Self-Efficacy
See also
From the GYE Handbook
Learning to love Hashem through this struggle
No matter how much we have fallen, we must never view ourselves as “despised” by Hashem or imagine that Hashem is annoyed and frustrated with us. Instead, as we learn to give over our will to Hashem we will begin to feel that Hashem is truly our closest and most eternal friend.
As we progress and mature, we begin to view our relationship with Hashem on a much more intimate level. We begin to perceive how the lust is trying to get in between “us and Hashem” and interfere with the greatest love that can possibly exist!
Dealing with thoughts and fantasies
Everyone has these fantasies. Some people more, some people less. We are human beings and not angels. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world in such a way that men and women are attracted to one another and, because of this, people get married, have children and populate the Earth. If it bothers you that you struggle with these thoughts, that is already something to be proud of. If we get down on ourselves about fantasies, we become sad, and the sadness brings even more fantasies, and this becomes a vicious cycle that is difficult to break away from. However, the moment we start to look at ourselves in a positive light, we will see that the fantasies will come much less often.
The Ba’al Hatanya (Chapter 27, abridged) writes about those who subdue these bad thoughts:
The Zohar (p.128) extols the great satisfaction before Hashem when the sitra achra (the other side) is subdued here below. For then the glory of Hakadosh Baruch Hu rises above all, even more than is possible through any praise, and this ascent is greater than all else. Therefore, no person should feel depressed, even should he be engaged all his days in this conflict, for perhaps because of this he was created, and this is his service -- to constantly subjugate the sitra achra.
Don’t dwell on the past
Although the spiritual damage we cause by acting out is very great, we must accept that Hashem brought us into this situation and that it is not all our fault. Let us never dwell on how it happened, or on past falls. This will cause us to feel down and lead to future falls. The Chidushei Harim (in Likutei Yehudah) tells his followers never to look back, claiming that if we look back, we remain in the mud. Everyone has dirty laundry. We don’t have to be ashamed of our laundry, unless we let it pile up and never clean it.
We must also realize that we didn’t always have free will in the past. This is clear from various Sefarim and in various places in Chazal. To quote one of the foremost baalei mussar of our times, Rav Shlomo Wolbe, [zt"l]:
The great [Jewish] philosophers established bechira as the cornerstone for the whole Torah.... But from this resulted a common misperception among the masses; that all people actively choose their every act and every decision. This is a grievous error. (Alei Schur, Vol. 1, p. 156)
What, then, is bechira? To answer this question, Rav Wolbe refers us to Rav Eliyahu Dessler's "phenomenal essay on bechira” (Michtav MeEliyahu, Vol. 1, pp. 111-116). In this essay, Rav Dessler describes how the “nekudas habechirah – the point of free choice” is different for different people and in different situations. He explains that bechira is not a theoretical concept that can be applied to any circumstance where a person can hypothetically choose between two options. Rather, it only applies to moral conflicts where the two opposing forces are of approximately equal strength, the person is aware of the internal conflict, and he makes a conscious decision in one direction. When a person does something over which he does not experience conscious conflict, or if the compelling force on one side is significantly stronger than the other, the fact that he is theoretically able to decide either way does not qualify his act as an expression of bechira.
“Ain Hakadosh Baruch Hu ba beterunya im habriyos – Hashem doesn’t come with complaints to his creations.” As the Pasuk says: “He created together all their hearts and understands all their deeds,” and he knows that almost all men stumble in this sin at some point in their youth.
There’s a well known adage that if Hashem gave us a test, we must have the ability to overcome it as well. R’ Tzadok HaKoehn says though, (in Tzidkas Hatzadik) that this is not as simple as it sounds. It is true that we all have free choice to do what Hashem expects of us in this world, over the course of our lifetimes. However, in the process of our journey, there are many times when a person is considered an onus.
