![]() Despite what the Talmud said, was an adult male supposed to deprive himself completely of sexual satisfaction? Of course not. Sometimes I'd go for a month, feeling impervious, only to have the slightest thing set me off to indulgence. I started charting my days on the calendar like an alcoholic (as the mantra goes: one day at a time). This became my norm – struggling through most of the year to just go a few weeks of abstaining before falling to temptation, even with severe binge/purge like behaviors. But immediately after the holidays I’d find myself overcome with overwhelming desires. During periods of certain Jewish holidays (the month of Elul leading up to the High Holidays, and the 49-day period of the Omer between Passover and Shavuot) I would challenge myself to get back on track, and to my amazement I was able to pull it off. The benefits were undeniable, but getting back on track was never easy. But after a return to masturbating, this all went away. I noticed elevated confidence, energy, and connection with the opposite sex. Due to the spiritual nature of the trip I decided to not masturbate the whole time. In my late 20s I started to dabble in traditional Judaism and soon found myself on a trip to Israel. It only came at the suggestion of secular sources, like NoFap Reddit posts and the pick-up artist memoirs The Game, that maybe I should pull back. ![]() The main points are that I grew up with zero inclination that masturbating was “wrong,” and I did it. ![]() I'll spare you all the details of the beginning of my journey (you can read all about it here: Judaism, Masturbation and Me). I had no idea I would achieve this level of self-control. I figured I’d cut back to maybe a couple times a month. When I started down this road, I didn’t plan to abstain from self-satisfaction for this long. I never conceived this would ever be possible. I’m holding a calendar that has the number 240 written on November 7. A note to readers: This article deals with a sensitive – and important – topic. ![]()
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