Dixie Yid

The Shiur was given 5/25/09 at Shaarei Zion in Baltimore in honor of the Rav's, Rabbi Moshe Hauer's, Maharal shiur completing sefer Netzach Yisrael, and as a prelude to Shavuos.

Rabbi Hartman is the renowned author of the new (blue annotated) Maharal on Gur Aryeh and many other seforim of Maharal.

This shiur discussed three approaches of the Maharal why the Jewish people were not counted at Matan Torah. Many fascinating points were mentioned along the way such as:

How do you know when you should get engaged? (Rav Hutner)

Why are we bound by the Torah if we weren't there to accept it?

Why is the word for friend and the word for evil the same in Hebrew?

Can it ever be said that a person is 'not cut out for learning'?

Once a week we should tell our kids that we are crazy about them. You can never be 'over bal tosif' with too much love."

And much much more.

Welcome to the GuardYourEyes community, a vibrant network and fellowship of religious Jews of all affiliations, struggling to purify themselves and break free from inappropriate behaviors stemming from Lust addiction.

With the advance of technology and the ease of availability and privacy that the internet provides, it has become a daily struggle for many religious Jews to remain Erlich (morally and ethically upright) even in their own homes. Jewish Leaders, Rabbis and Experts worldwide, are beginning to speak out about this serious problem more and more.

Our network is comprised of a website: www.guardureyes.com, a dynamic blog-site (under development) at www.guardyoureyes.org that offers new material, tips, stories and articles each day, RSS feeds (coming soon) and a pulsating forum where members post logs of their journeys to recovery, ask questions and exchange tons of Chizuk with the rest of the community. Besides this, the GYE network provides weekly phone conferences, hotlines - both in the U.S and Israel, and two daily Chizuk e-mails, 1. “Learning how to break free of lust addiction” and 2. “General Chizuk in guarding the eyes”. We also help people find accountability partners and sponsors.

For the first time, a religious Jew has where to turn to for help in this area, as well as an entire network of tools, tips and group support to help break free from the insidious grasp of this addiction. All our work is free of charge (although donations are our life-line) and we zealously protect the complete anonymity of our members. On our forum, charts and on the hotlines and weekly phone conferences, only pseudo-names and non-revealing e-mail addresses are used. For starters, you may want to make yourself an anonymous e-mail address before joining our community (something like baLetaher@gmail.com).

With the guidance of R’ Avraham J. Twerski, a world renowned expert on addictions, author of over 50 books and a true Gadol in Klal Yisrael, we present a set of guidelines to help anyone, no matter how far they have fallen, to find their way out of the vicious cycle of Lust addiction.

Our sages have called Shmiras Habris “Yesod”, meaning “Foundation”. The foundation of a building is “underground” and no one sees it, yet it holds up the entire building! Shmiras Habris is the hidden part of a Jew, it’s the real you. If the foundation of a Jew is weak, his whole spiritual structure is in grave danger of collapse. At GYE we are finally joining together, for ourselves and for all future generations, to strengthen the foundations of our people.

This area has been Taboo in the religious community for far too long. There is such a desperate need for our work today. Finally people are finding that they are not alone and that there is true hope in overcoming this addiction.

The very fabric of our society is at stake here. Families are literally being destroyed. Husbands, wives and children are all being affected in some way. The ease of accessibility and privacy that the internet provides, is the all out attack of Amalek in our generation.

At GuardYourEyes we are saving lives and marriages every day - literally, not to mention giving people back their sanity, self-respect and connection to spirituality, all of which they had given up for lost, thinking that they had no hope to ever break free… See here for how wide spread this epidemic seems to be in the religious community today.

And please see here for Testimonials of how our network is helping people all the time. See as well the testimonial section of our new site over here. And download a PDF file of the latest testimonials, just from this past March and April, 2009, over here.

