Step by Step HOW TO STOP WASTING SEED (PGAM HaBrit)

0:10Rambam says that in regards to wasting seed, it's considered, according to the Shulchan Aruch, as a transgression. The Shulchan Aruch calls wasting seed the number one sin in the entire Torah. The sad part is, in our current generation of motivational speakers and coaches, no one really wants to speak about this subject openly, with the exception of a handful of English-speaking rabbis. There are very, very few in the English-speaking world. In Hebrew, there's much more, but in English, very, very few want to talk about it openly and publicly. and teach the public how terrible it is to such an extent that many Orthodox Jews simply don't even think it's a sin. Even though the Shulchan Aruch actually says it's the biggest sin.

1:19Rambam says that the reason why people waste seed is because they have an empty brain, meaning that they don't learn Torah and they're bored very easily. A human body that's bored, a person that gets bored, has to occupy his time with something, and usually the natural inclination for a person is to waste seed, to make some type of sex crime. To such an extent, the Rambam says that the only reason why Hashem actually created the body is in order for it to generate seed in order to bring children to the world. But in essence, the only real purpose of the body itself is to create seed, but for Kedusha. Now, how do we know that this is the natural inclination of a human being? During the time of the Bet HaMikdash... is in order for it to generate seed in order to bring children to the world. But in essence, the only real purpose of the body itself is to create seed, but for Kedusha. Now, how do we know that this is the natural inclination of a human being? During the time of the Beit HaMikdash, the first one, we learned that Hashem destroyed the world, Hashem destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, and nearly destroyed the entire world because of Avodah Zarah, because of idol worship. So many people ask the question, is it really possible that they worshipped idols? Didn't they see miracles every day? Didn't they realize that Hashem runs the world? Didn't they realize that Hashem would punish them for it? So, the Gemara actually says,

2:38something extraordinary. Of course, Am Yisrael knew that all of those idols, even the ones that were able to actually do magic, even the idols that were able to heal people, that Hashem instilled power in them, even some of the idols that the Midrash says were able to move and walk, of course, Am Yisrael knew that it was all hocus-pocus nonsense. So why would they worship them? because they knew that as soon as they're viewed as idolaters, they would now be allowed to commit sexual sins. They knew that as soon as, oh, you're an idol worshiper? Ah, to heck with you. I'm not even, don't even come to the shiur. Don't come to the shiur. No, I'm not inviting you. Don't come to the shiur, idol worshiper. Don't come to, I'm not inviting you to the shiur. Once you're an idol worshiper, don't come to the shiur, please. They knew Am Yisrael. Once they're viewed as idol worshipers, the rabbis are not even going to talk to them anymore. So then they go out with the hookers. Then they go out to the strip clubs. Then they go out with married women. Why? No one's going to tell them anything.

3:44And that's how Am Yisrael's Yetzer Hara took over. It was all for what? To go waste seed. It was all for what? To go out with girls not allowed to go with and so on and so forth. This we see, this is Gemara, this is our Torah. So what do we do? What do we do when the Yetzer Hara is so strong? So first and foremost, the same Rambam also says, You're only thinking like this because your mind is not full enough of Torah. So, first cure, the first cure is really the only cure. What is it? You must learn more Torah. If you're learning 15 minutes a day, double it to a half hour. You can't just go from 15 minutes to 9 hours. You have a job, you have a wife, you have kids, you have responsibilities, and also your neshama cannot necessarily... nine hours overnight. So whatever you're doing now, double it. Fifteen minutes, do half an hour; half an hour, do an hour; an hour, two hours; two hours, don't do more. That's one way to make sure that you're evaluating your Torah, and that it's Torah that you're really interested in. Three, if most of your learning is from lectures like this...

