Thank you very much for that introduction. Good evening. I am especially honored to be with you tonight together with Dr. Polakowitz. And I am not in need to qualify nor be interested in hearing my accolades. He doesn't need them, but suffice it to say that we're all privileged to have the benefit of his unique blend of Torah and chochma which he brings to bear on such topics. I'd like to speak briefly, 20 minutes or so, and to divide my remarks: a few minutes b’sha’ah she’avar, how a person should look retrospectively at past instances where he feels he's been nichshal. Whether we're talking about an issur de-rabonon or whether we're talking about an issur de-oraisa, arayos, or any of these related concerns, a retrospective vantage point. And then to take a few minutes also to look towards the future, how a person, what measures and what strategies a person can adopt to try to avoid being nichshal in the future. I think any sensitive ben Torah, anyone who genuinely seeks to be oved Hashem, if he's been nichshal in any of these areas, instinctively feels a very strong, acute shame. And it's this shame, which rachmana litzlan can, shouldn't, but it can lead to a sense of yei'ush. That's one issue: how one deals with busha so that it shouldn't result in yei'ush in the sense of despair, in the sense of losing trust in oneself, belief in oneself. And also another danger of this sense of shame and humiliation that a person feels is that it can often inhibit him from seeking out the guidance or the counsel, be it of a rav, be it of a psychologist, which could be invaluable to him. So how does a person navigate that? The Rambam begins Hilchos Teshuva, and being the Halacha it is, the mara d’asra, the Rambam says that אפילו כל ימיו עבר עבירה ועשה תשובה ביום מותו, so even if a person's entire life rachmana litzlan was one of aveira and does teshuva until yom moso, kol avonosav nimchalin. So the Aibershter accepts that teshuva. Now, I'd like to pose a question. You'll see in a minute the question is not mine. I'd like to pose a question: What do we learn from this Rambam? What I mean, what do we learn from this Rambam? But I'd like to tell you a story. My brother told me that he heard this story on a tape from the Talner Rebbe in Yerushalayim. He, when he was a youngster, was meshamesh the Gerrer Rebbe, the Beis Yisrael. A friend of his who knew that he had access to the Gerrer Rebbe asked him a question. A friend of his in turn came to him deeply, deeply distressed that he had this inclination towards shmad. Rachmana litzlan, he had this inclination, this almost irrational, irrational pull that he should shmad, convert to Christianity. He had no intellectual venue, he had no sfekos, the Torah is absolutely true. And yet, there was something pulling him, there was something drawing him. And he didn't know what to do. So he asked, he asked his friend who was meshamesh the Beis Yisrael that he should go to the Beis Yisrael and get an eitza from the Beis Yisrael what he should do. And the Beis Yisrael heard the question and. After a few minutes of pacing back and forth, he asks for the Gemara. He opens the Gemara, points to a Maamar where the Gemara says that כל האומר אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כחו אפילו יש בו שמץ של עבודה זרה
k'doro shel Enosh is mochul lo. So a person who answers אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כחו, there's different pshatim in shmua what bechol kocho means: that he's totally focused, it also means that he answers loud, with all his strength and all his energy. So even if he's tainted by avodah zarah k'doro shel Enosh which introduced avodah zarah into the world, is mochul lo. So the Gabbai asks the Beis Yisrael points to this Gemara and said, "What do you learn from this Gemara? What do you learn from this Gemara?" So the meshamesh says, "Don't we know what it says? We learned that if a person answers אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כחו, even if he has shemet avodah zarah like k'doro shel Enosh is nimchal." So the Gerrer Rebbe says, "No, that's not what you learn from the Gemara." He points to it again, "What do you learn from this Gemara?" So the Gabbai after says, what you learn from this Gemara is that even if he has shemet avodah zarah k'doro shel Enosh, he's capable of answering אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כחו. That's what you learn from the Gemara, said the Gerrer Rebbe. So transposing this profound insight of the Gerrer Rebbe into the Maamar Chazal that the Rambam quotes at the beginning of Perek Beis of Hilchos Teshuva, what do you learn from the Gerrer Rebbe's phraseology? What's the limud when Chazal tell us אפילו כל ימיו עבר ועשה תשובה ביומו האחרון כל עונותיו נמחלים?
What you learn from that is that the power and the capacity of the koach habechira, the ability that a person has to do teshuva is so great that even if he spent a lifetime, Rachmana Litzlan, Rachmana Litzlan, even if he spent a lifetime mired in hate, he's still capable of doing teshuva. Kal vachomer young people who don't have that many years of negative momentum to overcome. So what you see from that halacha is that a person always has that capacity to do teshuva, and as we say in Slichos, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is waiting for it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants it. הבא לטהר מסייעין אותו. There is no room for yei-ush. A person has that capacity. Hakadosh Baruch Hu promises us that if we only genuinely and sincerely want to do teshuva, so He's going to help us. What better promise or better guarantee could we ask for? There's no room for yei-ush. There is a vort from the Kotsker Rebbe starting with the first Gemara that the which way to do is yeish limitzo. So the first big Sugya is yei-ush shelo mida. So the Kotsker Rebbe says that the way to read it on one level, and it doesn't mean to the exclusion of other levels, the way to read it is that yei-ush shelo mida. A person is misya-eish, that's an indication that he's not thinking, that the daas is not operative. There's no room for yei-ush. It's not to say that to do teshuva is necessarily the easiest or simplest way. It's not to say that it doesn't require concerted effort and hard work, but it's always possible and it's always Hashem who is always standing at our side to assist us in that endeavor. Now what about the other issue in terms of being inhibited from asking for help or guidance, be it from a Rav, be it from a psychologist, be it from a Rav who is a psychologist, from a psychologist who is a Rav, because of this sense of shame? Not every case, it could be that maybe sometimes a person hears in a public forum or he hears, maybe he doesn't need personalized advice. If he doesn't need personalized advice, then there's no need to go find a Rav or a psychologist. I've heard this several times. So what the pshat is, it could be that maybe sometimes a person hears in a public forum or movie, maybe he doesn't need personalized advice. If he doesn't need personalized advice, then there's no mitzvah to go, to go to a rav or a psychologist. I'll explain pshat. I'll explain pshat. There's no mitzvah to advertise, to advertise the pshat. If a person doesn't need personalized guidance, if that's genuinely the case, then there's no issue. But often, it's not the case. Often it's not so simple. Often we would benefit from some kind of personalized individualized advice and guidance. And the issue is that we feel inhibited from doing so because of our sense of shame, because of our sense of embarrassment. So I'd just like to give some, some perspective. The point of these perspectives is not to eliminate the sense of shame. The sense of busha is, is crucial. Busha is indispensable to doing teshuva. The pasuk says it, and that's why it's quoted lahalacha as well, right? In the slichos, we say it as Ezra Hasofer he said, as Ezra Hasofer once said: אלקי בשתי ונכלמתי להרים אלקי פני אליך. Elokei boshiti venichlamti. Boshiti venichlamti. Boshiti venichlamti. The Rambam, when he gives us the quintessential definition of viduy, so the Rambam says that, that the person says that, that חטאתי עויתי פשעתי לפניך עשיתי כך וכך and boshiti venichlamti or נחמתי ובושתי במעשי ולעולם איני חוזר בהם. So when the Rambam is giving us again just the, the very essentials, so busha is there. So I'm not looking to eliminate busha from our, from our sense of reaction. I'm not looking to induce a sense of complacency, because there is an indispensable role that busha plays. But that busha shouldn't be crippling. So the one or two perspectives I'd like to share with you is, is that busha should be something which galvanizes a person to do teshuva, as opposed to inhibiting him from, from seeking guidance, as opposed to crippling him. First of all, one of the reasons that people feel such acute shame and humiliation which prevents them from getting the personalized, individualized guidance which they need is because they feel very alone in their failures. And the reason for that is for correctly, appropriately, none of us go around advertising our, our flaws and our, and and what we've nichshal in. Again, we're not supposed to. אשרי נשוי פשע כסוי חטאה. So because of that, so when a person is nichshal in something, a person often feels very much alone. Person feels like everyone else, eich shehu, everyone else is omed benisayon. Everyone else is able to successfully deal with these challenges, and I'm the one, I'm the only one who failed. And that sense of loneliness magnifies the sense of shame, and often that can then prevent the person from seeking that individualized, personalized guidance. I, I can't give you statistics. I can't imagine that even, even mumchim, big mumchim could give statistics, but this much, this much I can assure you is that anyone who's struggling with these issues is not alone. He's not alone and he's far, far from