Are You Guarding Your Eyes?

1:27If you watch immodesty, whether it's live, in the world around you, every time you see a woman, you're like one of those toys you buy at baseball games with the bobbleheads. You look at everything that walks, and you're going to waste seed. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, if you look at women, even if they're modest, you're going to fall into this trap. If every time a woman moves, whether she's modest or not, you find yourself looking at every single woman or many women, you're going to waste seed. Your imagination is going to do its thing. You're going to imagine the modest woman that you're seeing at the Beit Knesset like the immodest woman you saw before you did teshuva. So, first and foremost, you have to start watching your eyes. Start getting used to looking at the floor. Start getting used to training yourself that every time you see a woman, you see what you need to see, which is saying hello if you need to say hello, and then looking away or looking into nothing. I'm sometimes able to look directly at you. Baruch Hashem, it takes some time. But even though you see me as looking at you, I might actually be focusing above your head or at the side of your head, rather than directly at your face. This practice is especially important when it comes to interactions with women because sometimes direct eye contact isn't appropriate. If I were constantly looking at the floor, people might wonder what's wrong—perhaps that I'm searching for something or lost my keys. So, it's crucial to train yourself. First and foremost, you have to train your eyes.

2:52And it's not easy, but it's possible. Number one. Two, you have to make sure that you're not one of those people who curses every two seconds. You have to start watching your mouth. If you speak like a truck driver, this one level of immodesty leads to another. Step number three, you have to make sure that you're not putting yourself at risk at all times. If your surroundings are constantly in immodest places, you're going to have an impossible time being modest. Whether it's because your meetings always have to take place at a bar, there's a lot of networking events that happen in bars or different gatherings where pretty much everyone shows up half-naked on the female side and in three-piece suits on the male side. Each one is trying to dress to impress, hoping that they bring someone home instead of conducting business.

3:54You have to stay away from stuff like that. If someone wants to meet you, meet them at a coffee shop. Meet them at your office. You don't need to go to those places. You don't need to go there. There are plenty of ways you can make business without necessarily putting yourself in a place that's full of immodesty. I understand people think, "Oh wait, but maybe I'm going to lose an opportunity." Well, yeah, if you don't believe in God, then yes, you'll lose an opportunity. But if you believe in Hashem, then He knows that you're not going there, not because you don't want the business. You're not going there because you don't want to see immodest women. So, He'll give you the business in other ways. If you believe Hashem runs the world, you have nothing to worry about. So, watching your eyes, watching your surroundings, watching your mouth, and last but not least, choosing your friends. If all of your friends are lifetimes away from you, where their idea of fun is going to strip clubs and bars, which you used to do before you went and did teshuva, then you have to lose those friends. Or get them to do teshuva.

5:04Whichever happens first. If you can't get them to do teshuva, you have to lose your friends. Eventually, the stronger your teshuva is, the more that relationship is going to lose its meaning, because you’re going to have less and less in common. So, the point of all of this is to understand that Hashem is telling us here, this is one of the first seven mitzvot that we've gotten in the world. It's a critical mitzvah. Don't waste seed. You learn it from Noach. Hashem destroyed the world because of this. But the only reason why it got to such a high-level sin is because people could not control themselves. It's a very, very simple thing to do if you start with the right foot. If you teach your kids from the beginning, from when they're three and four and five and six years old, that they have to have structure. They have to say thank you. They have to wash their hands. They have to keep their hygiene. They have to pray. They have to study. They have to do all these different things. You teach them structure, but with the meaning that you're doing it for someone. You're doing it for Hashem. You're not doing it because you want to read books for no reason. There's a reason for all of it. Then you're giving yourself a structure and... They have to have structure. They have to say thank you. They have to wash their hands. They have to keep their hygiene. They have to pray. They have to study. They have to do all these different things. You teach them structure, but with the understanding that they're doing it for someone. They're doing it for Hashem. They're not doing it because they want to read books for no reason. There's a reason for all of it. Then you're giving yourself a structure and...

6:26you won't get to such a high-level sin. But if there's no structure, and if you're just doing it because somebody told you to do it, without getting your questions answered, eventually you're going to fall off. And then, G-d forbid, what can happen?