Daily Chidush: Step by Step Teshuva for Wasting Seed

0:07Hi, Tzaddik, how are you? So, wasting seed, the Shulchan Aruch refers to it as the biggest sin in the Torah. So, the teshuva for wasting seed is not a simple one, but it's also not impossible for somebody that obviously desires to do teshuva. First and foremost, a person needs to educate themselves about the sin itself. They have to educate themselves and understand why they have to do teshuva for it. They have to understand what's so bad about it, and they have to understand why they have to regret it. And so, first and foremost, they have to educate themselves. We have a whole playlist of lectures about wasting seed. I'll send it to you shortly. Some are long lectures, just three or four lengthy ones. I highly recommend watching every single one of them. You don't have to watch them all in one sitting. Watch a few minutes at a time, an hour at a time, or even three hours at a time—whatever you want. The point is to watch all of them. They're all different. They all cover different aspects of the topic. They cover the sin itself and the next part, which is the teshuva. So, the second part of teshuva, aside from the education... 10 minutes at a time, an hour at a time, three hours at a time, whatever you want. But the point is to watch all of them. They're all different. They all cover different aspects of it. They cover the sin itself. And they also cover the next part, which is the teshuva. So, the second part of teshuva, aside from the education,

1:20is to obviously stop, stop the sin. A person needs to do everything possible to stop themselves from sinning, and there are different shitot, different strategies of how to stop it, because it's not one of those sins like Shabbat where you could just stop driving. Unfortunately, when a person wastes seed for a long enough time, they become addicted to it physically and psychologically. And the Rambam writes that it's the most, ...difficult addiction in human nature to overcome, even worse than drugs. So a person needs to do certain things in order to help themselves. I explained this in shiurim, but just to give you a little bit of insight. One of the things that a person needs to do is, if he's single, he's not allowed to touch his member. This means that when he goes to the bathroom, if there is a urinal available, he should use it to avoid touching his member. If there isn't a urinal, he should sit down to relieve himself. When taking a shower, he should use a sponge to clean himself without directly touching his member.

2:26The Rambam says that if he's married, he's allowed to touch it. But in general, it's still always not recommended. However, if he's single, there's no reason in the world for him to touch it. The Gemara says that a person who touches his member is bringing on a Mabul. ...mundane act or not, the more comfortable he will be to do things like this. One thing leads to the other, so it's not just a physical thing; it's also psychological. A person needs to become, in essence, less comfortable with himself and do his best to not even look at that part of his body altogether, ever. I know this sounds strange in the beginning, and it's even a little difficult initially, but you get used to it. the more comfortable he will be to do things like this. One thing leads to another. So it's not just a physical thing; it's also psychological. So a person needs to become, in essence, less comfortable with himself. He should do his best to not even look at that part of his body altogether, ever. I know this sounds strange at first, and it's even a little difficult in the beginning, but you get used to it. B'ezrat Hashem.

3:31The third thing is that, aside from obviously learning and then stopping, now he has to take certain actions. One of the actions that the Arizal says is that he has to fast 84 times for every time he wasted seed. Now, of course, since most people in today's world can barely fast a handful of times, let alone 84 times, if a person simply went through his teenage years, he would have to fast for the rest of his life. So the Chachamim say, "What do you do?" in that situation, you use the money to replace the fast, meaning that each fast is replaced by the value of a meal. So if, let's say, a meal is $5, each fast is $5. Therefore, for each time a person wasted seed in his life, it would be $5. Now, let's say each instance of wasting seed would be $420. If he lives in a more expensive country like Japan or other places, it may be more. It could be $10 a meal. The point being is that, let's say, if it's $5 a meal,

4:34It's $420 per time. Now, if a person is rich, then it's highly recommended for him to give a very large sum and rid himself of at least a big part of what he did. If he's not rich, or it's just too difficult for him for whatever reason, then he should just make regular small donations on a regular basis for this specific reason itself. This is outside of ma'aser, this is outside of traditional tzedakah, this is something specific tzedakah. To give specifically for this, let's say he could afford to give $420 a month; then that's what he would do as a rectification for the sin of wasting seed, and it would help him dramatically. Now, of course, if someone wastes seed many, many times, it means that he's going to have to give for a long time, but that's okay. Like I told you guys in the story about the toilet paper business on Sunday, Hashem is simply looking for us to take real action to try to do full teshuva. Once we do it, He'll help us. Meaning, if a person comes to become purified, Hashem will help him. He may even give him more money in order to help him do teshuva if that's necessary.

