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0:00 Defense, welcome to this week's virtual drasha. This week we have the incredible privilege of parshas ki seitzei. The Torah continues in the war motif. In last week's parsha we're already introduced to the idea when Jewish army goes out to war, a whole number of laws, who goes out, who doesn't go out, who's exempted. And the Torah here continues with the following halacha, the following idea. 0:18 This is perek pasuk, your chapter 21, verse 10. Ki seitzei l'milchama al oyvecha, when you will go out to war against your enemies, u'nisano Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha, Hashem will deliver your enemies into your hands, and this shall be shivyon, you will take captives. The Torah then goes on into the fascinating and intriguing section of the vast Torah, the war bride. But that's not going to be our focus for today. Instead, we're going to focus 0:42 just on this pasuk itself. And of course, there's so much in here. First of all, the incredible sense of optimism with which Jewish army wages war. When you will go out to war against your enemy, u'nisano Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha, Hashem will deliver your enemies into your hands. It's not an if, it's not if you're victorious, it's not if you vanquish your enemies, it's u'nisano, and Hashem will deliver our 1:06 enemies into our hands. The Jewish army fights every single battle with an unbridled sense of optimism. The Jew fights every single battle with an overwhelming sense of optimism. But in Chassidic literature in the Sforno, it's explained that this pasuk is also a metaphor for a different kind of war. 1:23 Not a war that we wage against an external enemy, but rather a war in which we each of us wage each and every day against an internal enemy, perhaps the greatest enemy. Because often the threat that we face to our self-actualization, the face the threat that we face to our own personal success is not a threat, not an external one, but an internal one. We all combat a variety of different internal enemies, 1:48 different wants and lusts and desires and proclivities. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us with a whole variety of self-sabotaging mechanisms that each and every time we seem to be on the cusp of accomplishing something great for whatever the reason we seem to yank the wrong rug out from under ourselves. It's nice to say that it's other people, other factors, but more often than not I think for most of us when we look at the times in life in 2:11 which we have not accomplished, the times in life in which we have not progressed, very often it's because it's just for whatever the reason we've engaged in these self-sabotaging behaviors, the yetzer hara. And therefore the Sfas Emes literature explains ki seitzei l'milchama al oyvecha, when you will go out to war against your enemy, is not simply talking about how to wage battle against an external enemy, but rather it's 2:33 teaching us how to wage battle against our internal enemies. How do I vanquish the internal enemies that seek to undermine my personalistic success each and every day? And the pasuk itself is filled with so many incredible strategies. First of all, ki seitzei, when you go out, this is a proactive battle. The first lesson in personalistic success is take the battle 2:57 to your enemies. And everyone will agree it is always better to wage an offensive war than a defensive war. So too in the personalistic war that we wage each and every day, take the battle to the yetzer hara. Don't wait for the yetzer hara to bring you to your knees. Don't wait until ultimately the problems become so overwhelming and so overbearing that I have no choice but to gird myself for battle and go out to fight. Be 3:20 proactive. Ki seitzei l'milchama al oyvecha, I know what the problems are, I know what the difficulties are, and I don't have to wait until they explode in my face in order to go ahead and go out and battle them. I'm ready to do battle now. But Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says something so incredibly beautiful. The way we normally read this is as follows. 3:38 Ki seitzei l'milchama al oyvecha, and understanding it in the metaphorical sense, that it's talking about the battle against the yetzer hara, the battle against our own internal self-sabotaging mechanisms, the battle against my faults, my frailties, my misdeeds. And so again, the way we normally read the possuk is like this. 3:54 Ki saytzay l'milchama al oyvecha, when you will go out to war against your internal enemies, u'nisano Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha, and Hashem will allow you to be successful. Because b'derech sh'adam rotzeh l'eylech molichin oso, the path you choose for yourself in life is the path which God will help you along. And therefore, Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees that I want to be better. Hakadosh Baruch Hu sees that I want to be holier. Hashem sees that I 4:17 want to vanquish my internal enemies. I want to overcome the eight Sahara. I want to do battle with the lust, the desires, the proclivities, the ones that seek to derail me each and every day. So the possuk says, if you're willing to go to war, and you're willing to really wage the battle, you're ready to do what needs to get done, you're ready to make the sacrifices to win the battle, u'nisano Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha, Hashem will 4:42 allow you to be successful. It's almost like a haftacha. It's a promise