alone. And again, appropriately, no one knows what anyone else is struggling with. No one else, no one listens in on anyone else's al chet on Yom Kippur. But that sense of loneliness is, is a false one. It's a big, big nisayon, it's a big, big problem in our generation. Many, many people are struggling with it, struggling with it, and if anyone knows that he is struggling with it, so trust me that you're not alone in that struggle. And there's no reason for the shame to be magnified by that sense. The other thing which needs to be understood is that when one goes to, to a rav, a psychologist, the rav who is a psychologist, the psychologist who is a rav, whoever you're going to for, for guidance, for help, if, if that person, the rav, the psychologist is, is worth his salt, if he's a bona fide rav or psychologist, the last thing in the world he's interested in doing is judging you. He's not here to judge you, he's here to help you. He's here to help you. And he's not only, he's not forming any judgment either. Judgment is the Ribbono Shel Olam's prerogative. If there is a din Torah which has to be adjudicated in Beis Din, then b'les breira, the Beis Din judges. But unless we are absolutely forced to judge, you don't judge people. You don't judge people. כי המשפט לאלוקים הוא. That's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's prerogative. There are many, many reasons why that's the sole jurisdiction and prerogative of the Ribbono Shel Olam, but one of them is, one of the reasons, which perhaps is most germane to what we're discussing tonight, is that to judge someone else and to condemn someone else for his failings and his shortcomings is not something a person can do unless he's perfect. And since אין התמים בלתי השם לבדו, since only Hakadosh Baruch Hu is perfect, it doesn't give anyone the right to judge anyone else. So when we, when we go to a rov or a psychologist for guidance, for eitzah, and to do so we have to confide in him, the last thing in the world that person is ever going to do is to judge. And if anything, if anything, the most profound impression that will be made is the sincerity that this person displays in looking to do teshuvah. So for these reasons, the sense of busha should be here, it should, it should be part of the teshuvah process. A person can't do teshuvah without having a sense of busha, but never, ever should it be magnified to a sense where a person is even mityayeish or where he's inhibited from seeking guidance. At a more technical level, there's a teshuvah in Igros Moshe about where someone asks Rav Moshe for a seder teshuvah for how to do teshuvah for the cheit of zera l'vatalah. And Rav Moshe takes a very different approach, not that which those who approach it more so al pi Kabbalah. And Rav Moshe says that in terms of the chilukei kapparah, so this doesn't belong with the first group, some kind of misa Beis Din, it belongs more with the second group, with the second group of lavin. And Rav Moshe says that the main thing to do is, and we'll talk more about this in the future, is that a person should do his best and take precautions to avoid it in the future, where Rav Moshe talks about that later, a person should be marbeh b'Talmud Torah. And Rav Moshe says the first year of doing teshuvah, a person should fast once every two months, the second year a person should fast once every three months, the third year a person fasts once every six months, and that's it. And that's all Rav Moshe insists on. If a person wants to do more, he says there are other sefarim that have other regimen as well, but that's what Rav Moshe writes in Igros Moshe. In terms of looking to the future, how a person takes precautions to try to avoid being nichshal, so if we had to describe Chazal's approach to attaining and maintaining kedusha and had to choose a few key words, then one of those key words would be that Chazal were very realistic. Chazal, the Torah is very, very realistic. Part of that realism is, the Torah recognizes, and Chazal draw our attention to the fact, that one of the strongest yetzer haras that we have, second to none, second to none, is the yetzer hara d'arayos. And obviously the, the issue of zera l'vatalah is obviously part and parcel of that. אין לך דבר בכל התורה כולה שקשה לרוב העם לפרוש אלא מן העריות והעבירות הדומות.
There's nothing which is as difficult for a person to be nizhar than when it comes to arayos, than when it comes to aveiros hadomos. אמרו חכמים גזל ועריות נפשו של אדם מתאוה להם ומחמדתן.
It's interesting, according to the Rambam, the urge, the drive that we have in this area is so strong that this is one of the very handful of places where the Torah itself as the the prohibition not to engage in things which can lead to gilui arayos, whether it's hibbuk v'nishuk, whether it's kissing and hugging, or any kind of affectionate physical contact, or even affectionate conversation which can, or even what a person sees and looks at, anything which is conducive to leading to gilui arayos, the Torah itself prohibits this as a syag. The Torah, not just the Torah left that to Chazal, here the Torah itself introduces a syag, which certainly points again to it attests for the fact of just how strong that urge and drive is within the human psyche. Now, משל למה הדבר דומה, when on the road, sometimes you see these tankers which are transporting petroleum, and you see that there's usually a sign on the tanker which says that there's a highly flammable substance inside, and make sure you keep the safe distance. That the stronger and the more powerful the yetzer hara, the more realistic one has to be in dealing with it. Let's try to just for a moment elaborate a little bit on the psychology and the strategy of this syag d'oraisa. It doesn't make a difference whether you hold like the Ramban or the Rambam, the point is the same of a syag d'oraisa. And let's take, for instance, what's so terrible? Why is it that it's absolutely absolutely forbidden for a couple that's not married, maybe they're engaged, maybe they're dating, what's so terrible if they hold hands? We know that's obviously asur. Why is it so terrible? People often don't understand it. One of the reasons again, not to suggest that this is the only reason, but one of the reasons is this. ירדה תורה לסוף דעתו של אדם. It's much easier to deal with a yetzer hara which is potentially so strong if you don't allow it to become at all a flame. The more you feed that yetzer hara, for them, then the more difficult it is, the more difficult it is to control. So is there a yetzer hara to hold hands? Yes, there's a yetzer hara to hold hands, and maybe even a strong yetzer hara. The yetzer hara to hold hands is not nearly as strong as if the couple would hold hands, as the yetzer hara is to engage in hibbuk v'nishuk. Because once they hold hands, so that megareh yetzer hara, and we find in Shulchan Aruch in Even HaEzer סימן כא אות ה, megareh yetzer hara, inciting, instigating the yetzer hara is also asur. Because once they hold hands, it wasn't as much of a yetzer hara to hold hands, but if they do that, so then the yetzer hara is to not only hold hands, but hibbuk v'nishuk, so that yetzer hara is even stronger. And if they proceed to the next stage of hibbuk v'nishuk, so then the yetzer hara to go even further, and each stage the yetzer hara becomes exponentially stronger. And to withstand the yetzer hara becomes the challenge becomes magnified a hundredfold, if not more. Which is why ירדה תורה לסוף דעתו של אדם, that the way to be able to withstand the yetzer hara is not to allow it to gain any momentum, not to allow it to be incited at all, not to allow it to be instigated at all. So therefore, you know what? Let there be no physical contact. Let there be no conversation which is provocative. Because that's the easiest and most realistic way to deal with the yetzer hara. The same is true in terms of in terms of all kinds of other dimensions: images, whether it's the pornography which is just so pervasive and rampant on the internet, or whether it's just even the exposure that one has sometimes by walking in the street. But here's just one other one other perspective that we need to have. But here's just one one other perspective that we need to to have and that is the following. We live in a crazy society. That doesn't sound doesn't sound like it's a factual statement, sounds like it's a radical statement, but it's a very temperate, moderate statement. We live in a crazy, crazy society. We live in a society which is obsessed, obsessed with everything that has to do with the with inyanei arayot. Even even some even so-called news stations, the the attention they pay to any crime which which has to do with which relates to this area and the lurid details with which the stories are reported. We live in a society which is just totally obsessed, totally obsessed. This this is the legacy of the of the sixties, which is totally obsessed with with anything and everything relating to and relating to inyanei arayot p'shita, relating to sexuality, and and it's discussed in the most vulgar fashion, and there's absolutely no sense of of tzniut whatsoever in the society. That's just a a factual description. It's not it's not it's not kanaut, it's a factual description. If you just compare what society is today to what it was just sixty years ago, not just relative to the Torah, but relative to itself, you see just how much society has deteriorated. So the result is that in order to to adopt those syagim which are necessary to avoid the yetzer hara being being incited and and instigated, there's an awful lot of popular culture which is just off limits. An awful lot of popular culture which is off limits. The the so-called, you know, highbrow news magazines are disgusting and and and certainly fall into the and parts of them fall in every single issue fall into the category of divrei s'chok which is which is