Maintaining Kedusha in an Overexposed Society (2015)

All right, I think we're going to try to get started here. I want to thank everyone for coming, especially for the chevre coming to discuss this very, very crucial topic. We've run this in the past, it's been about four or five years, and life has changed since then. Now, when we spoke about it last time, the internet was on your laptop, in your room, it was very pervasive, but now it's in everyone's pocket, so the metzius has even changed since we spoke last time. Rav Salanter points out on the Gemara Kiddushin on Daf Lamed that says אם פגע בך מנובל זה משכהו לבית המדרש. If this mnuval, the Yetzer Hara, grabs a hold of you, you should schlep him to the Beis Medrash. So Rav Salanter comments in Michtav Zayin in Ohr Yisrael, he says that there are different Batei Midrashos. It's not one generic Beis Medrash. You have to create a Beis Medrash to address that issue, to address that mnuval, that Yetzer Hara. And that's what we're trying to create tonight, a forum to discuss specifically these inyanim that are relevant to the internet and what people are looking at and how people can get better control. So I want to really thank Rav Twerski and Dr. Pelcovitz for taking of their time to sit with us tonight and discuss this. We will have some presentations at first. There should be a sheet that went around and also some note cards if people have questions they can write it on note cards, pass it up, and we can try to address it hopefully if there's time afterwards. So without further ado, Rav Twerski. I don't know too much about the internet, I know nothing about being holy, so I'll be brief. In whenever one has occasion, whenever one is in a forum to share Divrei Torah, so an important part of the sharing of Divrei Torah, the transmission, the communication of Divrei Torah is to try to pitch it in terms of tone, in terms of substance, in terms of emphasis to one's audience and to try to individualize that. Here we were asked to address rather diverse questions and I think inevitably it won't be properly, fully pitched or calibrated to any one part of the audience and I very much apologize for that in advance. At times some of you will correctly feel that perhaps I'm belaboring what's obvious to you, others may feel that I'm being mekatzer. So Hareini mosef modaa with a bakashas mechila. Clearly the most insidious challenge and pitfall that comes to mind when we talk about the internet is the problem of pornography, that Rachmana litzlan one can see. Chazal tell us ונשמרתם מכל דבר רע, a posuk in Sefer Devarim,

שלא יסתכל אדם באשה נאה ולא בבגדי צבע של אשה.

A person shouldn't even look at clothing, just the clothing, the clothing is on a hanger, there isn't a woman wearing the clothing because of the associations, because of what that can trigger in terms of hirhurim. Chazal continue, a person is not supposed to look at animals:

לא בחמור ולא בחמורה ולא בחזיר ולא בחזירה ולא בעופות בזמן שמזקקין זה לזה,

when the animals are copulating, because all of these things are prone to triggering hirhurim. And ונשמרתם מכל דבר רע means that we're supposed to guard ourselves from seeing things that trigger hirhurim. Again, the examples Chazal give are... The fact that something is asur is really enough. It doesn't need to be underlined or underscored. But we're dealing with something which is chamur. Chazal say in the Gemara in Yoma that הרהורי עבירה קשו מעבירה. It's a striking comment. Chazal say it. Both the Rambam and the Nefesh Hachayim, amongst others, relate to that Gemara, each one within a certain approach. The Rambam says that what's uniquely human and what's spiritual about a person is the machshava, is the sechel, and when a person defiles that, it's worse than just when his guf, the animalistic side of him, is involved in aveira. So the guf is physical, it is animalistic. But the sechel, one's thoughts, so that's the defining tzelem Elokim of a person. That's the defining spiritual quality and essence of a person. And that's how the Rambam understands the maimar Chazal that הרהורי עבירה קשו מעבירה. The Nefesh Hachayim within his worldview, the two enrich each other. The Nefesh Hachayim within his worldview says that in terms of the cosmic repercussions of what one does, what one says, what one thinks, again for the same reason that the Rambam says, because machshava is the most spiritual element of the person, so its cosmic repercussions are greater and they reverberate further and higher. And that's how he says pshat in that הרהורי עבירה קשו מעבירה. Rashi in Parshas Shelach comments on the pasuk ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם. So Rashi says that העין רואה והלב חומד and that's how a person gets drawn rachmana litzlan into aveiros. My mashgiach shared with me, I think it was a tape that we listened to. I don't think he just related it to me, I think he actually played the tape for me of Rav Mattisyahu Salomon explaining that from this Rashi, one sees that the crucial, crucial point, the crossroads in a life of kedusha vetahara or rachmana litzlan something different is the shmiras einayim in terms of what one sees. Because it all begins with Ha'ayin ro'ah. It begins with Ha'ayin ro'ah. The imagination of the yetzer hara is fed by visual image. What I don't know about, I can't be chomed. If I've never been exposed to something, I don't know about it, I can't be chomed. The yetzer hara is not going to take me there. If I see it, I'm exposed to it, so Ha'ayin ro'ah, so that feeds the yetzer hara, Halev chomeid. So the crossroads, the crossroads in terms of whether one is headed to kedusha vetahara or elsewhere, rachmana litzlan, not one hundred percent on the right path, it begins with what our eyes see. Rabbonim who are morei hora'ah will tell us, distinguished mental health professionals will also tell us that involvement in these things has, continues to, and rachmana litzlan if we allow it to, destroy marriages, destroy families. There are many more marei mekomos and perspectives one can look, just to give one example in Mesillas Yesharim, the perek on About pirtei midas nekiyus. The Ramchal has a lot of divrei chizuk for us on these inyanim there as well. A hallmark of halacha and the Torah's approach to kedusha is realism. The Torah is very realistic. There are other religions that talk in very highfalutin terms about kedusha and their lack of kedusha ends up being spread all over the front pages. And the Torah's approach is the Torah is very realistic. Chazal tell us, the Rambam quotes at the end of Hilchos Issurei Biah, גזל ועריות נפשו של אדם מתאוה להן ומחמדתן. We have a very strong yetzer hara. We have a very, very strong yetzer hara for arayos and the truth is if we're honest we know this independently even if we haven't come across the Gemara, even if we haven't come across the halacha in the Rambam. If we're honest with ourselves so we know it, we know it from within. We have a very strong yetzer hara for arayos. Now of course whenever we're talking about any yetzer hara so being mis-chazek in yiras shamayim of course is an antidote to any yetzer hara. It's an antidote to any yetzer hara.

