Pleasure Seekers

When two parties make a covenant it is called כריתת ברית. Now that is strange because a bris brings people together and "krisa" [as in "chayav kares"] is to cut apart??

When you want to connect to someone else you have to give up part of yourself and your own egotistical desires. "Krisa" - cut away part of yourself, and you can now make a "bris", a true covenant. [Maharal]

Maybe the symbolism of bris milah is that we are "cutting off" [literally] the part of us that represents our progeny and future generations and dedicating it to G-d.

We live in a generation of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. וכל המרבה הרי זה משובח. The Torah stops us and says "ENJOY!! But for Hashem and with Hashem and according to His rules." Somebody who really believes knows that the laws that seemingly limit and curb our pleasure are really meant to maximize our pleasure. I know many people who think - on some level - that they are smarter than G-d! He just doesn't understand [so they think], that to really enjoy a relationship one can't be shomer negiyah. So they aren't.

But the opposite is true. The GREATEST PLEASURE is when one is in CONTROL of ones desires and not the other way around. TRUE pleasure is being a SPIRITUAL BEING with the body at one's disposal to reach spiritual heights.

I know quite a few people who are immersed in pleasures of the body - and they SUFFER GREATLY. A groyse paradox!!

Inability to control appetite spells obesity. Excessive avarice oftens causes one to end up in jail. Not putting the brakes on a persons most powerful urge [the one bris milah is supposed to elevate] results in divorce, loss of respect in one's children's eyes, hatred, pain, loneliness, loss of financial assests. And maybe worst of all - loss of SELF-RESPECT. Full recovery is almost an impossibility.

I speak sweetest friends not because of what goes on amongst the goyim - but because AGAIN AND AGAIN it happens amongst people who attend shul [with a mechitza!!] and send their kids to yeshiva day school.

People can't control themselves.

No! People CHOOSE not to control themselves. And they pay a BITTER price. And so does everyone else around them.

I have known numerous innocent victims who suffer daily.

May we focus on getting true pleasure. Pleasure from a daf gemara, a perek tehillim, a maase chesed, a kind word, Shabbos. From hugging a Yid. Pleasure from Hashem.

טעמו וראו כי טוב השם! He is, kiviyachol, delicious!!!

Everything else might LOOK appealing but beneath the veneer is poison!

וחי בהם - Keeping the Torah should be our chiyus, our vitality!

Love and blessings!!! :-)