megareh the yetzer hara. It certainly doesn't allow for taharat hamachshavah, which is one of the the main syagim that a person looks to to put into place to avoid the the constant provocation. It doesn't it's not consistent with shemirat einayim either in terms of the types of pictures which are featured in in in such publications. In terms of the the internet, the Mesillat Yesharim said that in general that a person is supposed to, that the idea of asu syag latorah is not only a mandate for Chazal to introduce syagim which are binding upon all of us, but it's also a mandate for every individual to introduce personal syagim. So if I know that I have a certain weakness, so even if there is no din d'rabbanan which addresses my weakness, I have to introduce an individualized, personalized syag to deal with with those weaknesses. If I find that too often on Shabbos I I forget for a minute and I flip the switch, so there's no din that says that you have to have covers on your light switches on Shabbos. There's no din d'rabbanan at this point in time. But if I see that that time and time again I'm nichshal in doing that, so then the Mesillat Yesharim says I should do this. I should go out and I should get covers for my light switches to to take that preventive measure so that I won't do it again. So if a person knows that he has a temptation when he's on the when he's using the the internet to go to sites which are pogem b'kedushah, so if it's realistic that he shouldn't use the internet at all, then מה טוב ומה נעים. But if it's not realistic that he shouldn't use the internet at all, so then he has to he has to introduce, according to the Mesillat Yesharim, personalized syagim. So only use the internet in a very public setting where everyone sees what you're doing. So then if everyone sees what what we're doing, so then we have that extra inhibition about about doing things and looking at things which are which are inappropriate. So a person has to look to those, again, personalized syagim. When you walk on the street in the in the in the summertime when the weather is warm, so yeah, as much as possible, if a person is walking in a in a neighborhood where it's a problem, so a person looks down, a person doesn't doesn't look up all the time because inevitably the more he looks up, the more he's going to see things that he shouldn't see, that he shouldn't see. So a person has to look to see what the the appropriate tziyurim are that he can he can put into place. Most of all, most of all, the most powerful deterrent, and and with this I'll I'll conclude, the most powerful deterrent to say is that a person has a sense of being in the presence of the Ribbono shel Olam. When a person feels that there's an עין רואה ואוזן שומעת וכל מעשיך בספר נכתבים, when a person is aware of that, so to the extent and to the degree that he's aware of that, so to that extent and to the degree he's inhibited from chait. And it's something which every one of us needs to try to to reinforce and internalize even more and more, the sense of עין רואה ואוזן שומעת. The same way, sitting in the Beis Medrash or the library, so we're not going to we're not going to go to inappropriate sites on the on the computer, so there's always an עין רואה ואוזן שומעת. So they tell the story with the Chofetz Chaim, they tell the story that that the wagon driver pulled over to the side and he's going to go rob from the field and he tells the Chofetz Chaim, you're going to look out now while I while I steal and if anyone's coming, so to yell. So the the wagon driver goes, the balagola goes, he's about to pull the fruit, the Chofetz Chaim yells, Stop! Someone's watching, everyone's looking! The balagola looks around, he says, no one here! Again, the Chofetz Chaim yells, Stop! The Ribbono shel Olam is watching! So how do we internalize it? So that's that's the setup of the shmooze, but overall the the way the way we internalize something we know, the way we internalize it that we feel it and that we're always conscious of it is just by reinforcing it. Fifty times a day, take a take a it's an eitzah, it's not a mussar question, take one of our index cards, write down on the on the index card, write down, write down, עין רואה ואוזן שומעת, write down, write down, I want to be close to the Ribbono shel Olam, I don't want to do things which are going to be metamay me, which are going to keep me distant from the Ribbono shel Olam. Write down having the השכר מצווה כנגד הפסדה ושכר עבירה כנגד שכרה. If we write these things down, the only way we can sin, אין אדם עובר עבירה אלא אם כן נכנס בו רוח שטות,
is if a person is distracted from what we all know and what we all ultimately want. So the tikkun for chait is not to be distracted. If a person is not distracted, there's no nisayon which is too big, there's no nisayon which is too difficult. And nisayon only becomes too big and too difficult when we don't have, again, the the tziyur and the inhibition of of a feeling of yiras Shamayim. We lose that when we get distracted. In order not to get distracted, we have to internalize the yiras Shamayim. The way we internalize it is by telling it to ourselves again and again and again and again, and then it becomes embedded in our consciousness, it becomes embedded in our consciousness, ולמען תהיה יראתו על פניכם לבלתי תחטאו. Yeah, first let me start by saying how impressed I am with you guys, okay? It's I frankly wasn't expecting there to be such a nice turnout, and it says something very nice that you're here, you know. You do a computer search, a PsycINFO search, a PsycLIT search or a search on the various databases looking at the issue of self-control and sexuality or self-control and masturbatory behavior. Nothing comes up, nothing comes up, or very little comes up, maybe a little bit comes up about excessive auto-erotic behavior as part of contemplation, but it's not considered, it's not considered a problem in the secular world today. And I'm looking at you and thinking what a wonderful thing. reflection it is on all of you that you're rejecting that aspect of society that's for you to reject. The Satmar Rebbe in 1950 said that a Chassid in one bus ride from Williamsburg to Manhattan saw more than their grandparents did in a lifetime in the shtetl. I don't know what they saw in 1950, I can't even imagine. And you think about that and you compare it to one second on the internet in the privacy of your bedroom. Earlier today, I was doing some research to prepare for a talk I had to give. I had to find an article in the New York Times and I do a search for the article, the article comes up and alongside the article is a pornographic picture. And I sat and I started thinking it's almost impossible not to stray, and it is so difficult in today's day. Do you know that the average age in this country that kids are first exposed to pornography is age 11? And it's almost always accidental. So that even if you have the purest of intentions, even if you have the best focus in the world, it's virtually impossible on the internet not to be faced with the mega-ton equivalent of what the Satmar Chassid on the bus ride to Manhattan saw in 1950. Okay, that's point number one. Point number two is just related to this frog-in-the-beaker analogy. It's the kal v'chomer. Frog in the beaker, take a frog, throw it in a beaker of boiling water, it'll jump out and save its life. Take the same frog, throw it in a beaker of water, I'm sorry, put it in a beaker of water that's thermal temperature but over a low-simmering fire. It goes up a degree at a time. It won't realize its mortal danger and it'll boil to death. And I think that the nimshal clearly, the nimshal is that we're not even aware of how things are changing, because the change is a little bit too gradual for us to notice. But the R of today's movies is very different than what it took to get an R rating a generation ago. There's the foundation called the Kaiser Family Foundation that every two years takes the pulse of sexual content on sitcoms on television, and it's amazing what's happened just in a two-year period of time. Last time they did it, there was a tremendous increase, not just in what's shown, in what's acceptable to be shown on prime-time television, but perhaps even more ominously, for the first time about four or five years ago they broke the barrier in terms of showing sexual contact between couples in a way that sort of shows that it's okay to do this with no interpersonal obligation, meaningless physical contact, just for the sake of pleasure. That used to be taboo until relatively recently. Now it's become the norm just probably in the last four to six years if you look carefully at the data. What's my point? My point is that the antidote to the boiling temperature around us is to name the monster. The antidote is to talk about it, to focus on it, to say as Dr. Twerski so beautifully was describing with the beautiful insights of Torah, which are so much deeper than the insights of psychology, that we have to focus it and come up with a plan that takes us from the passive to the active and to a constructive kind of change that is not a pathological change, but a wake-up call that we have to think about, which is why I'm so happy that Rabbi Bacon and his colleagues organized this program. Okay, couple of basic points. Number one, just to echo what Dr. Twerski was saying, there is nothing tougher. We're talking about something that is for young healthy guys is a very, very powerful force and a very powerful force to control in any setting, but certainly living in Manhattan in this day and age with the lifestyle that we've chosen. I find very poignant the second part of the Rambam that Rabbi Twerski quoted, right? So the second part of that Rambam is אין לך דבר בכל התורה כולה שהוא קשה לרוב העם לפרוש אלא מן העריות וביאות האסורות. אמרו חכמים בשעה שנסתלקו ישראל מן העריות בכו וקיבלו מצווה זו בתרעומות ובכייה.