Is there anywhere else in the world where one can find such an awakening of such deep levels of Teshuvah and closeness to Hashem like what is happening on our site and forum every day? Read the testimonials and see for yourself! How many countless times people write to us how they simply broke down crying when reading the website and the posts on the forum, and when they realize that they too have hope!

GuardUrEyes is the main, if not the only, religious network in the world today that deals with this issue in such a comprehensive manner, with so many tools, a forum, a blog site, e-mail lists, phone conferences, hot-lines, 12-Steps, etc…

And what we have now is only a start. Ultimately, we hope that our work will spread throughout the Jewish world. We are developing a network of sponsors and partners, and a growing community of people who want to be part of this revolution.

And we hope that these handbooks that we are working on now will ultimately evolve into published books. And we hope that our message will one day be translated into other languages as well, such as Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, French and more!

The Zohar writes that Shmiras Habris is one of the main areas holding up the Ge’ulah. We literally are paving the path for Moshiach. Be a part of it! Join the revolution. Every time we fix ourselves, we are fixing a whole world. (See here for a cute parable).

Help Us Help Others. We can’t do it without you.

Help support GuardYourEyes according to your means. Perhaps you can set aside a percentage of your Ma’aser money and become a monthly sponsor to “partner” in our holy work.

And if you know of any other ways that we may garner financial support, for example, other people who may have Ma’aser money and who would understand the importance of what we are doing, or organizations that work towards these same goals, please let us know.

The very fabric of our society is at stake. Be a part of saving Klal Yisrael in what is perhaps the most difficult test of our generation.

In the merit of your help, Hashem will give you special divine assistance in your own struggle. This is based on “Midah kineged Midah”. If you help others heal and help us spread the message of hope, Hashem will help you as well, in ways you never believed possible.

Perhaps you can help us spread the word and let the Rabbanim, mechanchim and community leaders know that there is hope. Or perhaps you can help us get articles published in Jewish newspapers, magazines and on-line websites. Maybe you even have your own website and can put up a banner that links to our site. See here for some available banners. And see here for a Flyer that you can print out to hang up in your neighborhood shteiblach, bulletin boards or the like, or use to sponsor an ad in your community or neighborhood magazines.

Chazal say that there is nothing Hashem despises as much as Zimah (promiscuity and licentiousness). Yet, without these intense struggles, could we really become great men and Tzadikim? So Hashem knows that we need to have this Yetzer Hara, but only so that we succeed to break free in the end, and in the process, we learn to give Hashem our hearts. And that’s what GuardUrEyes is doing: Helping people get back their sanity, their lives, and their connection with Hashem and his Torah. We are fixing the world, one person at a time.

R’ Noach Weinberg Za”l, Rosh yeshiva of Aish Hatorah used to ask people if they thought they could change the world. And they would say, “what can I do on my own?”, And then he would ask them, “If Hashem helped you, could you do it then ?” And they would agree that with Hashem’s help, anything is possible. That was Rav Noach’s life-time philosophy. He knew that he could do nothing without Hashem, but with Hashem, he knew he could change the world. And he DID.

He was also once asked how he had been so successful in building such a colossal world-wide Kiruv movement. He replied that he had once seen a crane lifting a 10 ton block of cement, while the workers on the roof guided it into place. Explained Rav Noach, since the prophets have already promised that the Yidden will do Teshuvah before Moshiach’s time, Hashem is already holding the 10 ton block for us. All that is left for us to do, is guide it into place.

It is the same with Shmiras Habris. The Holy books write that before Moshiach time there will be a great awakening of purity in these areas. All we have to do, is to be there to guide our Jewish brother’s hearts back into place.

Happy is the lot of those who are a part of this!

• Why isn't Shavuos explained as Matan Torah in the Chumash?
• Why doesn't Shavous have a specific mitzvah?
• Why must we indulge our bodies on Shavuos?
• Is Shavuos really about learning Torah?
• Can we live with Matan Torah daily?