'Go out to war against your enemy then Hashem will deliver him into your hand'
Commentaries weigh in on how waging war against enemies is what is ‘upright in the eyes of Hashem’.
Our Parasha opens with the wondrous matter of the ‘captive beautiful woman’.
We read:(18:10-14) :’When you go out to war against your’ enemy, ‘Hashem, your G-d will deliver him into your hand, and you will capture his captives’ amongst whom is ‘a woman who is beautiful of form, and you will desire her, you may take her for a wife’ after you have fulfilled the conditions set out in the Parasha.
The Netivot Shalom, noting that ‘the enemy’ is in the singular and the particular, comments:’The meaning is that it is an allusion to a known enemy; and we need to ask how the statement that ‘Hashem will deliver him into your hand’, relates to the case of the beautiful captive woman.
‘The answer is, as the Zohar Hakadosh relates, that the battle referred to, is the never-ending battle every Jew has against the enemy of his neshama: his yetzer ha’ra: his evil inclination.
‘A Jew is to know that his whole existence in this world, is to ‘go to war’ against this enemy, and this is the meaning of ‘you will go out to war against’ this enemy; the words ‘go out’ are to teach that this is why you descended from the lofty world of spirits above, to this lowly world of desires and challenges: to go out and fight this war, which is the objective of your descent.
‘Rav Avraham miSlonim adds:’any day in which a Jew does not go to war with his yetser, is not reckoned as a day of his life, since his days on earth are for the purpose of this war.
‘The first requirement of this war, is that ‘you will go out to war’ against this enemy - as then the Torah here promises, that ‘Hashem will deliver him into your hand’.
‘If! however, as in the battle against Amalek, you allow ‘Amalek to come and wage battle against you’, it will be very hard for you to overcome him.’
The Tiferet Shlomo adds:’The righteous, who do battle against their yetzer, and overcome it, are surprised to find, that on a later occasion, they are again assailed by their yetzer - how can this be, they wonder, we have already defeated the yetzer!
‘This is what the Torah here comes to answer:’go out to war’ against this enemy: the main reason for your existence in this world is to wage this war - for this you were created.
‘This is alluded to by the juxtaposition of the concluding words of the preceding Parasha - Parashat Shoftim:(21:9)’do what is upright in the eyes of Hashem’, immediately followed by the opening words of our Parasha:’When you go out to war against’ your enemy - waging this war is what is ‘upright in the eyes of Hashem’.’
The Ropshitzer Rebbe sweetens our subject, noting that ‘ Creating the yetzer is one of the three things that Hashem ‘regrets’ creating (Brachot 32: and Rashi there), and, by His regret, Hashem weakens the power of the yetzer, thus assisting man to overcome it.
‘This assistance is conditional upon man first doing his part, in this battle, by ‘going out to war’ against his enemy; if you do do, Hashem will ‘deliver him to your hand’.
‘Without Hashem’s assistance, man can not defeat the yetzer, as our Sages teach:(Kiddushin 40:):’man’s yetzer overwhelms him every day and seeks to kill him - were it not that Hashem comes to our aid, we would not be able to match our yetzer’.
Might we add, that the key word is ‘assistance’, as our Sages teach in another Gemara:(Shabbat 104.): ‘Who comes to be purified, is assisted’ - if man takes the first step, he is promised assistance from Above.
Rav Yehonatan Eyebshitz offers an intriguing explanation as to the ‘beautiful captive woman’.
He first notes the ‘permissive’ nature of our passuk - it does not command us to go to war against our enemy, but refers to ‘When’: if, ‘you will go out to war against your’ enemy, who is the yetzer ha’ra.
He expounds:’The yetzer has been given permission by Hashem to entice and seduce man; but equally, man is ‘permitted’ - not compelled - to battle his yetzer; he can choose to do good, or bad - to succcumb to the wiles of his yetzer, or to go to war against it.
Were man compelled in either direction, there could not justly be punishment for succumbing, or reward for withstanding the yetzer.
‘Our Sages teach - as Rashi brings - that the Torah promises that, if you do as it adjures here, the yetzer will not be able to overcome you, but you will defeat it.
‘However, this success is not enough: you are further obligated to ‘repair’ your fellow man, to save him from his yetzer that has succeeded in ensnaring him, as he too is created in the image of your Creator.
‘He is the captive ‘beautiful woman’, his captivity having sapped his neshama, and reduced him, as it were, to be likened to a female.
‘It is your responsibility to redeem him, by removing all vestiges of the impurity which his yetzer has tainted him with, by the steps set out in our Parasha, including doing teshuva for the misdeeds he performed in his capyivity, by crying and doing all that is required of a ba’al teshuva.’
The Koznitzer Maggid proffers a different exposition, as to the ‘captive beautiful woman’.
Expounds the Maggid:’’When you go to war’ against your enemy, your yetzer: when you yearn to return to Hashem, out of the compassion that you have for your neshama - which is a part of the divine - which has descended from Above, into your body, to give nachat to your Creator, by purifying the body to do the Will of Hashem, but, alas, has been subverted in this physical world, by the wiles of the yetzer, and which you now wish to free it to return to its higher purpose.
‘The Torah here directs you as to how to do do, the neshama being called a ‘beautiful captive woman’, as befits its kedusha; when your compassion has been aroused on her, and you wish once more to ‘take her for your wife’, you must follow the steps set out, to fully free - and purify - it, so that it may once again dwell ‘in your house’’.
The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh, precedes the Maggid in this understanding, which is based on the Zohar Hakadosh.
He expounds:’And you shall bring her into your house’, after you have taken the steps set out in the Parasha, as through the wiles of the yetzer, the neshama has ‘distanced’ itself from ‘your house’: your body, and, in its place, bad has settled.
‘Now, after you have cleansed the neshama from the impurity of the yetzer, it is able to return from its captivity by the enemy you have defeated - your yetzer - and is worthy to once again dwell in the special house of Bnei Israel, the beit hamidrash.
‘The ‘full month’ in which the freed captive is to weep and do teshuva, alludes to the month of Ellul, the propitious month of closeness to Hashem, and for repentance.’
In the beit hamidrash - in the holy Torah - it can once again find the antidote to the wiles of the yetzer.
Rav Elya Lopian adds:’ We pray at the start of each day: ‘Hashem make the words of Torah pleaurable, in our mouths’.
‘The yetzer seduces man, by making transgression appear sweet and pleasurable; Hashem, in his compassion for us, has, therefore ‘instilled’ in the holy Torah sweetness, to enable us to overcome the illusory sweetness with which the yetzer seeks to seduce us.
‘Thus, our Sages say (Kiddushin 30:)::’Says Hashem, tell Bnei Israel: I have created the yetzer, and I have created a תבלין: literally, a seasoning, against it’.
‘This ‘seasoning’ explains the Rav, ‘is the sweetness all who engage in studying Torah will find in it, way beyond the illusory ‘sweetness’ offered by the yetzer.’
A concluding thought: our parshanim note that Ellul is an anagram, of the words of Shir heShirim: אני לדודי ודודי לי: I am for my beloved, and my beloved is for me’.
This surely encapsulates the underlying message of our psukim: If we take the first step : ‘I am for my beloved’,: ‘when you go out to war against your’ enemy - then Hashem will surely be ‘for us, - and deliver him’, our greatest enemy, ‘into your hand’!
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/376049
No comments:
Post a Comment