Okay. That encapsulates it. This is tough, this is tough. On the other hand, what I want to do is just briefly review with you some tricks from psychology, some ideas from psychology about how to handle this very difficult task in a way that will hopefully make it make it more a little bit more manageable. Number one: the way we look at this is crucial, is crucial. I want to take you through a couple of core points. And the first point is the point that we've already made, but I want to make it a little bit differently. And it's the point that the research shows that if you take a goal in terms of self-control and you change it from threat to challenge. The research shows that at the moment that you change the goal from threat to challenge, listen to what a whole series of studies show. When you go from threat to challenge, automatically you have greater persistence in your efforts to control that area. Your thinking becomes more clear, not clouded by guilt and non-productive aspects of change, and even more physiological responsiveness. It focuses you, it focuses you. So if you see it as oh this is this threat, this terrible thing and you push away from it, I'm going to show you a little bit later it makes it much tougher. If instead you say, you know the purpose of life is avodas Hashem, tikkun ha’middos. This is my challenge. And what I always like to think about is the beautiful insight of the Gra, the Vilna Gaon, on החזק במוסר אל תרף נצרה כי היא חייך. Many of you have heard this, it is such an important psychological concept. The Gra says on the pasuk in Mishlei of החזק במוסר אל תרף נצרה כי היא חייך, latch on to self-correction, don't weaken, it is your life. What does he say? He says כפי מה שהאדם חי כדי לשבור מה שלא שבר הנה המידה.
The purpose of life is to crush the middos, right? It's to struggle with that which is most difficult to struggle with. Because otherwise he goes on to say lama lo chayim, what's the purpose of life? What he means is that at the point that you're struggling, especially in a society such as ours with self-control in this area, you're literally fulfilling your purpose in life. There's nothing more important. What a challenge! It's a great challenge, the greatest challenge. So when you're having a hard time, of course you are. That's the point. That's the challenge of life. But when you're able to rise to the challenge and put it front and center and you're mastering that, it makes an enormous difference. So recommendation number one is go from threat to challenge. Okay? Right? Because otherwise lama lo chayim, okay? So the Gra's recommendation, we have a lot of psychology to back it up, okay? So that's recommendation number one. Number two. Number two is it is almost impossible, and again I find myself echoing what Rabbi Twerski said, which is always okay because it's you know when when all the psychology really is is just reflecting you know this wisdom. We know that when it comes to self-control, monitoring is key. Monitoring is key. Research over and over again in terms of self-control shows that it is extremely difficult to control behavior that is not carefully monitored. And you could do it using mussar techniques of cheshbon ha’nefesh, which I imagine at some point you've heard about or talked about. You could do it by some kind of mental monitoring of how you're doing, maybe it could be written down in some ways that are acceptable to you, or as was discussed. To the extent that you could turn to somebody else maybe to help you with the monitoring. There's something about going from an animalistic response where we give in to our animalistic desires and instead having the frontal prefrontal connections take over, having our mature brain take over that is facilitated by monitoring. Thinking about it, making it into a goal, making it not only into a challenge but making it into a goal where you're very specific about it and then tracking your progress. We'll talk about how to handle failure in a few minutes, but monitoring is the key. Okay? Breakdown in self-regulation, if you want to get the key bottom-line finding from the research is that breakdowns in self-regulation are almost always associated with failure to monitor one's behavior. So that's point number three. The point of the need to track. You have to track. If you don't track, the default setting that's going to take over is going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem especially with such a powerful set of temptations. Okay? Number three, the research shows that the beginning is toughest. Kol hatchalot kashot, right? And nobody says that better than the Gemara at the end of Sukkah but according to the way it's understood by some of the meforshim right on Rav Yochanan, איבר קטן יש לו לאדם מרעיבו שבע משביעו רעב, right? Okay, so it's a famous Gemara. It says that in terms of controlling this incredibly strong force, if you feed it, it remains hungry. If you feed the urge, if you feed the temptation, the more you feed it as we were just hearing, the more the ta’avah will grow. But if you starve it, it'll be satisfied. Here's strong research in psychology that shows that. The research in psychology shows us that self-control is actually like a muscle. It's like a muscle. It's like a muscle that you exercise. You actually get tired from exercising it at the beginning, but if you just stick with it for just a couple weeks of exercising self-control, what the research clearly shows is it starts to get easier. So the toughest part is the beginning stages of self-control. It's exactly like a muscle. You get much better as time goes on and once you work out the kinks and you get used to it, it starts to become somewhat easier and sometimes much easier. You just get into the habit of those gedarim working and it's not nearly as much of a temptation once you've set in a set of gedarim that work for you. Now everybody's going to be different. Some people are more visual, others are more into fantasy, others are more into being helped by talking it out and reaching out to others. Everybody has to have their own toolbox of coping mechanisms in terms of what works for their unique set of self-control strategies. But the key is that in terms of this third main point, remember that it's very very hard but it's far from impossible and there's strong research. By the way, I'm going to, I already did post this, if you want, I have a PowerPoint that goes into much more detail on this with specifics and with references and things like that. So the easiest way, I have it on that website at where else should I do you guys want me to post it or should I here I'm telling you to use the what is it? I'm telling you to use the internet and that's exactly back to the medicine, the refuah and the makka are all somehow mixed into one. Okay, okay, what can you do? Anyway, we can figure out a way to distribute it. Okay great, if you want to look at it to make sure, if you could please look at it to make sure it's okay, okay? So you could feel free to get rid of any part of it. Okay, okay. Number four. Number four, okay, I like these sentences, it's good for me. Okay, number four is the most common question and the most common problem and that's if we spend the next if I told you let's close our eyes and spend the next 10 minutes not thinking of a pink elephant. Whatever you do, don't think of a pink elephant. What happens? Okay. In psychological terms what the research shows is that there's two systems. There's the monitoring system in self-regulation. The monitoring system is if you're trying to stop yourself from something, you monitor the environment for that thing you're trying to stop. So if you're trying to give up eating cheesecake or salt or whatever, okay, you're always on the lookout for that because you have to see it so that you could have the proper hashkafa. Then the other process they call the operating process, and that's the control. The problem is that the more either stressed out we become or the more depressed we become, the more likely we are to have the monitoring process work while the operating process doesn't work. To put it in plain English, what it means is the following. Let's say I'm very stressed out, okay, let's say I'm in the middle of finals or midterms. So let's say I'm having a fight with my roommate or I'm having other kinds of stress in my life. Let's say I'm stressed out, okay, and this is an area that I'm having a hard time with, you're still going to be on the lookout automatically for the thing that pulls you into the problem of self-control that you're having. But your control system is not going to be working very well. Just again, self-control is a muscle, it's a muscle. So the monitoring tends to work even under stress, the control doesn't work well under stress. And then what tends to happen is the downward spiral, the downward spiral. Matter of fact, here's some fascinating relatively new research that shows the more you try to suppress an unwanted sexual thought, the more energy your body expends and the more drawn to the thought it becomes. There's some interesting biofeedback and neurophysiological research that's showing that. There's a very interesting paradox here. So as you try to fight it, the more you fight something, the stronger the tiger becomes. So what's the answer? What's the answer? The answer is, and this is what I really need you to make sure this is okay, is and I don't want to just, I just need guidance on this. The answer is the yana'aneh lo rosho answer. The answer is that if there's any way to fight off an unwanted thought from a psychological standpoint by robbing it of its power while not fighting it, right? And it's all hinted at in the very famous Gemara in Yevamos where, you know, Rabbi Akiva's in a shipwreck, and he says nizdamen li, sorry, דף של ספינה נזדמן לי, a plank of wood came my way, וכל גל וגל שבא עלי נענעתי לו ראשי. מכאן אמרו חכמים אם יבוא רשע על אדם ינענע לו ראשו.