5:02Then start picking it up a notch. One of the ways to pick it up a notch is by also learning from books too. Another way to pick it up a notch is by treating the lecture as a book. And by that, I mean do what some of you have started doing recently, Baruch Hashem. Start taking notes. Don't go to a lecture like you go to a movie. Don't go to a lecture like you go to the park. Bring a notebook, write down notes. Write down what happened. Oh, he said this... Oh, the page here... Why? And then you could go over your notes later on. You don't have to write down every single word the speaker said; just bullets of different things that you liked, that touched you. He said things for an hour, two hours, three hours, if it's me, and he said things. Maybe you got out of the three hours, you got three points, 10 points, 20 points. Write them down, write them down, go over it. Treat the lecture like a book. Like you would highlight in a book, highlight in a lecture. Now that lecture, that same two, three hours you've spent on a lecture has just picked up a lot, an actual aspect. It became better. Why? Now you're learning, not just being entertained. Some people go to shiurim and they're entertained for 20 years, still mechalel Shabbat. 20 years they go to shiur Torah, still violate Shabbat, still not modest, still curse, talk like a truck driver, still all this stuff. What happened?

6:27It's entertainment for them. Oh, yeah, I like the way you speak. Who cares if you like the way I'm speaking? Did you do what Hashem said? So, if predominantly your learning is from lectures, then you have to pick it up a notch by starting to write down notes and... Aside from that, also, obviously start learning from books. Always have a balance. It shouldn't only be lectures. By the way, it shouldn't only be books either, because sometimes you're going to get more fire from a really good shiur than you are going to get from a book. So it always has to be a balance. So your Torah has to pick up. That's number one. The next thing is that in order for a person to not waste seed, he has to protect himself. There are two things that he calls eyes. And they are the windows to his neshama. The Gemara in Masechet Avodah Zarah says a person should watch their eyes in the morning so sin does not come to them at night.

7:29Sin meaning evil. Evil meaning wasting seed. If a person does not watch his eyes, and he looks at every girl that walks, whether it be on the internet, or on his phone, or on the street, or at his job, or so on, there's no way that he's going to be able to fix his brit. Why? At some point, even if he's not sinning with a girl, he's going to sin on his own. Hashem yerachem. So the problem is that if a person does not fix his issues of watching his eyes, he's going to have a very, very hard time controlling his behavior. So it's very important for the person to start watching his eyes and looking away. Now, of course, you have to make certain eye contact or just some type of contact when you're talking to people, but you don't have to stare. You don't have to stare. So unless you're in a meeting, just one woman that's your client or something like that. Even then, you don't have to necessarily stare and look at them regardless. And this, by the way, has nothing to do with whether they're pretty or not. They could look like a horse for all I care. It doesn't make a difference. Your yetzer hara does not decipher whether she's pretty or not. Like some people think, "Oh no, if she's ugly, then it's okay, I can look at her." No, it's absolutely not. The Rambam actually says such a person is considered a fool to think that just because she's ugly or old, therefore it's not going to trigger your yetzer hara.

8:49That's a person who's a fool. Yitzchak does not care if she's 99 years old. As a matter of fact, someone just sent a video. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't watch the video. I just saw the preview of it, and I saw a picture of the two people. One guy, 30 years old. I don't know where he's from, what nation he's from, if he's Jewish or not Jewish. I don't know what he is. He's 30 years old, and his girlfriend is 93 years old. 93 or 98. I don't know. She's like, I don't know. I think she knows, like Korach. I think she knows Korach. She's 90-something years old. He's 30. And the picture of this thing is they're like hugging and kissing like they're lovebirds. Oh, you saw this? Oh, okay. There you go. I couldn't believe my... What is happening to this world? I think that the generation of Sodom and Gomorrah is like, come on, God. They're much worse than us. Yeah, true. much worse than us. God, no. Come on, no. Break the Gehenom. Hashem bring the Gehenom. So what's happened? So that's the thing. A person needs to know that if he's not watching his eyes, there's not much success he's gonna have. You're gonna have some limited success, but not a lot of success, because if he doesn't watch his eyes, at some point he's gonna sin. Even if it's not voluntarily, he's always gonna have thoughts, and he's gonna live in torture.