כשישים האדם אל לבו שהקדוש ברוך הוא שכינתו עומדת עליו ורואה במעשיו,

so miyad says the Rema quoting from the Rambam, a person becomes a yerei shamayim and yetzer haras are inhibited. So of course whenever we deal with any yetzer hara a major element of the approach and a major element of the package is that we need to be mis-chazek in yiras shamayim. We need to be mis-chazek in yiras shamayim in general and as it applies and as it expresses itself in whatever area we're encountering the nisayon. But lema'aseh more than that is required as well. Chazal tell us in Gemara Sanhedrin that לעולם אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי נסיון. No matter how many mussar seforim one is holding it and no matter how much of a kvies one has for learning mussar, אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי נסיון. And Chazal say that מי לנו גדול מדוד המלך and Dovid Hamelech הביא עצמו לידי נסיון and he was nichshal. So yes of course of course of course we should be mis-chazek in yiras shamayim and again it has to be what a person should learn, how much he should learn has to be individualized obviously in a general public forum it can't be specified. But we also being mis-chazek in yiras shamayim doesn't relieve us of the responsibility of looking to as much as possible reduce nisyonos, not to expose ourselves unnecessarily, gratuitously, to a greater degree of nisayon than the world itself imposes upon us. There's no reason that we should open ourselves up to a greater degree of nisayon than that which the western world of תשע"ה imposes upon us. And here just to comment on a certain mindset. There's a mindset which I think many of us are drawn into that if the technology exists so we should take advantage of it. And as every phone is upgraded and as they go from being foolish to smart and soon they'll be brilliant and super genius so if the phone's getting smarter so then we need to avail ourselves of it. The benefits are certainly undeniable. Every time someone tells me they were caught in traffic and they took out their phone and the phone has an app and the phone told them where to drive and they got out of the traffic jam so I taka understand why people have smartphones and I wonder and the yetzer hara is there is a gevura yetzer hara and all the convenience and the efficiency that the convenience allows is certainly something we value. It's certainly very much a Torah value to maximize one's time, to make the most of one's time, to be efficient with one's time is certainly part of any religious person, any ben Torah's approach to life is we're supposed to live as productively as possible. To live as productively as possible means to use our time as well and as efficiently as possible and there's no question that the technology allows us to do it. It allows people to live potentially more efficiently and potentially more productively. But that consideration, that shikul doesn't preclude and doesn't trump all others. When Chazal say that if a person has to go from point A to point B and along the way there are נשים העומדות על הכביסה and because of that there's going to be an issue of histaklus so אם איתא דרכא אחרינא so he's supposed to opt for the other way. Chazal don't say only if it's as quick, only if it doesn't involve going an extra few miles out of the way. Convenience and efficiency are values but they don't trump all other values and they don't override לעולם אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי נסיון. How much of a nisayon is it to have internet in one's dorm room and not have to go to the library? How much of a nisayon is it to have it on one's phone בכל עת ובכל שעה? For everyone it's a nisayon. How much of a nisayon is going to vary from individual to individual. I don't think anyone can give it an absolute value, anyone can assign it an absolute value, but a) it's a nisayon for everyone, the younger you are the stronger the yetzer hara is, so the more of a nisayon it is. When a person is single the nisayon is even greater, which is not to say the yetzer hara disappears after one gets married. The yetzer hara is alive and healthy after one gets married as well, but it's even stronger when one is single. It's a very big nisayon. The fact that it's inconvenient, the fact that it means foregoing again efficiency, foregoing convenience, so what? So what? If that's the way to reduce the nisayon, if the way to reduce nisayon is not to take advantage of internet in one's dorm room and the way to reduce the nisayon is not to have a smartphone to disable the internet from the smartphone, so it's worth paying the price in terms of convenience and efficiency because convenience and efficiency don't trump all other Torah values and Torah considerations. נפשה של אדם מחמדתן ומתאווה להן, it's a strong yetzer hara and לעולם אל יביא אדם עצמו לידי נסיון. The same is true in terms of again not that a person should al tivtechu vindivim, a person shouldn't be relying on filters to the exclusion of being mischazek in yiras shamayim. A person should also I don't think it's for me to talk about this in. susceptible to pornography Rachmana litzlan that a person also has to be mindful of and also has to address. But whatever a person can do, he has to assess what his level of nisayon is and it has to be addressed, and it has to be addressed. And the fact that it creates inconvenience, the fact that it means foregoing the latest technology, so what? That's not a reason that we should be deterred from it. We should avail ourselves again, not that any of them are foolproof, not that there's any infallibility, we should avail ourselves of whatever the best filters are, whatever the best buddy systems are, we should avail ourselves of all that again, not to the exclusion of being mitchazek in yiras shomayim, not to the exclusion of dealing with whatever mental health issues may make a person more susceptible to such entanglements. If a person has already become addicted, so a, he should know that he's not alone, he's not the only person who's struggling with such an issue. B, there's a famous vort from the Kotzker, right? The first sugya in Eilu Metzios is machlokes Abaye and Rava about yeush shelo midaas. There's a famous vort from the Kotzker. The Kotzker says yeush, a person is misyaiesh shelo midaas. Only a person who's lav davka about daas is going to be misyaiesh. A person is never supposed to be misyaiesh. So yitachen that a person can find himself addicted. It's not a reason to be misyaiesh. There's no such thing as the person not being able to break that addiction. It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. It doesn't mean that it's going to be a painless, smooth process and road. But of course a person can. Yeush shelo midaas. He should seek help. He should seek help from as appropriate from mental health professionals who are learned both in the mental health side as well as whatever halachic considerations need to be brought to bear. If a person is not sure whether the mental health professional has the second set of credentials, then he should on his own, he should create a partnership with a rov, he should be checking with a rov whatever the approach that the mental health professional is suggesting for him. Just to touch, I think I already went overtime here, but just to touch very quickly on two or three other areas in terms of internet and vechayotzei bo entanglement. The Chofetz Chaim writes in the very beginning of Sefer Chofetz Chaim, he says lashon hara doesn't have to be through dibbur. It's not gzairas haksav in speech, right? As a matter of fact, if you look, the lav in the Torah doesn't even mention dibbur, lo telech rachil. It's not even formulated in terms of speech. So the Chofetz Chaim lived in a much more innocent world than we do, so he wrote about writing lashon hara. But in terms of lashon hara and rechilous, so there's electronic lashon hara and rechilous is subject to all the same issurim and gedarim as oral lashon hara and rechilous. And the fact that the lashon hara or rechilous is online doesn't in any way diminish it. If anything, as the Chofetz Chaim says, the greater the audience for the lashon hara and rechilous, so then the more magnified and compounded the issur is and it's certainly something which we need to be very, very, very mindful of. There's another thing, another thing to which one can be prone online. I think the technical term for it is hacking. Not hacking, I don't know about that, but the technical term for it is hacking which basically means when yoshvei kranot are sitting and writing and having nonsensical, non-consequential, sub-intelligent exchanges about דברים שאין בהם ממש. How, how much of a concern is that? I mean it's דברים שאין בהם ממש, right? We're not talking about lashon hara or rechilut, sina. So listen to this extraordinary Rambam at the end of Hilchot Tumat Tzara'at. The Rambam writes that the Torah tells us זכור את אשר עשה ה' אלקיך למרים. Miriam didn't intend to denigrate Moshe Rabbeinu, lo dibra bignuto, she made an innocent mistake and nevertheless the Torah describes how Hakadosh Baruch Hu deals with her and then the Rambam writes as follows and listen to these few lines rabotai, it's staggering:

קל וחומר לבני אדם הרשעים הטפשים שמרבים לדבר גדולות ונפלאות. וזהו דרך,

skip two lines, וזהו דרך ישיבת הלצים הרשעים. A leitz in this context is a scoffer, someone who scoffs.

וזהו דרך ישיבת הלצים הרשעים בתחילה מרבים בדברי הבאי כעניין שנאמר וקול כסיל ברוב דברים. ומתוך כך באו לספר בגנות צדיקים, ומתוך כך יהיה להן הרגל לדבר בנביאים ומתוך כך באו לדבר באלקים וכופרים בעיקר.

So the Rambam describes this frightening, terrifying escalation. It escalates into speaking against chachamim, it escalates into speaking against nevi'im, it escalates Rachmana litzlan into speaking against Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What does it begin with? Begins with divrei havai. Doesn't begin with lashon hara or rechilut, begins with emptiness. Begins with chatting. Begins with emptiness. Begins with emptiness. It means life is empty. Life is empty. So then such emptiness breeds not good things. Just vacuity, emptiness. וקול כסיל ברוב דברים. Not lashon hara, not rechilut, not chiruf vegiduf, shmutz, nothingness, emptiness, vacuity, chatting, nothingness and that's what triggers Rachmana litzlan this escalation. I don't know the names of all the things out there but there's a lot that invites it. And last but certainly not least, the bittul zman which can result from just constant and by definition, if it's constant, excessive use of the internet. The bittul zman is something which is terrifying. I think the Chafetz Chaim once commented that the Mashuach Milchama says

מי האיש אשר בנה בית ולא חנכו ילך וישוב לביתו פן ימות במלחמה ואיש אחר יחנכנו.

