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GuardYourEyes Chizuk E-Mail (No. 1223)
Getting stronger every day!
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In Today's Issue
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Testimonial: Thank You, GYE!
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Torah Thought: No Matter How Dark the Night, Dawn is Sure to Come.
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GYE Principle #10: Redirecting the power in our souls (p.1)
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Link of the Day: Kosher Travel
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Category: Testimonial
Thank You, GYE!
By "Tooeasytoforget"
I wanted to drop a thank you note for the wonderful thing you are doing. I am going through a very difficult time in my life right now, and the worst part is that the battle of shmiras einayim came back with such vengeance that I thought it was unstoppable! That is, until I saw a little ad in the Hamodia that said, "try us - you have nothing to lose". I did!
The main chizuk I get from you is the chizuk e-mail - but it's every single day. There are times when I'm up and feeling I might make it through alive, and sometimes I realize that the yetzer hora is a very formidable foe. But there's always that reminder that there are others out there who have been (and are) in much worse places and still have the time to send out chizuk to us mortals.
I can't thank you enough for what you have started. (And for the handbook that you guys mailed me).
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One-liner
Believe in miracles.
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Category: Announcement
Dov's 12-Step Workshop is Wrapping Up!
Dov - from the "Daily Dose of Dov" (currently 18 years sober in SA) is wrapping up his 12-Step workshop on the phone this week. Mon and Tues will hopefully complete the steps, and Wed and Thurs will be used for Q & A and review.
To access recordings of the previous calls click here
The call uses Duvid Chaim's timeslot, phone number + PIN
209-255-1000 PIN 637207#
(For numbers from countries outside of the U.S see this page).
See what Dov writes about the workshop
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Category: Torah Thought
No Matter How Dark the Night, Dawn is Sure to Come
Taken from Sara Yocheved Rigler, 'Passover's Promise'
If our present situation seems desperate, what about theirs? How did our ancestors get up in the morning to face another day of slavery? How did they endure the torture, the humiliation, the purposelessness of slavery year after year, generation after generation?
Theirs was truly a hopeless plight. No slave ever escaped from Egypt. And even if a single Hebrew slave ingeniously plotted an escape and succeeded in slipping past the gates of Egypt, what awaited him on the other side? Nothing but desert! No way to sustain himself. No way to carry enough water to cross the desert on foot. Even in one's imagination, there was no escape. Hopeless. Completely and utterly hopeless. And yet, into that abyss of suffering, that dark pit of pain without exits, burst the Redemption. No one could have imagined it, let alone expected it. One day people who had been born into slavery and had spent their entire lives without a glimmer of hope heard this man Moses, newly arrived from Midian, announce that the God of their fathers would redeem them from slavery. One year later, they were marching out of Egypt, their backs erect, their gaze victorious over their oppressors, their donkeys laden with wealth, their hearts confident that God would sustain them in the desert and bring them to their homeland. Complete and utter redemption. We Jews today, wracked by problems; our individual servitude to our desires, our yetzer hara to which we feel trapped and enslaved to, as well as our more external problems; vilified by a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran, cowed by masses of Muslims craving our destruction, possess one glorious thing that our ancestors in Egypt lacked: the memory of miraculous redemption.
The Shabbat morning prayers proclaim: "I will redeem you at the end like at the first time." This Passover let us rejoice not only in the redemption of the past, but also in the hope of the future.
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Discuss these ideas with your friends on the forum.
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Category: Announcement
Good news for the women of GYE!
Until Pesach it will be sharing/chizuk and selected readings from the big book. After Pesach it will be big book study/working the steps.
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays: 12:30-1:00 EST
Wednesdays and Thursdays: 11:45-12:15 EST
To see the GYE call-times (in your time-zone), see this page. |
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Category: GYE Principle #10
Redirecting the power in our souls
We have often discovered that we were trying to fight only the Yetzer Hara, rather than building and changing ourselves. For true long term success, we must learn to fight the cause of the bad behaviors and not just the symptoms.
The Medrash says that if you did many chavilos (bundles) of sins, do chavilos of Mitzvos instead of them. The Beis Aharon of Karlin explains that chavilos is a language of hiskashrus - connection (as it says "Yaakov Chevel Nachalaso"), and he explains that in order to fix what we did in the past and break free from the "other side," we need to use the same hiskashrus and enthusiasm that filled our mind and limbs during the times we sinned, and instead do the Mitzvos in the same all-consuming and enthusiastic manner.
In general, those who struggle a lot with these issues, have a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy inside them. It is they who actually have the capacity and potential for the most intense spiritual connection with Hashem. We just need to learn how to channel the energy of our souls in the proper ways.
It is also known that people with particular character traits, such as creativity, love for people and spiritual sensitivity, are more prone to seeking alternate expression for their inner strengths through a stronger than usual lust drive. That is why it is so important to learn how to channel the strengths we have in the proper ways. Heightened lust is actually a symptom of a deep subconscious need that, for some reason, has still not reached fulfillment.
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Discuss these ideas with your friends on the forum.
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Category: Link of the Day
Kosher Travel
When traveling, one seems to be bombarded by inappropriate images. Whether from other travelers or advertisements, it is a challenge to avoid such an environment.
At the end of a hard day of work one typically arrives at a hotel tired, exhausted and stressed (driving on the Autobahn at 224 km/h might be fun the first time, but it is also very tiring). There is a need to relax and unwind. In the 4 walls of a small hotel room there is not much relaxation easily accessible other than the obviously problematic TV, Internet, etc...
...[At the link above], here are some tips from our experience that can apply to all travelers.
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Discuss these ideas with your friends on the forum.
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Limited Time Offer is Back - but it may take a bit of time to fulfill!
For those who find it hard to read the
and they feel they would have a lot to benefit from a hard copy, please contact
with your snail-mail address and it will be mailed to you bl"n.
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Help Us Help Others!
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Please help support our work so we can continue to help acheinu b'nei Yisrael!
Secure On-line Donations here
(Anonymous recurring credit card donations possible)
To donate by phone, call (24 hours): 718-878-3075
Checks can be made out to: "GYE Corp." and mailed to:
GYE Corp.
P.O. Box 32380
Pikesville, MD 21282
U.S.A.
Donations are tax deductible.
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