shteighecher wrote on 12 Aug 2011 16:46:



guardureyes wrote on 09 Aug 2011 13:57:

Our website is being redone now, and the new network will have two separate sections; one called "Prevention" and one called "Treatment". The Prevention website will be dedicated to shmiras ainayim issues mainly, such as the shmiras ainayim chizuk e-mails, phone conferences, filter help, etc... It will have its own forum for mechanchim, parents and regular balabatim to exchange ideas and chizuk... I beleive that what you are looking for will be available on the new "Prevention" forum.

Derech eretz kadma la'Torah. You can't become a Yid before you are human again. The 12-Steps are methods which teach us the basics that he have forgotten. You can't learn Tanya before you know the alef-beis. You can't read Torah if the room is dark, or if your glasses are broken.

Fix your glasses (discover and admit the truth about yourself), turn on the light (realize only Hashem can help you), learn alef-beis (integrity, humility, outward-focus) - and then you will be able to use the Torah to become the true Yid that you can. And then indeed, as Yaakov Shwartz said, the connection you can achieve to Hashem through Torah will be much greater than what you reached through the 12-Steps... But if you start with the Torah while your glasses are broken and the light is off, you won't get anywhere. It's jumping to the top of the ladder before you've climbed the first rungs. An addict is missing the first rungs.

But I think this thread should be discontinued. We feel it is detrimental to post anti-12-step things on this forum because the 12-Step approach does work for many people, and people may become discouraged to try it (and maybe it would have helped them?).

I have no problem though, that people who have tried the 12-Steps and do not "connect" to them or they have not seen success with them should contact you.

This week's updates:

1) GYE's Filter Division:
- We worked a lot on building up our filter team this week.
- We set up a special Google-Spread sheet with all our filter gabai contact info.
- We spoke with ID Tech Solutions and they are willing to give us service of 3 technicians in Lakewood and 4 in Brooklyn, to help people install filters. People can drop off their computers and get filters installed for free!
- We spoke with 3 different Kosher Phone suppliers in the U.S to make sure we have the correct info on them to share with our community (also on the spread-sheet).
- We made a flyer with all our filter volunteers and our filter hotlines and services... Someone in Lakewood and in Brooklyn wants to spread it around!

2) We uploaded all our Shmiras Ainayim Shiurim of the past months (close to 60 shiurim) for people to be able to download (see chizuk e-mail #1066)

3) Web-development:
- Along with the new registration system, the chizuk e-mail system and the forum bridge were all uploaded now from the development site to the "live" site. We spent time testing and fixing these features.
- The developers are working hard on the "content system", which is very specialized to meet our requirements. They hope to be finished with this in the coming week and then we can start entering hundreds of articles into the many different categories.

4) Hebrew website:
- We spent many days editing the Hebrew translations of the handbook, which are about 3/4ths done.
- Many features of the English website homepage were copied over to the Hebrew website so articles can be entered and categorized. Check it out here: guardyoureyes.com/heb/

5) One of our new filter technician volunteers got us free advertising in the Torah-Times in NY. He also found for us a print shop that will print flyers for us for free. So we designed a new ad/flyer. See here. Help us spread it around too!

YMG wrote on 04 Aug 2011 18:37:


"Alei Schur" was written by Rav Wolbe.

And the quote from the Steipler (and also from Rav Tzadok) was taken from this shiur by Rav Reisman: www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Music/mus/ShiurYesodos.mp3

Listen to the shiur from 11:30 - 16:50 where he talks about how we don't/didn't always have bechirah.

YMG wrote on 04 Aug 2011 07:24:


Very true. But so what? The handbook is not saying you can decide that you were an oness on your own, the handbook is just saying that there are times when Hashem decides you were an oness.

The handbook is just trying to help people get past guilt so they can move on. If Rav Tzadok says that it "could be" we were an oness, it helps us move past the guilt. Because we can't start teshuvah if we are stuck in the mud. The guilt keeps us in the mud. So if we let go of the guilt and succeed in stopping, only later can we start talking about teshuvah for the past...

1. If you check out this page: www.mechon-mamre.org/i/5101.htm you'll see that it seems there is confusion about whether it is 1:8 or 1:9.

2. The point the handbook is trying to make is only that there are cases when a sin, even one we enjoy, can be an oness.

YMG wrote on 04 Aug 2011 05:32:

YMG wrote on 04 Aug 2011 04:00:


Good question.

The point and intensity of his decision that
(a) he must stop
as well as
(b) the realization that he can't
are both things that are "d'varim hamesurim la'lev".