Something like that, I don't know if I got the dikduk right. That a person built a house, so then he's chozer me-orchei hamilchama because maybe Rachmana litzlan he'll be killed and all that work will have been for naught. He won't even get a chance to make a chanukat habayit. He must have built this mansion, right? So what's a shiur of a bayit to qualify for being chozer me-orchei hamilchama? So says the Gemara, דל"ת אמות על דל"ת אמות. He must have spent ten minutes on it. דל"ת אמות על דל"ת אמות. Six feet by six feet maybe, maybe eight feet by eight feet. So that's already a bayit and the Torah says hayitachen, hayitachen that we should Rachmana litzlan put this person in harm's way and those ten minutes that he spent building the house will be for naught. The bittul zman that's associated with. The less access we have, the less prone we are. If it's not in our homes and if it's not in our dorms and we'll have access when we really need it. If we really need it, we'll have it in the library. If we really need it, we'll have it in the office. The less access we have, the less prone we are to all of this. Again, those things which lend themselves to extra reductions of nisyonos such as filters, buddies, v'chulu, all that chizuk in yiras shamayim. Rabbi Bakon reminded me that a few years ago when we had this program, he told the following story and I'll end with that. Again, in terms of those of us who perhaps are already struggling with some form of addiction in terms of the use of the internet. That the story was told by the Tolner Rebbe in Yerushalayim. The story concerns he in his youth, he was mishamesh the Gerer Rebbe, then was the Beis Yisrael. And he, the current Tolner Rebbe in Yerushalayim, received a letter from a friend of his that a friend had come to him nafsho b'sheiloso. Nafsho b'sheiloso that he felt this urge to shmad rachmana litzlan. Just felt this urge to shmad rachmana litzlan and the urge kept on getting stronger and stronger and he just didn't know what to do, didn't know what to do. So he asked him to go into the Gerer Rebbe, to go into the Beis Yisrael and ask him for an eitzah. So when the Beis Yisrael heard the question, he was very, very upset, very, very agitated to hear that a Jew rachmana litzlan was struggling with something like that, was on the precipice rachmana litzlan, very agitated. So he was pacing back and forth and thinking, pacing back and forth and thinking, and then he says, "Give me a Gemara Shabbos, please." He brings him a Gemara Shabbos. He opens the Gemara Shabbos. He points to the ma'amar chazal that

כל העונה אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כוחו אפילו יש בו שמץ עבודה זרה או אפילו עובד עבודה זרה כדורו של אנוש מוחלין לו.