of success if I'm willing to be courageous enough to go out and fight the battles of life, Hashem guarantees me success. Now, when this success is going to occur, how this success is going to occur, what success looks like, those are all variables in life. But again, on the most basic level, if I'm willing to put in the time, I'm willing to fight, 5:06 I'm willing to roll up my sleeves, I'm willing to sacrifice, Hashem says, I promise you, I will help you get to the finish line of success. But Rebbe Nachman, Rebbe Nachman sees this a little bit differently. Listen to the words of the holy Rebbe. He says as follows. He says, "Payrish, Ki saytzay l'milchama al oyvecha, if you are willing to go out to war against your enemy, sh'hu hayeitzer hara, if 5:29 you're really willing to go out to war against your enemy, you're really willing to do war against the yeitzer hara, u'nisano Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha, so we were translating it before as, Hashem will deliver your yeitzer hara to your hands. Hashem will allow you to be successful. Says Rebbe Nachman, that's not how to read, it's rather he says "Unesano Hashem 5:50 Ki Lo Amar Hayitzur Hara Ki Mo Yitain Ki Mo Yimsor Es Hashem Lo Kecha Bi Yadacha." Then Rebbe Nachman reads it like this, "If I'm willing to go out to war against my yetzer hara, then what's going to happen? Unesano the yetzer hara will deliver Hashem into my hands." What? 6:12 The yetzer hara will deliver Hashem into my hands. Ki Seitseit Le Milkhama Al Ha Lev. If I'm willing to go out and do battle, if I'm willing to engage in the struggle, if I'm willing to lean into the difficulties, if I'm willing to stop running from my problems and I'm ready to confront them, then the greatest struggles, the greatest yetzer hara, Unesano the yetzer hara itself 6:38 will deliver up Hashem into my hands. Enigmatic. Mind-blowing. Puzzling. Problematic. That the yetzer hara is going to deliver Hashem into my hands? What is What does that mean? The yetzer hara is the enemy, he's not my friend. 6:56 But Rebbe Nachman is teaching us something that we all know. And perhaps one of the simple yet most profound lessons. That there is holiness to be found in the struggle. The yetzer hara is not my enemy. The yetzer hara, and just bear with me till the end of this sentence, is my best friend in the world. You're like, "I knew it. I knew it. I've always loved my yetzer hara. He's always been 7:19 fantastic. I always wanted to embrace him and give him a big hug, give him a big shkoyach. He makes my life so pleasurable and enjoyable." No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is that often we look at struggle as the obstacle, as the wall which stands between us and success. What Rebbe Nachman is teaching us is there's nothing further from the truth. 7:37 Struggle tells us so much about ourselves. War tells us so much about ourselves. Struggle teaches us about what's broken and what's whole. Struggle allows us to see the co-hosts, the abilities that we had within that we never knew we possessed. And struggle by definition per- pushes us to become people we would have never been. We speak about this all the time. 7:58 No one really self-actualizes through blessing. But everyone has the capacity to self-actualize through struggle. Struggle is a gift, the gift we don't want. The yetzer hara is a best friend you never asked for. But if you lean into the struggles, if I say, "Okay, this is what's broken inside of me and this is what's deficient and this is what's problematic. It's here. 8:19 It's here. How can I learn from it? What can I do from it? I want to stop running from it and I want to start growing with it." If I can do that with my yetzer hara, if I can figure out that again, and it's important to understand that the frailties and the deficiencies and the problems that I possess, they're not like haphazard, they're not random. They 8:43 were given to me by Hakadosh Baruchu because somehow, some way they are the necessary ingredients for my self-actualization. I don't become great despite my struggles. I become great dafka because of my struggles. And if I can find the ability to stop running but rather to lean into it, to embrace it, to understand it, to 9:05 figure out what it teaches me about me and how I can use it to become the best version of me, then at the end of the day there is no telling what I could accomplish. Says Rebbe Nachman, that's the pshat. Ki seitzei lamilchama olayvecha, when you go out to war against your enemy, if you're willing to be courageous enough to say, "I'm not running anymore from the deficiencies. I'm not running anymore from the difficulties. I'm not 9:29 running anymore from the things that are complicated in my life. I'm going to lean into it. I'm going to figure it out." Then when you do that, u'nisa'ano, that very yetzer that you thought, those very deficiencies, those very wants and musts and proclivities that you thought were your enemies, that you thought were the things that ultimately again prevent you from greatness, on this or no, they themselves will deliver Hashem up into 9:52 your hands. They themselves will be the vehicle of self-actualization. They themselves will be the very way in which you will become great. When you choose to stop running from the problems, you choose to stop running from the challenges, you choose to stop running from the broken kite, and instead you lean into it, you embrace it, you accept 10:14 it, and you figure out how do I grow from it, the yetzer hara becomes my best friend