Right? And you ride the wave. You ride the wave. The more you fight the wave, you all know this, okay? The more you fight the wave, the more likely you are to be sucked into the undertow, into the undertow. The more you ride the wave instead of fighting it, the more likely you are to not be sucked into, to be sucked into this paradox. What do I mean by this? A very specific, this becomes a recommendation on this point. What I mean is, you as you feel yourself getting pulled into the fantasies or to the whatever the thought process is that you do before, in before having a problem with shmiras habris or atchala, okay? Or before you have a problem in terms of getting into a physical relationship with a girl. What you do at that point is you mentally step back, you acknowledge to yourself, okay, this is the way it starts, okay, but you don't get pulled into wrestling with it. It's like what Rav Dessler says in Michtav Me'Eliyahu: the more you push down on the spring of a mattress, the more the more resistance you're going to get. You don't push back on it. What you do instead, what you do instead is you reassure yourself, okay, this is this is the struggle. This is the challenge. You don't analyze it. Don't get pulled into fighting with yourself. Don't get pulled into the struggle. Instead, at that point, you let it ride over you, and then you take some kind of specific action that does not involve getting pulled into the fantasy. Specific action may be to distract yourself. It may be to go into the room where there are other guys hanging out. It may be to whatever it is your coping plan is. You go and you get yourself away from it, but you don't fight the obsession. Instead, you... you have a wide open gate. And that's a little bit of a concept that may be a little bit difficult to get, but it's I think a very powerful concept and it's to explain a little bit more on on on what Bill said. Okay. So you said this was sort of helpful right now maybe first we will be able to talk about this more later some some you know more of an appropriate hashkafa kind of standpoint. Final, final set of points. By the way. So let's use the DBT concept of chain analysis. Chain analysis is if you're having a problem, let's say the problem is as I think as mentioned the problem is that you you know that you get very pulled and you walk into your room and you're alone, let's say your roommates are nowhere around and you go onto the internet and you know that's the first step in terms of your getting into a p'gam ha-brit, okay? So at that point, how do you how do you deal with it? So I already said step one is the monitoring process. Step two is the real decision to do something about it. You make it into a goal, you make it into a challenge, you focus on it. Step three, all of a sudden forgot the numbers, something I didn't say before, the more specific you are in terms of your planning, the more the more effective it's going to be. The chain analysis goes like this. Ask a set of questions at every point of the chain. What are the devarim of this step, okay? So you say to yourself, number one is what prompting event in the environment is the beginning of the chain? So it might be the prompting event is I walk into my room and my roommate's not there. Or it might be I'm feeling really down, I'm feeling really stressed, and I know that this behavior gives me a short-term fix. Okay? Or it may be just sort of an internal feeling that you're just sort of drawn to it. But the more you get used to that that step one of the chain, the beginning parts of the chain, the easier it's going to be to come up with some kind of coping plan. Okay? What things in my environment make me vulnerable? Okay? And you actually get very specific in terms of the behaviors and events. And then, if you're nichshal, let's say you did, and this is where it becomes very important just sort of as a as a corollary to talking about the state of yei-ush, where you go from seeing it as a setback to seeing it as feedback. Okay, the research shows that if you change it into a learning experience, you say to yourself look, I'm not happy with myself right? The shame is good if it energizes you to a new plan. Okay, and the new plan becomes okay, how can I learn from this for the future? See there's a tendency to say look, I blew it, I might as well forget about it for this month, I'll wait until Elul, you know, aveira goreret aveira, that's very much that part of in many of us. Or you know maybe you know maybe after z'man, there's a tendency to do that and what you have to do is you have to you know there's something called harm reduction in psychology right? There's the the Gemara tells us there's a great imagery in the Gemara in Shabbat. האי מאן דאכל שומא וריחיה נדיף ליהדר וליכול שומא אחרינא?
They want to say you shouldn't be too much of a rasha, why are there gradations there? אלא מי שאכל שום וריחו נודף, right? Let's say you have a little bit of garlic and your breath smells, okay? יחזור ויאכל שום אחר ויהא ריחו נודף? So is the answer to just keep on stuffing the garlic so your breath really smells? Of course not. You you realize that sometimes the answer is okay, I made a mistake, I'll do teshuva, let me figure out what can I learn from this mistake. Some of you have heard me say this, one of my favorite studies is a neurosurgeon study. A medical sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania wanted to understand what differentiates between the top 1% of all neurosurgeons. Very hard to become a neurosurgeon, right? Four years medical school, then five years general surgery, then then you know you're not even finished till you're in your mid-thirties. It's longer than a kapote, right? No, not even. Okay. You go forever, okay? You're finally a neurosurgeon. What differentiates between the top 1% of neurosurgeons, okay, who are the best of the best, have the fewest deaths, and the regular neurosurgeons and the bottom 1% who get fired from their residency programs? And it turns out you think it's intelligence, you think it's manual dexterity? No, you know what it is? It's how they handle their mistakes. Top 1% of neurosurgeons, they make a mistake, they're energized by it. They're not happy, but they say I'm not going home till I figure out what I did wrong. And they go to the library and they call the experts and they go to the animal lab there and do operations on these poor animals so they figure out what they did wrong. And then ultimately they figure out, they embrace it. They embrace it till they until they understand what they did wrong. The bottom one percent, the ones who end up getting fired, if they make a mistake, not a good place to make a mistake when you're a neurosurgeon, right? If they make a mistake they'll say oh the lighting was terrible in the operating room today. Oh that nurse made a mistake, that's a terrible operating room nurse. It's all out there. It's how we embrace our mistakes that determine where we're going in terms of our personal growth. That's the final point. Final point is the point of, of yiush versus learning from our mistakes. So we ask ourselves, that's the last set of questions, how can I reduce my vulnerability in the future? What harm did my problem behavior cause? What am I doing to myself? How badly do I feel? But you do the cost-benefit analysis. You don't run away from the productive aspects of busha. And I think we pull this all together. I don't think any bank and I don't think Svirsky gave us a set amount. But it's an approach and it's an approach that is based on some very, very real wisdom, very real wisdom, the wisdom of Torah and some of the new insights in the field of psychology that's really telling us that again, let's just summarize. Number one is set the goal. Just as the Rebbe I think, I saw published talmidim, he tells talmidim have six-month plans. Where do you want to be in six months? Right? Where do you want to be in six months? When you set goals, it makes an enormous difference. And in terms of the shidduch, what are your goals? You're just going to let it happen or are you going to fight it off and is it a worthy thing to fight it off? Worth an agreement, is it worth, self-control is, there's a fascinating set, one of the leading, one of the most quoted studies in psychology is the study done just a few blocks down by a Dr. Mischel in Columbia's psychology department. What does he do? He looks at a group of four-year-olds years ago, a generation ago, and he gave them a, let's say, two cookies, two marshmallows. And he said what? I'm going to leave one cookie with you, okay? And I'm going to take the other cookie. I'll be back in five minutes. If you want, you can eat the cookie now. Okay, eat the cookie now, that's fine. But if you wait for the five minutes and I come back you're going to get both cookies. Do whatever you want to do. Whether or not in that little brief five-minute study the kids were able to wait predicted their success in life. The kids who were able to wait, the kids who were able to show self-control, the kids who were able to have that maturity at age four in young adulthood showed better outcomes socially, emotionally, in about ten different measures. Truly an amazing thing to see, follow