And he says to him, "What's the limud from this Gemara?" So the Tolner Rebbe who was telling the story, he says very self-deprecatingly, well that he answered, "Well, the limud is that if you answer אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כוחו, so even if you were oved avodah zarah k'doro shel Enosh is mochlin lo." And the Beis Yisrael says, "No. What's the limud from this Gemara?" So the Beis Yisrael says, "The limud from this Gemara is that even if rachmana litzlan a person is oved avodah zarah k'doro shel Enosh, he still capable of answering אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כוחו." A person can make mistakes, we can get ourselves into difficult predicaments, we can get ourselves entangled with all kinds of problems. A person still has the capacity, again, not only literally to answer אמן יהא שמיה רבא בכל כוחו, but all that that represents and that symbolizes as well, and to extricate himself and אין דבר עומד בפני התשובה. Let me just start by saying that everything I'm going to be saying goes without saying. I'm speaking as a psychologist. I'm not speaking with any kind of authority like you just heard, okay? My words are reflecting my own opinions. I hope they're properly integrating Torah values with what psychology tells us in this area, but it's a tough area to talk about. Even in terms of, I want to, the impact of the internet, and I'm going to talk mostly about the impact of the internet in terms of kedusha, but I don't know how many of you are familiar with the phenomenon of the online disinhibition effect, which is all the research that's showing that when we go online, when we text people, when we email people, when we communicate in an online forum, because we don't have the eye contact, because we're alone in a room, there's the tendency to be So the head of the CIA, right? The head of the CIA, top spy in the country, who's one of the most disciplined men around, four-star general leading our the war in Afghanistan. And when he goes online, he forgets, when he texts his mistress, that עין רואה ושומעת כל מעשיך בספר נכתבים. Anybody could see it. But how could that be? It's because the nature of our communications online is such that however careful we are in terms of Shmiras Halashon, however careful we are in terms of our bein adam lachaveiro, it is a hundred times more difficult to be careful that. And I think that's an extremely important issue that is the... you know, I am very happy that it was raised because I wasn't going to talk about it, but I just wanted to talk about that just for a minute. Okay. Want to make a few core points about a little bit about some some thoughts about approaches in this area, in the area of dealing with the challenge. Number one is the fact that secrecy breeds shame and shame breeds powerlessness. I don't mean secrecy in terms of tznius. I mean the inability to talk about these challenges, the ability to surface it in terms of getting clarity about what your goals are almost guarantees that you're not going to be able to easily control it. So it's very important. I think the value of a night like tonight is to talk about issues that are often not talked about and aren't dealt with. The other part of this psychological truth, I believe, is that guilt that's characterized by pathological levels of self-blame, where you feel you're an evil, horrible, terrible person and that's paralyzing, that is something that tends to undermine control, as opposed to the kind of guilt that we want to engender here, which is busha as a step-back response. Constructive shame, constructive guilt, which is very, very healthy in this situation. The word busha some say is tied to the word yavesh, a break in the flow. Where in the Torah do we have the word busha? It's וירא העם כי בשש משה. Okay? Holding back. Sisera's mother, ki boshesh richvo, worried that he's not coming back quickly enough. So what's busha? In every culture in the world, you know how you show that kind of shame? It's the step-back response. This same non-verbal way of showing shame: you step back and you look down. That's the universal symbol of shame. And that part of busha is a constructive stepping back and saying, "Is this what I want to be doing? Is this something that is worthy of my values?", which is the essence of what kedusha is about. And to the extent that you could develop a mindset in dealing with these challenges, a mindset that goes from threat to challenge, to say to yourself, "Okay, I could do this. And this is something that's extremely important to me." The research shows that when you go from threat to challenge, it makes all the difference in the world in terms of energizing you as opposed to paralyzing you. That kind of constructive busha says in the sifrei mussar that it's a tachshit l'chol hamiddos. It's a basic foundational underpinning of all the middos. And that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about that kind of constructive busha. So that's the first point I wanted to make. Number two, the idea that self-control is a muscle. I don't know how many of you know the work of Baumeister. Some of you may have learned about Baumeister's work. It's basically the idea is that self-control, especially in this area, because this area is such an incredibly difficult area to have control over, especially when you're young and single, as Rav Twerski said, it's easy to get tired. So what we know is that when you're stressed out, either because of something going on in your life, or you're stressed out because you're feeling terrible about your problems in this area, or you're stressed out because of midterms or finals or applying to graduate schools or whatever you might be stressed out about. It's going to be more of a challenge for you, which means that you have to figure out a way to think about this even more mindfully. Let me give you an example in a whole different realm of Baumeister's work. Baumeister's students looked at a group of judges in Israel who were hearing cases to look at early release from prison. They found that if you're lucky enough to have your case heard the first case of the day, you were likely going home early. Because the judge is in a good mood, he's rested, he's feeling good. If you're unlucky enough to have your case heard just before lunch, you're almost... you're exponentially more likely to go back to jail for another couple of years. First case after lunch, you're probably going home. Last case before 5:00, you're going back to jail. So Baumeister's students did a very simple intervention: they gave the judges sweetened lemonade to sip on just before lunch and just before 5:00. And when they did that, it went back to total justice in terms of there was no longer the bias of being sent back to jail perhaps unfairly without the justice because because you were tired. What does that have to do with what we're talking about here? Just to realize that you have to be doubly careful, the me'od me'od that we talk about in this area in times of stress, and you have to build added gedarim in times of stress. Next, I wanted to talk a drop about just to echo what Tversky was saying, to normalize a little bit this struggle. You know, there's this... the Rambam bringing down the Gemara, says:

אין לך דבר בכל התורה כולה שהוא קשה לרוב העם לפרוש אלא מן העריות.