After the sin of the golden calf, the Midrash says that Moshe said to Hashem, if a father gave his son gold and sat him down on the doorstep of a Beis Zonos – “ma ya’aseh haben velo yecheta? - What can the son do and not sin?” In other words, we find in Chazal that there are times when a person may not have full Bechira.
See also the Rambam Hilchos Issurei Biyah 1:8 – “for the Yetzer and human nature forced her to want,” and see Tosofos in Sanhedrin 26b where they discuss how someone suspected of illicit relations may still be a Kosher witness, since it could be that his desires simply overpowered him. And see the Gemara in Brachos, 32b: “Asher Hari’osi” where Hakadosh Baruch Hu acknowledges to Eliyahu Hanavi that He was the one who had turned the Yidden’s heart away from him.
The Steipler too, in regards to a specific behavior that someone had difficulty controlling, writes: “He is not a Ba’al Bechira now in this area, and the only thing he can (and should) do, are Tikkunim that will help him over time.”
Once we understand that we didn’t always have free will in the past, we will prevent the guilt from dragging us down into a vicious cycle of despair and continued falls. And guilt can be even more dangerous than the falls. As they say: "It's not the one cookie you ate that broke the diet. The diet ended when you felt bad about that one cookie, and then went on to finish the entire BOX!”
And even if we may have had some freedom of choice at the time we fell, it could be that we had very little. The sins we did are only judged according to the circumstances and the level of free will that we had at the time. Only Hashem knows if we could have done better or not.
But when we talk about the present moment, we can never know how much free will we have and we must always try our very best.
Guilt vs. Shame
It is important to understand the difference between charata: healthy guilt & regret, as opposed to yiush: shame & despair.
To quote Rabbi Avraham J. Twerski:
We generally use the words “shame” and guilt” interchangeably. One may say, “I am ashamed of what I did”, meaning “I feel guilty over what I did.” Technically, however, the two terms are different. Guilt is about what a person did, and it can be a constructive feeling in that it can lead one to Teshuvah, to take corrective action. Shame, however, is what one feels he is. In other words, guilt is “I made a mistake”, whereas shame is “I am a mistake”. If one feels that he is inherently flawed, that he is made of “bad stuff”, there is nothing he can do to change that. With guilt there is hope of improvement, but not with shame.
Every person should feel he is a child of Hashem with a holy Neshama. Hashem doesn’t make defective goods. There is never room for despair or shame. However, healthy “guilt” is important. As the Nesivos Shalom writes in Parshas Noach, the guilty feelings we have are a gift from Hashem that come from the inherent good inside every Jew. Indeed, he writes, a Jew who does not have these feelings anymore, no longer has much hope.
A person who gives in to the Yetzer Hara only because the Yetzer hara has tempted him strongly and he can't hold back, is still not "bad' in essence. With sincere Teshuvah, Hashem will forgive him. But if one doesn't feel guilt anymore, that means that the bad has taken him over totally and there is little hope.
The Nesivos Shalom ends by saying that “guilt” is actually a Tikkun for every Jew to be able to break free of the bad. Even when one falls, they should make sure that the fall does not become part of their essence. By continuing to hold on to Hashem and feeling guilty when we are far from Him, then even in the case of the worst sins chas veshalom, we still have hope and will be forgiven.
There’s a simple test we can do to know whether we are being motivated by healthy guilt/regret or by shame/despair. If we see that we want to get right back up and find ways to strengthen ourselves again, then it’s a sign that our “bad” feelings are those of healthy guilt and positive regret. If, however, we feel that we just want to give up, then it’s a sure sign that we are experiencing despair and shame, and we must quickly find a way out of these harmful feelings before they lead us to a vicious cycle of continued falls.
From GYE Members
GYE Boosts
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- The Yetzer Hara is not Unconquerable Rabbi Avi Wiesenfeld shows us how the Torah knows what we can and cannot do.
References
- [Big index: Self-Efficacy]
- [Internal Document] Stages of Change (The Transtheoretical Model) > Markers of Change > Self Efficacy and Temptation.
- Article on Wikipedia