them up into adulthood. Just that one thing. Self-control in relationships before you're married is incredibly important. So much of what goes into the success of marriage is being able to relate to your wife one day in a way that you don't sexualize your dependency needs, being able to find intimacy in a non-sexual way. That's what the beauty of Taharat Hamishpacha and the cycle of a Jewish marriage is about. To the extent that you could learn how to relate and be intimate through words and connect through words rather than through the physical is an incredibly important ingredient and element of a successful Jewish marriage, but of a successful marriage in general. One of the reasons why Baruch Hashem, in spite of all the problems we hear about, we have a pretty good track record in our community. So that's another piece. The self-control is incredibly important. Make it into a goal. Understand that there's nothing tougher but the benefits are incredible. Understand kol hatchalot kashot but it gets easier with time and understand that maybe as you figure out how to ride the wave and come up with a set of teshuvot, the coping mechanisms that work for you to take you from passive to active and from threat to challenge, hopefully we'll all be zocheh to be able to realize our goals in this important area. Thank you. So we'll take questions now as we go around and select any parts of the last class. We're going to assume that all your questions are about your roommate, okay? Are there some questions as far as roommates go? Are there ones for parents for example or other authoritative figures in your life that are trying to put you, get you to understand Judaism the same way as they do, and that push you to be more normal in the sense of to be proactive in ways that the general world is and less Judaism as you view it? I'll give it over to the first speaker to talk about it here, but it's a fascinating study that came out fairly recently that blew me away. It was a study published in a leading medical journal that said for the first time more than 50% of young adults in the United States say that they wish that they had waited longer before becoming sexually active. That's answer number one. What's that about, okay? They wish they had waited longer. That's number one. Number two is that there's some evidence that not only is it showing itself in young adults as they're now empty, but that the first year after a high school aged person gets pulled into sexual activity, their grades drop, their depression level goes up, they just become in general less happy people. Why is that? It's because we're not designed to have such a powerful force distract us from the important tasks of adolescence. And in fact, there's about to be launched by the OU a site called I think Abstinence, by NCSY, abstinence.com. I don't think it's quite released yet, but it shows some fascinating statistics about how there's this decrease in activity in this area there, that in fact kids at high school and at college who are controlling themselves is showing up quite a bit. Not for religious reasons, but purely because people are realizing this stuff is dangerous stuff and it's not associated with health. So the answer to the people in the mainstream which I know it's there and I know there's a lot of problems out there, the main point I'm mentioning is that the fact that more than half of young adults wish they had waited, I think is the answer to people like that. And it's like I'm not saying and you don't have to convince them but you convince yourself that way. In on this handout I think I have the data and the citations for those studies. I wouldn't add too much to what the speaker said, but in general when one encounters a I guess ideological gap between a son and parents, it's very important a to articulate as well and as social a manner as possible what one's issues are and why one does not want to get involved in certain areas. And second of all it's also important to sort of emphasize whatever common ground does exist. Meaning to the extent that not going to the movies is something that one is not doing, but one's still going to have the Seudah together to some extent and be able to no faults of their own necessarily. And because of that I think all of this emphasized that common level of activity. I think that that shows it's more normal. It's very important to show parents to the extent that it's true I'm still relaxed, I still play basketball, I enjoy sports, to the extent that the parents might think that the guy is just becoming a determination to learn which means that he sits there all day and learns and doesn't do a job, if he has a definite plan in terms of what's going to end up happening in terms of this, in terms of that, as much as possible you always want to highlight some of the common ground and then that, you know, is the best established image that the parents will be open and receptive to seeing. to allow you to go along in other areas. The first three questions are specifically for you. The question is if we set preventive measures for ourselves, how do we prevent ourselves from setting boundaries that are too strict that they end up failing? The question is an excellent one. It's also a very broad one. To start, I'll try to give a general answer. If one is dealing with actual issurim, right, if the question of looking for to avoid actual issurim, one's goal is to try to eliminate the issur entirely. Just in the same way as trying to stop, for example, smoking, the best way is not to say, well, I'll cut down from five times a day to four times a day. So for that reason and many other reasons, a person is not going to say, well, I'll try to taper down from five instances of being nichshal to four. So it's certainly not too strict that one's goal is to eliminate the issur entirely. That's not too strict. A sense of common sense and intuition is obviously the best guide. Obviously, one preventive measure for shmiras hamachshava is not going to be, like, I'm not going to leave my room. So the common sense and intuition is what comes into play to whatever degree that a person is unsure, so then maybe this is an occasion for some personalized guidance. An excellent question. I'll pass that back. The question was how do you work on these issues in the midst of prime stress or depression, right, that to the extent that we know that stress and depression is a risk factor for getting pulled more into the cycle that we were talking about, it's an excellent question. And the answer is in some ways going to sound simplistic, but it's true. The answer is that in dealing with stress or dealing with depression, you have certain choices about how to deal with it. Most effective, for example, let's talk about stress. The most effective stress reducers are not in this area. It's beautiful, it's the Bas Ayin or the Sfas Emes, zecher tzadik livracha, he talked about, I don't remember the context exactly, but he says this, I'll just tell you the bottom line take-home message. He said, you know if pleasure and happiness is real based on how you feel the morning after. That's how you feel the morning after, right? It's based on when people come back, something in the leshon of the parsha there that it was a zman simcha or something, that the real happiness, real simcha, is when you have an afterglow. You're coming back from the oleh regel or you're coming back from the simcha shel mitzva and you still have an afterglow of happiness. I think that that can be taken to this area as well, right? So in terms of... stress reduction, healthy forms of stress reduction, and there are healthy forms of dealing with depression, healthy forms of stress reduction, there's a whole list of things that can be done, ranging from the way you think to the way you reach out to other people to physical exercise to throw yourself into learning. It depends on the person, but it's usually a tool box to fight depression. You have certain approaches and the research on it in terms of research on efficacy of various kinds of treatments for stress, and none of them involve this, being nivval in terms of physical relationships, because it doesn't pass the yardstick of feeling good the next morning. So that's the basic idea. The question reads: Although creating a sviva seems to be the only way to protect tzuras ha-adam, there are many times when creating a sviva may be impossible, like when somebody enters the workforce or graduate school. How can a sviva remain strong even outside the walls of the yeshiva? The question again is a very, very good one. I think part of the answer is that the work situation that a person looks for has to be affected by these considerations. There are different work environments, not only within different professions but within the same profession there are different work environments and the same way, I don't know, this is a little bit of an anachronistic example, but if one work environment doesn't have a no-smoking policy and the other one does, so then you're going to hesitate to go to the one which has the no-smoking policy because the secondhand smoke disturbs you a lot. I think that when entering the workforce, that's part of the assessment that