That is why this defination of "addiction" and "powerlessness" can't be argued. As Dov always says, it will not help at all for me to tell you that you are an addict. It is only the person himself who can decide (a) how desperate he is to stop and (b) by studying his track record honestly, coming to the conclusion that he can't. No other person can tell him these things.

Only at the point that it truly hits his heart can he be considered an addict and powerless, as per the AA definition. It can't be measured or tested in any way, and it may be different for each person.

From Principle 17 in the handbook:

We must also realize that we didn’t always have free will in the past. This is clear from various Sefarim and in various places in Chazal. To quote one of the foremost baalei mussar of our times, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, [zt"l]:

The great [Jewish] philosophers established bechira as the cornerstone for the whole Torah.... But from this resulted a common misperception among the masses; that all people actively choose their every act and every decision. This is a grievous error. (Alei Schur, Vol. 1, p. 156)

What, then, is bechira? To answer this question, Rav Wolbe refers us to Rav Eliyahu Dessler's "phenomenal essay on bechira” (Michtav MeEliyahu, Vol. 1, pp. 111-116). In this essay, Rav Dessler describes how the “nekudas habechirah – the point of free choice” is different for different people and in different situations. He explains that bechira is not a theoretical concept that can be applied to any circumstance where a person can hypothetically choose between two options. Rather, it only applies to moral conflicts where the two opposing forces are of approximately equal strength, the person is aware of the internal conflict, and he makes a conscious decision in one direction. When a person does something over which he does not experience conscious conflict, or if the compelling force on one side is significantly stronger than the other, the fact that he is theoretically able to decide either way does not qualify his act as an expression of bechira.

“Ain Hakadosh Baruch Hu ba beterunya im habriyos – Hashem doesn’t come with complaints to his creations.” As the Pasuk says: “He created together all their hearts and understands all their deeds,” and he knows that almost all men stumble in this sin at some point in their youth.

There’s a well known adage that if Hashem gave us a test, we must have the ability to overcome it as well. R’ Tzadok HaKoehn says though, (in Tzidkas Hatzadik) that this is not as simple as it sounds. It is true that we all have free choice to do what Hashem expects of us in this world, over the course of our lifetimes.  However, in the process of our journey, there are many times when a person is considered an onus.

After the sin of the golden calf, the Midrash says that Moshe said to Hashem, if a father gave his son gold and sat him down on the doorstep of a Beis Zonos – “ma ya’aseh haben velo yecheta? -  What can the son do and not sin?” In other words, we find in Chazal that there are times when a person may not have full Bechira.

See also the Rambam Hilchos Issurei Biyah 1:8 – “for the Yetzer and human nature forced her to want,” and see Tosofos in Sanhedrin 26b where they discuss how someone suspected of illicit relations may still be a Kosher witness, since it could be that his desires simply overpowered him. And see the Gemara in Brachos, 32b: “Asher Hari’osi” where Hakadosh Baruch Hu acknowledges to Eliyahu Hanavi that He was the one who had turned the Yidden’s heart away from him.

The Steipler too, in regards to a specific behavior that someone had difficulty controlling, writes: “He is not a Ba’al Bechira now in this area, and the only thing he can (and should) do, are Tikkunim that will help him over time.”

Once we understand that we didn’t always have free will in the past, we will prevent the guilt from dragging us down into a vicious cycle of despair and continued falls. And guilt can be even more dangerous than the falls. As they say: "It's not the one cookie you ate that broke the diet. The diet ended when you felt bad about that one cookie, and then went on to finish the entire BOX!” 

And even if we may have had some freedom of choice at the time we fell, it could be that we had very little. The sins we did are only judged according to the circumstances and the level of free will that we had at the time. Only Hashem knows if we could have done better or not.

But when we talk about the present moment, we can never know how much free will we have and we must always try our very best.

There are many levels of addiction, and many different types of advice for the different levels. That's why we created the "GYE in a nutshell" that someone posted a link to above, in the welcoming post.

As far as the 12-Step program goes, an "addict" as defined by AA standards is someone who (1) knows he must stop (2) but he can't.

So... someone who knows he must stop and he does stop, is not an addict.

And... someone who doesn't feel he must stop and he indeed continues acting out, is also not an addict.

Only someone who knows he must stop or he's finished - and yet he can't stop no matter what he tries, such a person is a real "addict" who is "powerless" and he is ready for step 1 of the 12 steps.

Somehow, the 12-Step program seems to work best for such people.