10:13Because remember, what enters your eyes enters your mind. What enters your mind doesn't leave. So if you're going to constantly think about the girl you saw at the store, or the girl at your office, or your customer, or your cousin, or this one, or that one, because you looked at her and she's kind of cute, and she's kind of this, and she's kind of that, okay, just so you know, you're both going to be in Gehenom together, cute. And during that time, while you wait for Gehenom to be prepared especially for you, While you're waiting, you're torturing yourself. You live a life of torture. Why? Because it's constantly in your mind. It's in your mind. It's in your mind. It's in your mind. She won't leave. You saw her once in your life. She's not leaving. How can you get her to leave? You have to replace that thought with Torah. Once you've learned a lot of Torah, those thoughts never leave, by the way. They're always there. In essence, think of it as like a garbage disposal. Okay? So now, your thoughts, these thoughts of girls that you had accumulated your whole life from all the goy nefesh that's in this world, from the office and the pornography and the internet and all that garbage that we've accumulated through our life before we did Teshuvah, that's what you have in your mind. Now you start bringing Torah, purity.

11:29This doesn't go away. It doesn't exit through your ears. So what happens to it? You bring more and more Torah, and now it presses on it, presses on it, and now this girui nefesh, disgusting stuff, goes to the back. And it's replaced little by little, replaced more and more. It's replaced with Torah. So yes, maybe randomly you're going to have the occasional yetzer hara that something from the back shows up. Hey, I'm here! Once in a while you're going to have one of those, even if you're learning Torah. But at least it's once in a while, not 24 hours a day. So you're not tortured all day thinking about girls. So that's the thing. Women don't understand this because women don't have this tikkun; they have a different tikkun. They have to carry us in their stomachs for nine months. So the point is that a man needs to understand, if he looks, you're finished. You're finished. You're finished. This is why I tell people, if you live by the beach, you're finished. There's no way to do teshuva on the beach. There's no way to do teshuva on the beach. Why? Every day you go downstairs, everyone's naked. You could be the Chasid Yaavetz.

12:34You could be the Chassid Yavitz, yourself, himself, everything, with the stride, with this, with that. Oh, oh, oh, okay. Naked, naked, naked, naked, naked. What, are you blind? What are you going to do? One of the Tzaddikim in the Gemara, one of the Tzaddikim got to such a point of Kedusha, he never looked at a woman in his life. The Yetzer Hara says, "Hashem, can I test him? Can I test him?" Hashem says, "You're wasting your time." So, can I test him, Hashem? Can I test him? You're wasting your time. He's kodesh. He's never going to look. Can I test him or not? He says go. You want to test? Go test him. He goes. He appears to this tzadik. I forget his name all the time. He's one of the people in the Gemara. Matya ben Charash, possibly. I think you're right. So now he's actually over there, and the yetzer hara appears to him as the most beautiful woman that ever existed. Immediately, he looks away. Now, all the yetzer hara—well, the yetzer hara is like me—just shows up on time, leaves on time. No, no, he's on the other side now. He's now on the other side, so he sees, oh, he's over there. So now he realizes there's something going on over here. There's a woman on the right, there's a woman on the left. There's no way for him to avoid it. He tells one of his students as he's closing his eyes, "Son, can you go bring me the little things that we make for the cooking?"

13:49They make shippudim, you make the little barbecue. Can you bring the skewers? Give me one of those, please. Give me a couple of them, but make sure you heat them up on the fire. I need them. The holy talmidim, the students of the rabbis, they're not like you guys, asking 900 questions about why I have water and not Coca-Cola. They don't ask any questions. What do they do? They do whatever the rabbi says, because they were rabbis. I'm just a student. Now, they go, he brings a little skewer. Now it's hot as lava. This thing is red. The rabbi takes the two of them and puts them in his eyes, making himself go blind. Why? To avoid sinning once in his life. The yetzer hara, the Satan, the Malach HaMavet was in such shock, he fell off. He fell down, the yetzer hara. He fell down. Ran upstairs to Hashem. "What happened to this guy? What did you do to me? Why did you send me this?" "I didn't send you. You wanted to see it by yourself." It's not normal. It's not human. He doesn't belong on Earth. I told you you're wasting your time. I told you, you're wasting your time. Now, Malach Raphael, go to him, go to Rabbi Matityahu and tell him that I'm going to heal him. The Malach Raphael appears to the Rav. He's like, oh, I'm here to heal you. No, no, no, no. Tell Hashem I don't want to be healed.

