The Life Force of The Body

And that's actually the next point that the Ramban covers. Quoting from the Rambam in Hilchot De'ot chapter 4 verse Halacha number 19, he says that if a man is like a rooster with his wife, then his strength will lessen, his eyes will grow dimmer, and all the organs in his body will deteriorate. Now, this is not a new chiddush by the Ramban, but rather this is the Rambam Ramban quoting the Rambam. This is actually a psak Halacha. This is one of the teachings that's fundamental to our Torah that the Rambam elaborates further on. In Hilchot De'ot chapter 4 Halacha number 19, the Rambam, Maimonides, who was a expert doctor, philosopher, Torah scholar, sage, where a Jew cannot walk right or left in a with knowing knowing that he's going in the right direction without knowing the Rambam, because the vast majority of the Shulchan Aruch is the Rambam. And from Moshe Rabbenu until Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam, there was nobody else like Moshe. So a person that knows Rambam knows how to live like a Jew. Even though you pasken like the Shulchan Aruch in in many still the vast majority over 90% of Shulchan Aruch is the Rambam. But the Shulchan Aruch didn't cover as much ground as the Rambam, and therefore anywhere that the Shulchan Aruch doesn't cover, we pasken based on the Rambam automatically. Now, of course, there are different Hachamim, different Rishonim that elaborate on this further, but needless to say, the Rambam is something that a person needs to know. And the Rambam did not just cover whether something is kosher or not kosher, whether you have to uh do this or do that, but he's also giving us how to live. And he says the following, "The semen is the strength of the body. It's life force and the light of the eyes. The more frequent the emission of sperm, the greater the damage to the body, to its strength, and the greater the loss to the one's lifespan." Here the Rambam is telling us that if a person is constantly wasting seed, this will actually shorten their life. But in the process, it'll also make them sick. Now, of course, I know that many people saying, "Wait a minute, but there's all types of people that you know, they have a new girlfriend, boyfriend, or or donkey every other day. They're looking like they're uh healthier healthier than anyone else. Give it time." Give it time and you'll see as you get older, all those good-looking people, you end up seeing them look like some uh some person in a nursing care by the time they're in their 40s and 50s. I've been young and I've aged a little bit and I've seen a lot of the guys and girls that you know, we grew up with in the neighborhood. And you used to see these beautiful people that every other day they would celebrate about having all of these relationships, all of these promiscuities. And you see them 20, 30 years later. I'm like, "What happened? Did he get hit by a truck? And we're not talking about just normal aging. Everybody ages. Everybody gets uglier and uglier as they ages. Let's just call it that way. But, the reality is that there is normal aging and then there's like, what happened? And every one of us that's at least in their 40s or 50s knows that to be true. Why? You've seen somebody like that. You've seen one of your former classmates, your best friend or somebody that was even a neighbor. 20, 30 years later and you can't believe what happened to this person. They have more wrinkles than somebody in a nursing home. They have no teeth. Their eyes, you're not even sure if they can see or not. And many times if it wasn't for the plastic surgeons and all of the things that money can buy to, you know, put a veil on people's eyes, these people literally you would put them in a nursing home and not feel bad. People question, "Oh, how come I'm losing my hair? Oh, how come I'm losing my teeth? I always brush my teeth. How come I'm losing my teeth? I always took care of my hair with the best shampoos, $50 at a clip, but I'm losing my hair. Is it because of stress?" It could be, but most likely it's because of something else. And sometimes you even see this on young people. People in their teens, 20s. I've seen some horrible cases because I deal with this and try to help a lot of people and you see literally certain people they look like they're 50, 60 years old. They're 21, 20, 19. You see people literally they look sick. They look like they have AIDS. But they're perfectly healthy according to the blood test. What is this from? This is wasting their seed. Promiscuity. This, by the way, also affects women. Now, anyone that sees how some of the so-called celebrities that are on the uh it's it's it's it's not even a uh frowned upon to be promiscuous in Hollywood because it's in quite frankly, it's frowned upon if you're not promiscuous. For a person to have five wives, that's apparently seems like it's a prerequisite to be that a celebrity these days. But you see how they age? You see how they are when they're off the camera? One after another looking like a tragedy. And it's not normal aging because you can see regular blue-collar people or regular people without any plastic surgery age normally, look normal, and you're not even sure how this and this are part of the same species. So, the Rambam already gives us this clarification by letting us know that the frequent emission of sperm causes a great damage to the body, is strength, and a greater loss to one's lifespan. This was implied by Melech in his wisdom, "Do not give your strength to women." Proverbs chapter 31 verse 3, which we'll get to in a moment to elaborate further on what Melech said. "Don't give your strength to women," meaning your seed to women. "Whoever is steeped in sexual relations," says the Rambam, old age springs upon him before its time. His strength is depleted. His eyes become dim. He had perfect vision at 18. By the time he's 21, he needs glasses. By the time he's 22, the glasses have to get worse and worse and worse. Foul odor emanates from his mouth and his armpits. The hair of his head falls off, thins. His eyebrows, his eyelashes fall out. The hair of his beard, armpits, and legs grows in abundance. His teeth fall out and he suffers many pains beyond these. Now, of course, he's not saying that all of these things will happen to one person. But certainly, these are the types of things that happen to a person. It could be one of them, two of them, all of them. Depends on the case, depends on the cream shamayim. And I remember when I first taught this, probably 8 years ago, 9 years ago, in our big lecture of wasting seed, the people in the crowd were shocked and the people online that watched it were even more shocked. Because every single person watching it could relate to at least one of the different health issues that the Rambam and some of the other hakhamim that I mentioned in that shiur mentioned. Person's unsure why he wakes up in the morning and he already smells bad. I went to sleep. What could have possibly happened while you're sleeping? Why do I smell bad? Or he loses his hair. All of a sudden, he starts growing hair in strange places. Or even without having a problem with the tooth, he's not a sweets eater, his teeth start weakening. He bites an apple and the tooth breaks. These are the type of things that happen, not just from smoking, not just from a bad diet, but even more so from wasting seed.