one makes initially in terms of where one is headed and then specifically in terms of what firm or what workplace one joins, that this must be part of the decision. It's not shev v'al ta'aseh. There's a lot of shev v'al ta'aseh, but it's not uniformly shev v'al ta'aseh and it has to influence and affect our decisions. It involves a b'dieved, but I think a person has to be creative. Certainly many, many people who work in computers now are able to work from home and don't even go into the workplace and there's also again a whole range of factors which a person needs to think about ahead of time rather than just sort of take it as a given that well, I want to be a lawyer and I want to work in this firm and this firm is going to involve dressing in a way which makes it impossible to wear tzitzis and so on and so forth. I think instead of taking that as a given, a person has to design and then look to match a work environment which fits with their values and that's possible with siyata d'ishmaya at the same time. The question is another good question, is that Dr. Mischel's study, the once famous study on self-control in preschoolers, which I think was three and four-year-olds, the last time I read it was four-year-olds, did he capture, his research team capture something that could be taught, or is it capturing something that is innate? Some people just born with the basic capacity to And I think the answer to that is my guess is that it probably is strong enough that some people find much more challenges than others. Some people are very gentle, some people have a very strong judgmental side, some people are incredibly bold in this direction, and some people are born with an excellent capacity for self-control. But we also know that everybody has their own challenge. We know that there isn't a person alive, and this was of course said a little bit earlier, who doesn't have a set of challenges that they could overcome. And we know that there's a set of questions about homosexuality, for example, that there's a similar issue. What happens if you're pulled very, very strongly in certain areas? So we know that on the one hand, לא תשכב את זכר is greater for that person, but the Torah knows no exception in terms of the basic guidelines. But yes, there's a tremendous amount of variability in terms of individual challenges. I've never met anybody who doesn't have challenges. I sit down with somebody for 10 minutes and it's pretty easy to find out their challenge and their temperament. Everybody has something. I always wonder what... there are unique challenges and unique advantages to a given temperament. So for example, we know that people who were born in a way that they're very anxious, about 15% of the population, very nervous temperament, they're shy, they get very nervous about certain novel situations. So you wonder why what's the purpose for that? And it turns out that in studies of monkeys, and naturalistic monkeys, okay, if you're told we can learn from ants, you can certainly learn from monkeys as well, it's the 15% of monkeys who are anxious who if they're given stability, they grow up to be the leaders of the pack. Because there's something very adaptive about being anxious. Anxious people connect very strongly to others. Anxious people take life very seriously. And part of anxiety is leadership qualities. And I understood that just about any temperament has great positive aspects to it. So attention deficit people are the ones who run institutions, and I see the... I had a friend who's... I have this friend who's the Rosh Yeshiva of one of the most successful Kaf Vav Beis Medrash Yeshivos in this country. And every time he sees me, he just calls me, "Kupchik, come here! Just if you put me on Ritalin when I was a kid, there'd never be this... the Yeshiva would never be here." And he's brilliant and he's probably right. Okay? We need everything. So I always look at why the obnoxious temperament? Why do you have why somebody who cries and is negative and is difficult? And then I saw a study that showed that during... during the famine in Ethiopia, it was the kids with difficult temperament who were most likely to survive. Because they cried in such an obnoxious way, they're the ones most likely to be fed. Okay? So there's a reason for everything. But there are unbelievable challenges for people who are not born with self-control and not born with, let's say, an easy ability to control this particular area. But yeah, that was a very good call. I mean, my guess is that if you look carefully at the biological data, it's strongly biased by biology. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah. So as we get down in the list for the last few, the questions get tougher. Okay? So here's the one that... okay. I'm not sure this is the place... the homosexuality one actually, I would suggest, I don't know if this is the place for it. People who take the pastoral classes know that we had a lecturer, Rabbi Wolbe, also has the approach I'd recommend if you have a real interest in this. Rabbi Wolbe's... there's an approach that he explained in a book by Russ Rapoport from Zion in the Moon that is a fairly interesting approach. If you read Rapoport's book at all, Rabbi Wolbe read it and liked a lot of it, almost all of it. So that's one approach, but it's probably just to give it the right kind of coverage, I think, for another night. It's a very important area, except that one person said... One person had a question. One of the questions was, isn't it possible that if you totally control yourself in terms of relationships with women, that it's going to bring out homosexual behavior? Okay, so legitimate question, legitimate question. And the answer is that, to my knowledge, and again, this is an area that I've done a fair amount of clinical work in, it's true that in dormitory, in a dormitory setting, that can happen. It's possible that it can happen to the point that there are some yeshivos that will not have dormitory rooms with two guys. They only have three guys in the room because they recognize that this is a temptation. I'll just tell you though, that if in fact such a difficulty comes up, in my experience, it's never been something of a permanent object choice. It's because it's something that comes, comes between two consenting adults as a result of the initial, because of being in a mono-male environment and having no other outlet. I've never known it to be permanent. More per... and it leads to a much more complex set of questions. So maybe did you want to address that? Only perhaps to suggest my guess is that avoiding heterosexual ritcha leads to this homosexual ritcha. And I think that it's virtually a given that one is not taking the correct measures to avoid the heterosexual issues. It's quite clear that this is just being deflected because he's not approaching this correctly. And I think some of the strategies that we've been attempting with these youngsters, and perhaps the most important one, which Rabbi Tendler addressed at length, is that Rambam wrote at the end of Hilchos Issurei Biah, and this is very much consistent with what Dr. Twerski was talking about, how a person doesn't, you can't resolve not to think about a sexuality, but if you're busy thinking about the grey horses, then your mind is going to be preoccupied and you're not going to think about the sexuality. Lehavdil, lehavdil, lehavdil, so the Rambam says that the machshava of arayos that a person has only come when his לב פנוי מן החכמה. And so it's the vacuum, it's the vacuum in terms of what our mind is preoccupied with. So then לב פנוי מן החכמה, so then when there is this vacuum, when there is this void, so then the natural drives and urges that we have will fill that void, will fill the vacuum. But to the extent that there is no void, there is no vacuum, that a person is productively engaged... okay, so this is a big machshava, and he's productively engaged, and the Rambam says all the time with divrei Torah or chochma. It can be arts and sciences, it could be straight machshava or madda, but let him be engaged productively with anything. So if one takes the right approach, I think, to dealing with the issue of controlling your heterosexual urges, I don't think they're going to be deflected and translated into homosexual urges. And if that's happening, it's pointing to the fact that a person is not really going about the challenge the right way. Another thing which I had intended to mention before, one component of this whole equation in terms of seeking to attain and maintain kedusha in today's world, and Dr. Twerski mentioned it, he talked about 1950 and earlier, and we can go back even further than that, our tradition very, very strongly advocating early marriage. And who was it that said that the reason I'm better than my peers is because I got married at 16? If I had gotten married at 14, I would have been even better. Now obviously, we're not ready... But certainly early marriage, if the person is emotionally ready for it, is definitely, definitely part of the equation, not just to prolong the nisayon. You know Chazal point out that when the Torah talks about that לעולם ימית אדם עצמו, ילמד אדם תורה אחרי שילמד אדם אומנות, ואחרי שישא אשה.