15:16Because I don't know if I'm able to withstand the test again. The angel Raphael goes back up to Shamayim, and Hashem says he rejected. He's not interested in your help, Hashem, because he says he doesn't know if he's able to withstand such a test again. Hashem starts laughing and enjoying His creation. He says, tell my son that I promise him he will never have that test ever again. He sends the angel and he says, Hashem promises He'll never give you that test again. He says, okay, then you can heal me. That's a lover of Hashem, guys. That's a person that loves Hashem. Forget just about his kedusha and the holiness of this person, how much Torah he knew and so on. That's a person that really loves Hashem. He loves Him so much that he doesn't care about having eyes. To care about Hashem just for us to, you know, not be cheap anymore and not be arrogant anymore, not be angry anymore. Forget about eyes.

16:17Basic, basic human nature. So, the next step is to make sure that a person watches his eyes. If you watch your eyes, then you're watching the windows, the windows that enter your soul. If you're watching your eyes, and you're filling your brain up with Kedusha, with Taharah, then you've already achieved most of the battle. Most of the battle. The last part is critical. The last part is required for both your teshuva, regards to make you stop it and become more successful. Also, in order for you to repent for the previous sins, because you still wasted seed in the past, you need to do kiruv. Whether you want to do kiruv directly by speaking or giving out CDs, or paying for them, or whatever it is, you have to do something to do kiruv to get other people to stop and... Because that makes up for the sin that you've made in the past. Plus, once you get involved in kiruv on a regular basis, then your prayers and your requests, especially when your request is to do the will of Hashem, have VIP treatment in Shamayim. Because as the Prophet Yirmiyahu says,

17:29If you bring a precious person from someone that's a lugger, meaning you help other people do teshuvah, you will be like My mouth. Whatever comes out of your mouth, if it's a prayer, I'll fulfill, as Hashem says. So doing kiruv is a critical key to success. Of course, in wasting seed, teshuva, as well as any other teshuva, is necessary, but especially in wasting seed since in this generation, there are more than one, two, three, four, five, or ten rabbis that are G'dolei HaDor that say this is the Tikkun HaDor. This is the Tikkun of the entire generation, to such an extent that the Zohar HaKadosh says that at the generation of Mashiach... The Tikkun will be wasting seed to such a point that the Yetzer Hara will prefer to give people the thought and the idea that they are actually Talmidei Chachamim, that they're actually people that know a lot of Torah, and he will even help them.

18:33He will even help them learn Torah, go to kollel, go to yeshiva, write a book, do all these things, fulfill the entire Torah, except continue wasting seed. The Yetzer Hara will help them do that. Why? Once they waste seed, none of their mitzvot count. Once a person wastes seed, all of the mitzvot, all of the kedusha that he generates from Shabbat, tefillin, limud Torah, and all of the other things, all of that power, all of that kedusha is now used as fuel for the Satan. Everyone of his mitzvot is now a korban for the Satan. Why? That's the ikar. That is the covenant. And that's what the Zohar HaKadosh says. The point being, Rabotai, is that it's very, very important. And you can do it. You can achieve it. Baruch Hashem has helped a lot of people stop it.

