By the Grace of G-d 21st of Sivan, 5724 Brooklyn, NY

Greeting and Blessing: 

I am in receipt of your letter in which you write about an undesirable habit. 

The way to overcome this habit is to completely divert the mind from it. This means that one should not attempt to wrestle with the problem in his mind and try to convince himself that it is a bad thing or a sin, and the like, but to dismiss it entirely from the mind. But in order to be able to disengage the mind from one thing it is necessary to engage it immediately in something else, which has no relationship whatsoever to the other thoughts. The best thing, of course, is to engage the mind in a matter of Torah, because the Torah is called “Light” and even a little light dispels a lot of darkness. However, if it is impossible to engage the mind in Torah, at the moment when that thought occurs, it should be engaged in anything, as long as it is completely unrelated. 

In accordance with the above, it is also clear that every addition in the degree of devotion and diligence in the study of Torah and the observance of mitzvot, in addition to being a must for its own sake, will also help to overcome the problem. 

If your tefillin have not been checked within the last twelve months, it would be a good idea to have them checked now, and every weekday morning before putting them on, to put aside a small coin for tzedoko, Bli-Neder. I also suggest that you should be careful to observe the shiur in Tehillim every day as it is divided according to the days of the month. 

With blessing,