That's the way Chazal point out about derech eretz as opposed to halacha. And the reason for that is that that was actual advice when at age thirteen you became an apprentice and you learned an umnut and you had that apprenticeship for five years and at that time bishmoneh esreh l'chupa, so you already had your umnut and then you could follow that. Nowadays that's many, many professions that a person is going to enter he's not going to have the credentials, the qualifications to enter it until age twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, whatever the case may be, it just doesn't work. So to hold the line on no, well first you have to be totally finished with your umnut and only then to get married, it doesn't work anymore. And Chazal knew it, which is why which is why Chazal never said it becomes a halacha. לימוד התורה עד הסוף to the extent that it's possible for them, all things being equal, is yomad adam umnut, find a way to build yourself before and then get married. But bishmanenu that just often doesn't work that way. And part of the approach to this whole issue is again, provided that a person is ready emotionally in terms of maturity, is marriage at a young age. I think let's actually why don't we take from I think we handled most of the questions I think. There's a question here which I think about what is the set of parshanut from Christians on marital relationships and also in terms of reach of artificial restrictions like using the internet and library, a healthy approach to exacerbate the problem? You know Lakewood opted out the internet, right? The question is how effective is it for them? Okay? And maybe you could do it in a controlled community of seven thousand families, I don't know that you could do it in less controlled communities. I'm not even sure that from what the people who live there, the leadership that I've met with to discuss similar issues, I'm not sure how successful it is. There's a beautiful, beautiful I think was Shamshon Raphael Hirsch on al odot bno and it's very relevant to that, right? He says that Avraham after Yishmael passed away, he's worried al odot bno and most meforshim understand he's worried about Yishmael. Rav Hirsch says no, he's worried about Yitzchak, that now Yitzchak who's become is going to be raised in a home where he's not exposed to Yishmael anymore. And he's very worried about Yitzchak's lack of exposure, lack of exposure. Really very interesting kind of kind of way of looking at it. So the question is, and this is the question about the philosophy of Yeshiva University versus the philosophy of a Lakewood let's say, is the question is is the answer to totally push it away with the hope that when you need it for business you'll learn what you need to and that you push it away and you'll be fine with it when you're finally, you know, you'll be more mature, which I could see, I understand that logic, or do we embrace the world in a way that we're careful about actualizing our values and living the Torah that we've been taught? And that's a real question. So the bottom line, bottom line answer I could give to a psychologist to the question of are artificial restrictions like using internet and library helping approach or exacerbating the problem, I'd say that it depends on the individual. Is this an individual... Equivalent to putting the knobs on the light switches, then I don't think it's an unhealthy approach at all. I think that in the scenario that you're struggling with and you build that kind of Geder, then why not? Why not? I'm not saying no internet, but the internet on the second floor of the library where people could see. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's a reasonable thing that's very much an accepted part I think of self-control psychology anyway. You build the Geder. Why not? Anyway, I think I sense that people have more questions. Yeah. On this topic, very first use of the Geder, I don't know, maybe it's not such a good example, but like if you have a pet and it goes to the bathroom in the house, a classic example, like on television or whatever, that you have to cover it up with newspapers or whatever, but eventually you uncover it up, the smell is still there. Is there a danger to the Geder with us not yet to control it and fight it? Is there a way of not like maybe the danger of hiding or covering up with something, but actually dealing with the Yetzer Hara in a way that something that is accepted and then you just have to find these ways? I mean, what I think what I've been arguing tonight is that you have to that there's no such thing as completely eradicating the Yetzer Hara. I don't think there is. I don't know that it's maybe certain incredibly controlled people can do that. It's a struggle and that struggle is part of the engine of our growth. If you look in today's New York Times, front page bottom story, it's about what do you do with people who are pedophiles, people who are abusers, and they find that nothing has worked, including extreme, extreme control. Extreme. Some people have such an incredibly intense Yetzer Hara they just can't control it. They end, I mean, now maybe that doesn't mean all the things we're talking about, about riding the wave and setting goals and the recommendations that were made by both of us. I think they're arguably for a way to manage it, but it's not a substitute. You can't change the way we're designed, but you can change the way we handle those temptations and grow through it, and it's what makes us who we are and it's what brings us to HaShem, right? I mean, it's that sort of right? We were just talking about the Nazir a little bit as a metaphorical example. I think in general we deal with challenges, whether it's in the area we're talking about tonight, whether it's in other areas on two levels. One is more on the behavioral level which really doesn't necessarily, at least initially, attack the core of the Yetzer Hara, which is look, a person knows that they have the Yetzer Hara to go to a certain site on the internet which is very antithetical to everything they believe in and stands for, which I totally get. So on the behavioral level, you tell them no, not to go close to the vineyard, of course, Kol Shechein, you tell them no that he shouldn't go close to the vineyard. You shouldn't be maybe after midnight on a site, and that's how to deal with the Yetzer Hara. It's taking those preventative measures. And literally Kol Shechein, literally distancing yourself from the Yetzer Hara. So we certainly do and struggle with the Yetzer Hara on that level. I think on the other hand, what we also try to do is let's say just to follow up on the Nazir analogy, is in addition to telling him don't go close to the vineyard so that you'll just won't subject yourself to that temptation, but we also, and I think maybe this is a level on to which you're referring, we also want the Nazir should also seek to bring himself to a level where when he sees a grape, he doesn't see something enticing for physical pleasure, but he sees something which represents a violation of the Ratzon Hashem. He sees something which will distance him from the Ratzon Hashem. משל למה הדבר דומה. If you have a person... who has severe severe allergies food allergies. If he eats peanuts he could have a life-threatening such a severe reaction maybe even be fatal. But when he becomes aware of that when maybe he even had a brush with death or close call when he wasn't aware of it but when he sees a peanut he doesn't have much of a yetzer hara to eat that peanut because when he sees it the association what it is brings back the memory of that terrible reaction he had. So I think you're absolutely correct that we do see also if I know this to be the publication with all kinds of pornographic material so I guess on one level quickly get rid of it on another level ultimately we certainly do seek to internalize that our perception of that shouldn't be something oh which is potentially gratifying but to see it as a source of tumah and that goes more to the level of internalizing. So we sort of take the behavioral precaution behavioral hafrashos and then we also try to internalize the values and perspectives which just make it not enticing. It doesn't uproot the yetzer hara but it's certainly directed and channeled. It doesn't uproot the yetzer hara just as he's still going to get married and he's still going to lead a normal married life with his wife. But what maybe he wanted to experience as a temptation to be mezaneh now becomes so repulsive because what it represents is no longer the gratification but what he's internalized what it represents is tumah what it represents distance from the Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And yes so I think we do struggle on both levels and as Rabbi Topolowsky pointed out before in terms of everyone's challenges there's a very beautiful he'arah from the Avi Ezri Rav Shach who was the grandfather of Rabbi Topolowsky a really beautiful remarkable remarkable he'arah. Because if you look at the Rambam in the beginning of Hilchos De'os when the Rambam describes different different different types. Rambam says that that some people are so interested in amassing money that they they want to be in the Forbes Top 400. And others are so disinterested in money they're not even interested in earning enough money to pay the rent. Some people have this hedonistic instinct and so when they eat much too much and some people you can't even get them to eat enough to keep body and soul together. And so on and so forth. The Avi Ezri says there's something missing from all these descriptions of categories. Rambam doesn't describe anyone who's right on target. Rambam doesn't describe anyone who's interested in earning just enough money that he needs. He doesn't describe anyone who naturally innately wants to eat as much as he needs to eat. The Avi Ezri says no one is born on target. No one is born on target. Everyone has everyone has the challenges in in in terms of middos. And as Rabbi Topolowsky pointed out so certainly one's perspective of the fact of why are we given this challenge to deal with such a strong urge and drive that we have. I'd like to take one from the Rav and it comes down to the pasuk זכור ה' לדוד וכולו where before Z'chor Hashem that Hakadosh Baruch Hu should remember to Dovid all his years of struggle. Because the Rav says the greater the struggle so the greater the kedushah. And he went on to to to say that al pi halachah why is it that the shivas haminim which are associated with Eretz Yisrael? Why is it that you bench? You only say a full Birchas Hamazon over bread. But if you eat grapes, you eat pomegranate, you say Me'ein Shalosh, you make a על העץ ועל פרי העץ. The Rav said because grapes you don't there's no human investment. No human investment. It was not as much of an occasion to give bracha to the Ribbono Shel Olam. But bread so then you have to make it into flour and then you have to bake it, the food, the food, there is more human investment. More human investment, more struggle there is, the more kedushah is created. of the Ribbono Shel Olam, that's what literally becomes shutfus with him in creating life and perpetuating life. There's no area in which there's a need for a greater kedusha. In order for this to have that capacity to have that kedusha, there has to be struggle involved. If it weren't such a strong urge, if it weren't such a strong drive, if there weren't a need to exercise such self-control, then we couldn't attain those levels of kedusha. Because it's not only Lefum tzara agra, but gufa the Zohar HaKadosh says in Parshas Noach, it's not only Lefum tzara, the kedusha that we're bringing to the Ribbono Shel Olam, דקודשא בריך הוא אזיל בשותפותא עם כל בני ישראל to be miskadesh and to be mit-tahar. Thank you very much again for such a provocative talk on a very tough topic.