19:33It's not easy. And of course, for all you single guys, you have to get married. Stop wasting your time. Stop being too picky. Stop looking for Miss America. Stop looking for Sarah Imeinu. Find a woman who's decent, who can tolerate you, and who is also nice and holy and willing to be modest. And that's it. You don't have to find Malkat Hayofi. You also don't have to wait until you're 90 years old or 35 years old or any specific age. As soon as Hashem sends you somebody, go. Whether you're 20 or 25 or 35 or 45, don't be one of these people who says, no, no, I'm not ready. What do you mean you're not ready? What do you mean you're not ready? No, I don't have a million dollars yet. Okay, who says you're ever going to have a million dollars? Says that the woman that Hashem wants for you is going to wait also for you waiting. He's going to make her wait because you want to wait. People think that Hashem works according to their tune, that He dances around their tune. As soon as you have an opportunity, as soon as you find a holy woman, a holy bat Yisrael, go. Don't waste your time; you're missing life. You don't understand how important it is to have your other half. Without having a wife, you're an incomplete soul.

20:44You're an incomplete soul. Don't be one of these idiots waiting to test out this field and date for 10 years before deciding to get married. Get married. Do what you have to do. Bring children into the world. I'm telling you something that I never knew myself. Before I had kids, I thought I understood what love was because I love my wife a lot, and I still do, Baruch Hashem, more today than ever before. But I never understood what love really means until we had a child. Because when you love somebody, you love them, you care about them, they're amazing. If you have a healthy relationship, you see the other person as literally yourself. You see them as the other half of you. But when you have a child, when you have a child, you literally see something different. What's different? For the first time in your life, you actually start caring about somebody else's life. Not that you care about them and hopefully they're doing good, and you like them and their character traits, and if they're nice or they're not nice, if they're generous or not generous. No, no. You actually care about whether they're alive or dead.

21:51like you actually start checking the baby, like, oh, he's breathing okay, that's it. That gives you pleasure, the fact that you know that your little girl is sleeping, but she's breathing and she's good and she's happy. She just ate a little hot dog and a little French fries, and she just fell, but she's okay, and she's jumping out, and she smiled. She says, "I love you, Abba," and you see the little cute little girl going like this, like her mommy on Shabbat with the candles. Little two-year-olds go like this. with the candles, and you see with the kisui rosh, you know, a 2-year-old with a kisui rosh, 30-year-olds don't want a kisui rosh, a 2-year-old has a kisui rosh. Unbelievable, you see this whole little thing, it's like "mah rabu ma’asecha Hashem." It's so amazing, Hashem, it's so amazing. It's so amazing how you created such things and you gave it to me. Then you understand what love is. And then you look at your wife that gave you this child and say, now I know why I love you. You gave me this too. That's the thing, Rabotai. You're staying single for what? What, to be miserable? Oh, I didn't find the one. What, there's no girls in the world? They ran out of people? Everybody else she knew except you?

22:57Why is this gross? It's just that people are too picky. People are too picky. They think they're too much. They think they're the best. They think they're better than everybody else. No one's good enough for them. This one's too old. This one's too young. This one's too tall. This one's too short. This one's too fat. This one's too skinny. This one's too smart. This one's too Hasidic. This one's less Hasidic. All this nonsense, sinat chinam, baseless hatred for absolutely no reason whatsoever. If you really want it, Hashem will give it to you. If you really want it. If you don't want it, why are you looking? Why are you looking? So that is the system of how to strategically stop wasting seed, learn Torah, watch your eyes, get married, and do kiruv. That's a foolproof system. Of course, once you do all of this, you'll succeed in ve'daat Hashem. You'll have not only a teshuva shlema, full of success, but you'll also have a teshuva of ahava, a teshuva full of love. You'll fall in love with Hashem because you'll see all the wonderful things He has given you. Yeah? Yeah, so when a person has a wet dream, as you may call it, and

24:12that is a sin, but it's not the same sin as a person doing it on purpose, whether with a woman he's not allowed to be with or even with his wife in an inappropriate way, or by himself. That's considered mezid, that's considered a purposeful sin. But when a person just simply goes to sleep and it comes out because either he had a dream or some type of thing, then there's a way to stop that as well. Number one, Watching your eyes, that's what the Gemara is talking about. The Gemara says that when you watch your eyes on a consistent basis, eventually those dreams will stop. The Shulchan Aruch also says that you must sleep on your side to start the night at the very least. Some people say the whole night, but even though you don't have control of yourself, at the very least you must sleep on your side. You should start with your left side and then later on turn to your right side. Do not ever sleep on your back and do not ever sleep on your stomach. To such an extent that the Shulchan Aruch possek lehalacha, makes a halacha, a law from Mount Sinai, if you see your fellow sleeping on his back, you must, you're obligated to wake him up. Obligated to wake him up. Just like you're obligated to tell him that he's not allowed to drive on Shabbat, you're obligated to wake him up. Hey, you're sleeping on your back. Why? Because if he's sleeping on his back, his chances of wasting seed

