Masturbation Madness.
An excerpt from the infamous Chapter 12 of "Be like The Moon: a Chassidic memoir."
“I can’t say no. It feels too good,” I told my Mashpia (spiritual mentor). I was fifteen years old, and it had taken me a year to muster the courage to confide in him. But it wasn’t courage that compelled me. It was guilt. Everyone thought I was a good bochur (unmarried yeshiva student); studious, shy, and sincere, but I struggled with a dark secret. “The purpose of a test is to draw out your best,” he replied, sounding like a Dr. Seuss book.
I trusted my Mashpia more than any of the other yeshiva staff. He didn’t just preach stuff, he lived it. I’d watch him daven for hours on end on Shabbos, his eyes shut tight in divine meditation. More importantly, I had vetted him with questions since I started yeshiva, and he always made me feel accepted and encouraged. I craved his approval, but the guilt was killing me.
Through tears, I told him why I was a rasha (wicked one) who deserved the punishments of kares (excommunication) and Missah Bedei Shomayim (Death by the Hand of Heaven). “But the Rebbe said ‘hesech hadaas’ (don’t dwell on it),” he advised. He shifted in his office chair. Is he uncomfortable talking about this with me? I tugged my black hat lower over my eyes. “I’m such a pervert. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so addicted?” More tears. I wiped my pubescent beard with the back of my chapped hands. The more I tried to change, the more I stayed the same.
“Tears. They are the Neshamah’s (soul’s) way of sweating through our most important work.” The words fell from his lips in a sing-song pattern. As if he was davening.
“Chassidus teaches that what falls down the lowest comes from the highest place.” He began rocking in his creaky wooden chair. “Shevva yipol Tzadik v’Kam — Seven times a righteous man falls and gets back up.” Your Teshuvah (repentance), Levi, is to keep on getting back up.” I sniffled. His eyes were closed now.
Why wasn’t he looking at me? Was he too ashamed of me? I didn’t blame him. I was ashamed to look at myself. Every morning, when I went to the toilet, I couldn’t stop myself from looking into the bowl afterward. Then I’d look into the mirror and see a dirty sinner who couldn’t stop himself from succumbing to putrid demons of lust and lechery. I knew I was going to Hell.
“Levi, Reish Lakish taught in the Gemarah that a person doesn’t sin unless a spirit of madness enters them.” His compassionate brown eyes were looking straight at me. I began to cry even more.
“But my madness has led to bloodshed. Isn’t that what the Gemarah calls it? Doesn’t the Zohar say it is the worst of all aveiros (sins)?” My voice cracked and strained. I had read the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (simplified Code of Jewish Law) and many other Torah texts. I knew my hands were full of blood from the genocide of millions of potential souls. I knew I had defiled myself when my seventh-grade classmate showed me his father’s smutty magazines. I knew I didn’t deserve to wear the yeshiva uniform or experience my family’s love. Maybe Hashem didn’t save my zayde from yenneh machla (cancer) because of me? “Doesn’t the Alter Rebbe say in Perek Zeyin (Chapter Seven) of Tanya that it’s even worse than cheating on your wife?” My eyes frantically searched my Mashpia’s face. How can he argue with that? How can he not recoil in disgust of me?
Instead, he sighed. “Yes, but remember that the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidim were like malachim (angels), and the very fact it’s mentioned in Tanya shows that even they struggled with this.” I wrung my dry hands together. I needed more lotion. They hurt and bled. But I didn’t want to use lotion. I might be tempted to use it for something disgusting.
I had never considered the possibility that others also struggled with this. No one in yeshiva talked about it. And, of course, I could never tell my tatty. He had worked so hard just to get me into yeshiva. I could picture how heartbroken he would be and the shame I would cause such a special man like my father. No, I would never tell him, could never hurt him with the depths of my depravity.
“We say every night in davening to ‘remove Satan from before and behind us,’” my Mashpia continued. I couldn’t understand why he was spending so much time with me. Just tell me how many taanesim (fasts) to do and what yisurim (torture) to self-afflict to avoid Kaf HaKelah (Hell). But his voice was steady, as it was during his Chassidus Shiur. “It makes sense to say, ‘before us,’ as that’s Satan tempting us. But why ‘behind us?’ If we’ve already left him behind, what possible threat is he?”
My Mashpia placed his hands on his desk and the tips of his full beard touched the dark sleeves of his Kapoteh. It reminded me of a picture of the Rebbe I had seen somewhere. “The answer is the guilt. Satan tries to get us to feel guilty after we do an aveirah (sin). He knows that guilt can make us sad, and we’re supposed to serve Hashem with joy. You must do teshuva metoch simcha (repentance out of joy), happy that Hashem has given you another breath to return to who you really are.”
He jutted his finger towards me. “If you wrestle with a pig, you’ll get muddy. The true you is full of kedusha (holiness), or (light) and simcha (joy).” He smiled broadly in the way that all the guys in yeshiva loved, and said, “Levi, you’re a good bochur.”
With Rabbi Mendel Schapiro. My Mashpia from Yeshivah.
But, as I left his office, I didn’t feel like it. The more I struggled with my depravity, the more depressed I became. Years passed and my perversion derailed my path in many ways. I went to yeshiva in Los Angeles, Montreal, Sydney, and then South Africa. The Devil went with me. I could not escape. Did I even want to?
My father had modeled for me that life is a marathon and that the most important person to outrun is yourself. But I had fallen in the mud and couldn’t get back up. I tried therapy. I tried self-help books. I tried traveling, movies, and doing anything to fill the endless pit that was eating away at my soul.
It wasn’t just about religion. I felt inherently dissatisfied and demeaned after each flurry of fleeting pleasure. The guilt came naturally. I was well into my twenties and failing even more than I had been when I was in yeshiva. My taavas noshim (lust for women) was out of control. I had failed my father. The superhero had found his kryptonite and it had killed him. And then a miracle happened.
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