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This week's parasha opens up with the words, "כי תצא למלחמה על אויבך – when you go out to war against your enemy." The Zohar HaKadosh writes that אויבך-your enemy is referring to the יצר הרע – our evil inclination which means the Torah is calling our struggle with the evil inclination a war. Sometimes people get down on themselves because they always have to struggle to do anything proper in religion. "Nothing is ever easy," they say, and they feel like that means that Hashem doesn't want their service. Others get down because they feel that they are so evil. "Why can't we be happy for other people's good fortune?" They think to themselves, or, "Why is it so hard for us to forgive people?" We must internalize the fact that everybody is created with an evil inclination and it is that inclination which enables us to bring glory to Hashem.
The Mabit writes there would be no kavod (glory) to Hashem if we only had our pure neshama that wants to do good all the time. All of the glory comes when we subdue that evil inclination and serve Hashem despite the pull the other way. We should not feel down when we have inclinations towards evil. We should feel excited at our opportunity to bring glory to Hashem by overcoming them.
The sefer Nafshi Cholat Ahavatcha uses this Mabit to give us chizuk when it comes to praying. Many times the yetzer hara gets us to not pay attention to what we're saying when we're praying. And even when we try hard and extra hard to focus our minds, our minds still manage to somehow wander and we become frustrated. The natural tendency of a person in that situation would be to just stop trying and say to himself, "It's not helping anyway so why should I bother?" And even if a person does manage to want to make an attempt after he failed, the yetzer hara tells him, "Now you're going to start concentrating? You already messed up most of the prayer. Of what value is it now to have kavana for just one paragraph?" We must think to ourselves, it's exactly the opposite. Because it has been so difficult to concentrate, that is precisely why every word that we do concentrate upon afterward is so precious. That is what brings all the glory to Hashem. Hashem has so much satisfaction when we battle this inclination and then we overcome it. There is no glory in a computer being able to know the meaning of the words, because that's what it's programmed to do. But for a person who has so many thoughts flying through his mind and still manages to focus on some of the words he's praying to Hashem, that is extremely valuable. We should never underestimate the value of concentrating on even one word of the tefila. As the Chovot HaLevavot says, what might seem to be small in our eyes is very big in the eyes of Hashem. For someone who is jealous of his friend's successes and he cries to Hashem for help because he wants to improve in his middot and he works on himself and he reads sefarim that help him with those middot and finally after months, or even years, he is able to be happy for another person, that is where all the glory is because he did battle and he overcame that terrible, evil inclination.
If someone feels his inclinations are so evil, and he says to himself, "I'm such a bad person," he is not understanding it properly. It just means he has a greater opportunity to serve Hashem by overcoming it. We are in constant battle with this yetzer hara, but that's the will of Hashem for us, to go to war against it, to do our best to overcome it and if we're fighting hard, we'll merit the continuation of the pasuk, "ונתנו ה' אלוקיך בידך – Hashem will help us beat him." Don't get down, don't feel bad when you have those inclinations. Fight them. Do your best. Every victory is so precious and brings such glory to Hashem.
Shabbat Shalom.