25:36during his sleep have increased drastically and he's become a danger to himself even unknowingly, so you have to wake him up. Or if you want to push him to the side, it's better to just simply wake him up in a nice way. Say, "Hey buddy, get up for a second. Get up. What happened? No, no, just checking." Then tell him, "Listen, you have to sleep on your side." And that's it. You're actually helping him out; you're saving his life. Because it's still a sin, even if he's sleeping. It's not as great a sin, it's not as grave of a sin, but it's still a sin. Now, if a person has Yirat Shamayim, has built, has learned Mussar, and has built Yirat Shamayim, first he's going to watch his eyes. Then he's going to watch his sleep pattern, how he sleeps. He's going to start training himself. It's not as comfortable to sleep on your side as it is on your back, but you'll manage, you'll live, trust me, it works. You won't die. No one ever died by sleeping on their side. No one ever died by not looking at girls. No one ever died by not, as a matter of fact, they lived. They lived much longer. So you can do it. You can sleep on your side, and you can watch your breath that way. And then you'll see that eventually the recurrence of these dreams that cause you to become stimulated will cease. They'll become less frequent in the beginning. They'll go from being once a week to once a month, from once a month to once a quarter, once a quarter to maybe twice a year.

26:51And eventually, they'll stop—hopefully, cease altogether. Cease altogether. But that's assuming that you've done a lot of teshuva. If you've done a lot of teshuva, then you are going to be very, very happy with your share because once a person is protecting his brit, he has now made himself a vessel to receive all of the good from Hashem directly. He's no longer wasting any of the good that Hashem wants to give him. Hashem wants to give you shefa. Shefa is goodness, is good. Now He gives you good in all forms. He gives you money, a woman, jobs, kids, and so on. Now, when a man wastes seed, he takes all of the good that Hashem gives him, and he throws it in the garbage. So all the money that Hashem wanted to give you—garbage. The wife that He wanted to give you—garbage. He now gives it to somebody else. The kids He wanted to give you—garbage; they're abortions now. All the things that He wanted to give you, you are self-destructing them.

27:59Why? Because you couldn't control yourself for a five-second pleasure. Now, once you actually stop, you do teshuva, you say, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to sleep on the side. I'm going to watch my head. I'm going to do all these things. I'm going to try. It doesn't work overnight. No one's perfect. But you're doing everything, and eventually, you get to a point before too long that you've officially stopped doing it on purpose. And definitely, eventually, you've stopped even unintentionally. Then now, all of a sudden, you start seeing there's no more bounced checks in the bank. All of a sudden, you're seeing you found a shidduch. All of a sudden, you're seeing, oh wow, she had a kid. My wife had a kid. The doctor said we couldn't have kids. Now we have kids. How? It's a miracle. No, it's not a miracle. It's Hashem running the world. Everything's a miracle. Now, all of the shefa, all of the goodness that Hashem gives you, you are now just accepting it like this. Give me, give me, give me, give me. You don't have to say "give me" anymore. Why? He's giving it to you constantly, and you're now no longer wasting it. He was giving it to you anyway, but you were wasting it.

29:14No, you're not wasting it. So you get to keep it. You get to keep the wife, the kids, the money, everything, all the good. All of a sudden, your mind works and you start understanding the Torah. All of a sudden, your mind works and you start getting chidushei Torah. And everything starts becoming better. You become happier. You become healthier. And b'ezrat Hashem, a lot of really good things happen in your life.