Nothing tougher than this area, va'avayros ha'asuros. Amru chachamim: בשעה שנצטוו ישראל על העריות, you know how we responded to hearing about the need to be in control in this area? We cried. Bachu, ve'kiblu. We were mekabel this with tears and pain. So that's an important part, is that to the extent that you feel completely alone in this struggle, at least there's some research actually done in the frum community that shows it tends to undermine control. When you feel less alone, and you feel... study I always quote, right? They take somebody, they put them at the bottom of the hill, they say estimate the steepness of this hill. If you're alone, you see the hill as very steep. If you have somebody at your side, the hill looks less steep. The closer you are to the person at your side, the less steep the hill looks and the less tired you get walking up the hill. Just to remember that you're not alone in this, it's a real challenge, but it's a challenge that's actually very much something that can be dealt with. Let me just for the sake, I know we have questions, I just want to talk a little bit about setbacks and then I'll end with a story. A lot of this issue is how you deal with your setbacks. And there's a psychology that sometimes takes over, that when there are setbacks, let's say in times of stress, and this is an area that very often there's an ebb and flow to it and there are setbacks sometimes. The key is to understand them when there are setbacks, to understand that you don't then use that as a trigger to give up. What does the Gemara say? If your breath smells from garlic, the answer isn't to then eat another clove of garlic. If there's a setback, the key question then becomes is how do you bring that into a cheshbon hanefesh where you look at, okay, what was the trigger here? There's something in psychology called a chain analysis. When am I most likely to have a problem in this area? What's going on just before the setback? To get involved in a teshuva process. Okay, teshuva in the sense that a chet, as we know, is missing the mark. Right? We know that the archers of Shevet Binyamin, lo yachti, they never missed the mark. When you view the setback that it's okay, you missed the mark, but you get a do-over now. Let's see how to do it differently. So a chain analysis means what was happening just before, what was I feeling? Was it because I was alone in my dorm room? Was it because there are certain triggers for me where I'm sort of lying to myself and I know I'm setting myself up to be able to go and be nichshal in this area? And to just look at it... Brutal honesty about the triggers, about what's happening and about ways of trying to deal with it. There's so many ways of trying to deal with it like Twersky said. So it could be with just redoubling your learning, it could be with building in the support of a friend, it could be with the very real help of filtering and monitoring programs, really helping sometimes. It doesn't mean it's going to help all the time, but it helps a certain percentage of the time. And when you combine all of these issues, it starts to make an enormous difference. You know, I'll just end with a quick vignette and a quick story and then I think we have some questions to talk about. The vignette is just an interesting vignette. In Malaysia, in pre-colonial times, adolescents used to do something called running amok, still a word in the English language. You know, you know what it would mean when you would run amok? Adolescents would go nuts and they would go on a rampage and they destroy everything in their house, they'd go out on the streets and break windows and they vandalized everything in their way. And the adults in Malaysia said, oh okay, this is running amok, you know, this is what adolescents do for a living. So it was very much tolerated. The British came in, they took over, they took control over that country and they see that there's this real problem that all the teenagers are running amok. So what do they do? They immediately announce a new law under the British legal system saying two things: If your child runs amok, you have to pay all the damages and the second thing is if your child runs amok, they're going to be held criminally responsible and they're probably going to go to jail. Do you know that the phenomenon of running amok disappeared 100% overnight? That's the power of all of this. Let me end with the story, okay? And then there are a lot of wonderful questions that you asked that I think we have to talk about. I'll end with the story, but before I go to the story, I just wanted to say that many of the questions have to do with struggles and who to go to for help and things like that. I do want to say that if it's crossed the line into addictive behavior that's interfering with your functioning and that you're doing this and you feel like you just don't have, you don't have control over this and it's getting in the way of your relationships, and getting in the way of your being able to connect either in your marriage or with being able to go out and figure out who you're going to end up with, and it's getting in the way with just your ability to feel good about yourself, at that point it does make sense to go, preferably to a specialist in the area. And in this area in particular, it really has to be somebody who is, I believe, totally reflects our values because they're not going to get it. If you do a computer search on how to deal with the issue of hotza'as zera levatala, nothing will come up in the field of psychology. Okay? Nothing, because it's not considered a problem. Anywhere in the world it's not considered a problem. Only very frum Catholics, there's some literature from them, but there's virtually no research on it. So in this area more than any other area, you have to go to somebody who really gets that and understands it and respects it and is a shomer Torah u'mitzvot. We have wonderful people here at the counseling center. Speaking as an individual who's had wonderful experience, we're really lucky, we have really good people here. It's actually, I spent most of my career in hospital based with some really excellent therapists working with me. The people here are really top notch. We happen to have the director, the co-director of the clinic right here uptown is Martin Galla, who is kind enough to join us, and who himself could be very helpful. But the therapists there, I think I know all of them and they're amazing. They're really, they're really amazing people and it could be totally anonymous. You go, you just email with supervision, counseling at yu.edu, and everything is done very discreetly in a private way. And if it's something that needs, let's say, more long-term kind of help, they could be very helpful in helping you find experts. I know there are also people who have wonderful reputations in the frum community who really are specialists in this area. I know that Rabbi Twersky has, you know, and I have spoken about some people who we know are really, really excellent if you end up going privately for this. So there are, there are many, many resources to go to and I just wanted to make that point. Let me end with the story. It's a little bit of a strange story, some of you may have heard it, but what the heck, let's do it anyway. Sri Lanka. My main area is trauma so suppose that I sometimes get pulled to go into different parts of the world where there's a big traumatic event. And I was asked to spend a couple of weeks in Sri Lanka after the tsunami there where unfortunately there were many, many tens of thousands of deaths there. And I was working with 40 doctors training the trainers training them to help them help the people of this devastated country. And the doctor who was the physician for the southernmost