in the world. And the best friend that he is the one who delivers up Hakadosh Baruch Hu right into my hands. You know, there's an incredible gemara in Maseches Sukkah in that we had this past week. 10:32 The gemara says, the gemara talks about the idea of Rami bar Chama, or Rami Rami bar Tamri, excuse me. And Rami bar Tamri, the gemara says, was a very holy individual. The gemara tells a story. The context of the story is about consumption of the utter of an animal. Okay, is it kosher, not kosher, what about the absorbed milk? So, the gemara discusses the idea that in different communities, they had 10:55 different practices about whether or not they would go ahead and and consume this. So, the gemara talks about the idea that in one city, Sura, they didn't eat it. In Pumbedisa, they did eat it. And Rami bar Tamri went to the city of right who was from Pumbedisa, where they ate utters of the animal, went to Sura, and he was there on Erev Yom Kippur. 11:14 Everybody was shacking animals for Suda Maasakta, and they were throwing the utters into the street because they wouldn't eat it. And Rami bar Chama was going around gathering up the utters. How poor How poor does a person have to be that literally again their source of consumption is the utter of an animal? The gemara goes on. The gemara talks about gives us a window into the incredible difficulties of Rami bar Chama or me, me, Rami bar Chama's life. 11:36 Ultimately, again, he had suffered from ongoing illness. He didn't even own his own clothing. Again, he was destitute. He was poor. He was ill. And yet, he was one of the outstanding leaders of his generation. You know, so it struck me it struck me that his name is Rami bar Chama or Rami bar Dikuli. So, Tamar a 11:58 Tamar is a is a date tree. It is a date tree. It's a palm tree or date palm. I don't know now could be that his father's name was Tamar. That that that is possible. That's definitely possible. But at the end of the day, what's the p'shat? And you know, I was thinking about this a little bit that the pasuk says "Tzaddik katamar yifrach." That the tzaddik is like a tamar. Tzaddik is like a tamar. Now, what does this mean? What what what 12:22 makes a tzaddik a tzaddik? A tzaddik is not someone who just has an easy life. A tzaddik is not someone ultimately again who just kind of everything falls into place. A tzaddik is not someone who everything goes their way. But it's what makes a tzaddik a tzaddik is this pasuk "Ki se'itzei ba'milchama al oyvecha." The tzaddik is the person who realizes my challenges don't stand 12:44 between me and God. My challenges are the very vehicles if which if I choose to lean into them, embrace them, envelop them, own them, understand them, learn from them, become the very vehicles for my self-actualization. Rami bar Chama was this individual in the Gemara who suffered from incredible illness, poverty, deprivation. Yet, yet, 13:08 yet somehow someway utilized all of those deficiencies and challenges to actualize his personalistic greatness. That's "Tzaddik katamar yifrach." The tzaddik is like Rami bar Chama. That's what it means to be righteous. The challenges are not there to prevent us from becoming holy, but the challenges, if utilized the right way, if we stop 13:33 running from them, stop ignoring them, stop pretending like the deficiencies and the faults don't exist, but recognize this is who I am. This is the full package with all of of the stuff. Now what could I learn? Now what can I do? Now how could I become great not despite these things, but because of these things? Then then The challenges themselves will deliver 14:00 God right into my hand. Will deliver kedusha. Look at that. What an overwhelming lesson for life. What an overwhelming lesson for chodesh Elul. Now that then we introspect, we begin to take inventory, we begin to look inward, and a lot of times when we look inward, we're so scared of what we find. We're so overwhelmed by what we find. We're so saddened by what we find. So often when we open the door to personal list taking inventory, just shut it very quickly. I 14:23 don't want to deal with it. I don't want to look at it. It's too painful, too difficult. Instead of saying, "Okay, yes, sometimes it's painful to see what's under the hood." But just understand those things that are broken, those are not obstacles. Those are opportunities. Those are opportunities. 14:39 If I'm willing to go out and do battle in life, and I'm willing to go out and really confront the challenges, and I'm willing to look at my challenges and my deficiencies and my wants and my losses and my proclivities and say, "Hashem, okay, this is me. This is me." What do I learn from them? How can I grow from them? What can they teach me about myself, and how can they propel me in my journey forward? Then u'nisa'no those very challenges that you thought were the obstacles to spiritual 15:02 growth u'nisa'no Hashem Elokecha b'yadecha they will give you unbridled spiritual greatness and spiritual access. It's the lesson for the soldier on the battlefield. It's the lesson for all of us in life. It's the lesson during chodesh Elul, and it's the lesson during chodesh Cheshvan. Be courageous enough to look under the hood. Be courageous enough to go out to battle or to go in for battle and know that no matter what 15:26 you find it's not an obstacle it's just another tool in your spiritual toolbox for spiritual closeness and greatness wishing everyone a good Shabbos and a beautiful Shabbos Kodesh.
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