5:46So he has to give tzedakah. Now, the next part to erase the sin is to learn. Learn Torah, specifically learn Gemara, to the point of sweating. Meaning, learn hard, learn consecutively, several hours in a row, to the point where you're even sweating. It's difficult for you. The Arizal says that that sweat is destroying the sin. And then the last and most important part is to get other people to stop. Every time you get another person to stop, it wipes off the sins. Each time he would have done it, it wipes off one of the sins that you did or somebody else did. It's one of the most extraordinary parts of teshuva. That's why I always recommend, for people who are going to take this teshuva seriously for wasting seed, to use that $420, or whatever money they are giving, for the purpose of publicizing specific teachings and specific organizations. that teach about this sin, and not just general stuff. Not to give that $400 to your local shul. Even though the shul may be a very nice shul, a very good place, or the yeshiva may have some real talmidei chachamim who are fantastic people, it's not going to help you as much as giving it to someone who's teaching, or an organization that focuses on wasting seed, simply because it'll help you with the Torah aspect of it, but not with the kiruv aspect of it.

7:13It's not going to help you reach people who are addressing it. So when you're giving that money to, whether it's our organization or anybody else that teaches this specific issue, there are at least a handful of rabbis that teach it in Hebrew. In English, it's almost nonexistent. Rav Mizrahi teaches a little bit about it. Rav Zitron has taught about it a little bit. And that's almost it. That's almost it. Other organizations say that they try to help people with it, but they don't teach anything about it. Baruch Hashem, we've become the—it's sad, but it's a reality—we've become the industry leader in the English language when it comes to teaching about wasting seed. I say it's sad, even though it's a big zechut, because there are so many bigger organizations that could do so much more with their capital and reach so many more people. They should be doing it, but unfortunately, they're not. So anyway, in the last five years or so, we've reached countless people from all over the world and helped them with this specific issue. So when people donate to this cause, we can distribute CDs that discuss it, like our "Wall Street to the Western Wall 2." That CD contains a couple of our most popular lectures about this topic.

8:28Also, our Mussar series has a couple of lectures about it. Anyway, when somebody does this, they're helping themselves twofold. Number one, they're helping themselves with the teshuva aspect of it, and they're helping themselves with the tzedakah aspect of it. And that's a very, very big ma'alah. So the combination of these handful of things are the core foundation of doing teshuvah for wasting seed. But always remember that the learning is not just a one-time learning. It's an ongoing learning. Meaning you constantly have to learn about this on a regular basis. If it's not daily, at least it should be weekly. If it's not weekly, definitely no less than monthly to learn and refresh yourself about this sin. On a regular basis, a person needs to know a lot about it in order to, you know, constantly remind himself when the Yetzer Hara comes and tries to convince him. To do this, he has to do everything possible to stop himself, and knowledge is going to help him. But more importantly, he has to eventually know that he's going to have to educate his kids and his peers to get them to stop, because that's also going to help his eternity as well. So I'll send you now the one lecture to start with, and then after that, the playlist that, again, may seem overwhelming because it's a lot of hours and a lot of this but trust me when I tell you once you get into it, it just goes like a breeze. You learn a lot from it, and each shiur is very different from the other, with different proofs, different sources, and many interesting points.

9:43You know it's overwhelming because it's a lot of hours and a lot of this, but trust me when I tell you, once you get into it, just like this, you learn it. It goes like a breeze, and you learn a lot from it, and each shiur is very different from the other. There are different proofs, different sources, and a lot of interesting points. that you are in the process of doing teshuvah for the biggest aveirah in the Torah, and this will bring a lot of brachah to your life and make you much stronger in every aspect of your life, most importantly in your ruchniyut.