tip of the country told me the following story and with this I'll sit down. He said by some miracle he was standing outside of his house on the morning of the tsunami. He was stretching his arms and his house is built a little bit in the middle towards the top of a mountain and he sees the tsunami coming. He says you have no idea what it's like. It's like seeing buildings the size of the skyscrapers here in Manhattan coming at you in slow motion. He said it was like the most unbelievably terrifying experience he ever had in his life. You go into fight or flight, you don't think in a moment like that. And he runs in and he grabs his mother in one hand, his wife in the other, takes his three-year-old daughter, puts her on his shoulders and with superhuman strength he runs up to the top of the mountain just high enough to save all of them. But now he's in a state of yeush, he realizes he saved his immediate family but he's looking down on the town that he grew up in, the town that he's the doctor for, and it's gone. It's gone. It's totally washed away. And he just figures there's nothing I could do. He said then the strangest thing happened to him. A voice goes in his head, probably going back 20 years when he was in third grade he tells me. He was struggling with a math problem. His teacher came over to him and just said a simple sentence. You know something? If something is difficult you have to do it. If something's impossible you have to try a little harder. And with that voice in his head, he says he has no idea why it came into his head. It's like a little spark of מעט מן האור דוחה הרבה מן החושך, with that voice in his head if something is difficult you have to do it, if something's impossible you have to try a little harder, he rushes down the hill and he saves nine more people. Nine people alive today because he somehow was inspired by that message from a generation earlier. That's the message. This is difficult. And at times it may even feel impossible. But the challenge to us is the challenge of self-control, much tougher challenge for you guys than it was when I was your age. When I was learning in yeshiva at your age it was so much easier. If you wanted to somehow get a hold of pornography you'd have to go to a store and you'd have to make sure nobody would see you and you'd have to overcome your your anxiety to, it was just so hard. Very few people did it I think. At least in my world very few people did it. Today it's all here, okay? It's all here. And it's so much harder to do it. I know some some people would say like the Gemara tells us you have to break the dice and get rid of it. I know that that's probably not the answer for most of you, right, in the balance between isolation and inoculation, the answer for most of us is inoculation. But the bottom line is is to remember if something is difficult you have to do it, if something's impossible you have to try a little harder and remember they stopped running amok in Malaysia. Okay. I can echo first Dr. Twerski, Dr. Tokovitz, for the very motivating both both drashas. We had some questions that were submitted earlier which we'll go through some of them now. Also there are more cards that are passed out, if people want to submit a question we have a lot more time, but you can write a question, just pass it to the person in front of you, just pass them up somehow. Also there's a basic fact sheet on some basic filters, some tools that are out there that can help give people chizuk, help people stay in control. One of the questions that was submitted is should a person hold off from beginning to date if they're struggling with internet-related shemiras einayim issues? So someone like to address that? Tokovitz? What's that, say it again, I'm sorry. Should someone hold off from beginning to date? I was checking my email. Yeah, pun's not the answer. If they're struggling... So I think that's a wonderful question. I'd love to hear what Rabbi Twerski says, but I think it has to do with the main point here is, if you feel that the struggle crosses the line to an addiction, meaning that you feel you have no control over it, interfering with your functioning, that basically it's taken over, what I see here over and over again getting married is probably not going to stop it. Like Rabbi Twerski said, it's just not going to stop it. There's still challenges and there are times once that takes over, the nature of especially internet pornography is it becomes preferable for some people than actually being with their wife, no matter how good a relationship they have in terms of intimacy with their wife. So I believe that if it's hit the point of addiction or real serious problem, then absolutely. If it's something though that is not taken over your life, it's something that you're struggling with but for the most part is under control, unfortunately the statistics are that once guys are using the internet, and I'm not saying this in any way to normalize it, the percentages of guys who are checking, who are using pornography, unfortunately it's become so common that if you feel that you could get better control over it and that in every other area you're ready to go out and it hasn't taken over, I think that then at that point I think that you should, there's no reason to my way of thinking to say that you shouldn't date. Obviously this is something you're going to have to really get a handle on. I was and then I'll be quiet. I went to a program in Manhattan a couple of weeks ago. I was asked to speak to a group of parents in Manhattan, parents of Modern Orthodox schools, very Modern Orthodox schools, a number of schools here in the city. And I was shocked and I don't shock easily because the principal of one of the schools, actually a Modern Orthodox school, told me that in her school half of the third graders have smartphones, 100% of the fourth graders have smartphones. And the fourth graders it's totally unfiltered, totally unmonitored. So in fourth grade they're downloading pornographic pictures, bringing them to school. But here it's the lack of busha that gets to me. She told me that just a couple of weeks ago, fourth grader she sees them trading pornographic pictures with another fourth grader, so she takes the phone away. She literally took the phone away and she gets an angry call from the mother saying, how dare you take my kid's phone away and I demand that you give it back. She said I'm not giving it back, this is not acceptable. So you know what the mother did? The next day the kid came to school with a brand new iPhone 7. So that's the baseline. When you look at the percentages of those kids who are going to probably develop a serious problem, it's actually probably about 50% will probably become addicted if that continues in a way that will impact on the intimacy in their marriage, impact on their view of women, will impact on their expectations and impact in all kinds of really bad ways. So bottom line is I answered it already. I simply agree in terms of when it crosses the line into an addiction that it's something that needs to be resolved before one begins dating. If it's an ongoing struggle which wouldn't be classified as an addiction, I don't know what the answer is. I'm not a moreh hora'ah and even if I thought I knew what the answer was I'm not sure that I could say because it's different than others. A person doesn't have to be perfect to get married chas v'shalom I'd be out of business. So a person doesn't have to be perfect to get married and we're all Working on imperfections and we're all struggling and we're all hopefully a work in process. But what's unique here I mean my guess is that very understandably and legitimately a wife is going to feel more betrayed and hurt by a husband who who is dabbling in in such things