesh guys to quit pretending they are really being taken seriously as murder is taken, and find a less dangerous tool that doesn't work and is not really believed anyway to play with?

It hurts. But maybe I am missing something, here. Can you give me some useful feedback?

I will say one thing:

IT GOT MY ATTENTION that this was actually forbidden and that I should try stopping. Beyond that, though:

Whenever I was tempted to fall, I'd always say "forget about it, I'll worry about consequences later". It was the short-term thinking.

That stuff only made me feel worse afterwards.

I believe that there is a spiritual world; actions in this sefira might impact others. I don't know. I can't study kaballa for another 23 years.

One thing I do think? LET'S TRY KEEPING ALL OF SHULCHAN ARUCH BEFORE WORRYING ABOUT KABBALA. (Rav Yosef Karo was also a kabbalist I think.)

I'm very skeptical of "do x, y and z" and it will be a segula.

Someone once asked Rav Elyashiv why he refused to be a Sandek at a Bris Milah. "It's a great segulah!" they said.

He responded: "I have 3 segulos: Torah, Torah and Torah".

Maybe I'm uninformed, but I already have an "onesh gadol m'od" because I walk more than 4 amos in the morning to wash netilas yadayim. There's an onesh gadol m'od for bittul Torah, ga'avah, etc. I'll work on that stuff before I get into segulos, or "if you say Tikun Klali, you have a Tikun". Isn't it a better tikkun to get clean first?

Washing right by the bed in the morning is so nice. There are no steps with last night's dirt on me. It's a great way to start the day. Why not help ourselves live one day ata time by doing things like:

* washing by the bed
* doing a little Teshuvah on today's screw-ups right before falling asleep tonight
* forgiving everyone for everything
* forgiving Hashem for not running our day exactly the way we wanted it to come out
* smiling a little (not creepy) smile

I like those things, and they take about a minute.

Dov wrote:

No one told you that you murdered a man, with a family, and a life. You murdered a neshama, terrible. I'm not sure what it means to murder a neshama, but it doesn't affect me emotionally the way murdering a gashmiyusdig man would. Does that mean that I don't believe that I gave this neshama over to the sitra achara and the demons?

Now, as to why they publicize it: It works! (For normal people) [Can't they find another tool? No.]

Chachaman wrote:

It shouldn't take too much "work" to get used to washing near your bed in the morning, especially if you have an onesh gadol meod waiting for ya. And btw, the Rambam [whose shoresh neshama was from the peah in the sitra dismala of the dykna ila'ah, and consequently didn't study kabbalah (Shem Hagdolim)] writes:
רמב"ם הלכות תשובה פרק ב הלכה ה

עבירות שבין אדם למקום אינו צריך לפרסם עצמו ועזות פנים היא לו אם גילם

tehillimzugger wrote:

I highly doubt that it works very well even for "normal" people, but that's just my opinion. Fear tactics don't work very well in our dor. I heard a shiur from a rebbi in a large world-renowned yeshiva, someone who speaks to and councils hundreds, maybe thousands of bachurim, and he said that talking about gehenom doesn't work in our generation. My rav also mentioned that he doesn't like many of the seforim on shmiras aynayim/kedushas habris I suspect for the same reason.

Again, just an opinion. Take it or leave it. Either way, it certainly doesn't work for lust addicts.

I think it is much more effective to focus on positive reinforcement, such as rewards are x, y and z.

Tehillim Zugger--thank you very much, I needed that. The reason why I don't wash by my bed is I don't have one of those bowls to do so. also, when I was at a learning program last summer, the sinks were by the bathrooms, and no one seemed to be makpid on that.

Very correct thar the way I said that was azus panim. I apologize

There are opinions that within your home is considered like within 4 amos.