than than if he's dealing with with some other struggle or some some other imperfection you know they used to say about this the Lays one of the potato chip brands you can't you don't eat only one. I don't know how how devastating that's going to be but this is devastating. There is a sense of betrayal. There's a sense of of personal hurt even if it's understood that that it's a problem that antedated the the relationship and I don't know it's it's complicated. It's complicated in terms of because of the fact that that it certainly has implications beino l'veina in terms of what what needs to be disclosed up front and and so certainly if it crossed the line to to an addiction it's I think it's it's clear k'bei'ata b'kutecha that that that's something which it's not a hora'ah. I think that that it's something has to be resolved first. If it's less than that but it's something which is a real it's still a real factor in one's life I I think you have to find a moreh hora'ah who has the ability to to deal with with such questions and and get individualized psak and hadracha. Okay it is getting a little late we'll try taking just a couple more questions. You know how much does a person have to shy away from jobs that really do involve and maybe it's everything these days I don't know jobs that do involve heavily involve social media and and things of that nature that require a lot of involvement and knowledge of of the social media? Is that something that's insurmountable or can be dealt with properly? Good sense of humor in that question. You don't know what social media is? Okay. Okay so social media is like Facebook yeah so so I can't I can't answer it from anything other than I'll just give a psychological answer. Psychological answer is that I think that the nature the way the world is changing is that virtually any job is going to require use of a computer. Some more with some more with social media and actually using social media some with less. Again the key is if you're using it as a tool like any tool it could be used in for good purposes or it could be used for bad purposes. Rav Pam my Rebbe zecher tzaddik livracha used to say that the way the acid the litmus test for knowing he talked about in terms of happiness of simcha. He'd say what's the difference between simcha and happiness is how you feel the morning after. So if the morning after New Year's you're all hung over he says that's happiness it's not simcha. The morning after a simcha shel mitzvah you feel terrific. That's what the research is showing on social media like Facebook. If you're using it either in a way to hurt people or in a way to make yourself be blown up or in a way that you're sort of passively looking and comparing yourself to others and feeling really badly about it or you're badmouthing others it's associated with depression and bad stuff. If you're using it as a tool for chesed and as a tool for a legitimate business use in terms of you know just what you're doing for your job but not as a way of of being over on de'oraisas like ona'ah or lashon hara or you know or being over on lashon hara then obviously I I think that it's become a tool no different than well not fundamentally different than writing or then typing or anything like that. I that's just my first my first reaction. I don't know that it's going to be possible to work in in your lifetime without with totally inoculating yourself totally isolating yourself from the reality of computers and from having to wherever you're going to end up. It could be in medicine, it could be in law, it could be in marketing, it could be I don't I can't imagine a job that doesn't in some way utilize utilize all the different platforms that the internet now now contains. Does that make sense? I mean you know. How you want to do this? Yeah. So I'm going to read my question because it's like a little bit long. So essentially please rabbis and so it does help us understand the Torah states in the beginning Adam and Chava were both naked saying being naked is by definition isn't by definition bad. Then it requires us to be fruitful and multiply. Medically we have a need for sex as proven through physiological experiences, studies, as many mental disorders of people don't have sex. So on one hand you obligate us and give us an essential need and on the other hand you forbid us. You give me a need and then you forbid me. How can you tell and you know and furthermore how can you forbid me from thinking of doing a mitzvah which by definition leads to other thoughts? You say this before Eitz HaDaas fine but we still need sex thousands of years later nonetheless we acquire desires at twelve thirteen so you get the solution is twelve thirteen but it's not possible. On top of that by the age of twenty you'll think about it anyway because it's written in the Gemara that you'll think about it every day. So I mean we have an approach to the problem but you know you give a you put a guy in the cookie store and says don't look at cookies. He needs by definition to look at cookies. Thank you for the question and the question is is an excellent question. I guess to follow up on on the mashal I think rule number one about dieting as much as I should know about it but I do know about this. So rule number one is if I have a if I like chocolate rugelach and I need to go on a diet the more effective way to go on a diet is not to have chocolate rugelach at home and tell myself I'm not going to eat them but is not to have chocolate rugelach at home. And of course it's true that there is a mitzvah to get married there is a mitzvah of p'ru u'rvu and because of that there is a yetzer hara. The Gemara says that if the yetzer hara would be taken away so then people wouldn't get married and and there wouldn't be p'ru u'rvu but because it's a yetzer hara so we're supposed to do our best and there's a lot that we absolutely can do in this direction. We're supposed to do our best to channel it and address it in the context of kedusha that that is is is available to us. To use a mashal if we're not supposed to look at cookies then we shouldn't go into the cookie store. Ein hachi nami that once one goes into the cookie store it's going to be inevitable. So that's why there is so much stress on shmiras einayim. That's why there is that's why it says in Shulchan Aruch and in Siman Shin Zayin that the yetzer hara is is is also. The yetzer hara is very strong but it can be channeled into correct proper proper avenues. It's it certainly is a challenge to do so and a real challenge but but not but not an impossible one and if it seems impossible so we heard that that beautiful that beautiful approach. There's nothing in the mitzvos of Torah which which don't which can't be addressed in in a context of kedusha if a person is ready for it emotionally so he should get married at a younger age which is why the Torah does advocate that. He has to be ready emotionally. He has to know how to live with another person. He can't just get married because of a yetzer hara. There are other there are other emotional prerequisites for getting married but but if those are in place so we do advocate early marriage for that reason. Okay just want to add. Can I add? I think we're going to kind of wrap up here I'm sorry we didn't get to every question. I want to thank again Dr. Dr. Pelcovitz and Ari Tursky. If people want to daven Maariv, we can daven Maariv in a couple minutes, it's just downstairs. And I want to mechazek everyone to take all the advice that we heard tonight and to never be meyayesh and to take proper, appropriate steps to download the filters and get buddies and to talk to each other, to mechazek each other in these critical inyanim. Thank you very much. Maariv, we'll daven Maariv in two minutes, in two minutes.