Miller's Musings Parshas Ki Tzetzeh: A Fight to the Light

בס''ד

En route to the devastation and carnage that undoubtedly awaits on the battlefield, one can imagine the last thing on one’s mind would be romance.  Nevertheless, one’s attention was perchance diverted towards a “woman of beautiful appearance” amongst the enemy captives, leading to a procedure delineated by the Torah which eventually facilitated the marriage to this prisoner of war.  In what was the antithesis of a honeymoon period, the lady was divested of all adornments and any last vestige of the glamour that so attracted him to her, and was left to wallow in the mire of despair, so far from all she knew and loved.  If he still desired her, despite her aesthetic decline and the state of depression he found her in, then he could marry her.  So what message can we glean from this ostensibly so distant subject matter from the lives we inhabit?

It is well known that the opening phrase of our Parsha “When you go out to war” allegorically also refers to our battle against our evil inclination, the Yetzer Horah.  If this is so perhaps we can suggest that the process undergone here directly parallels the way in which we succumb to our negative desires.  It begins with a feeling of lust towards the alluring potential offered by the particular craving.  The temptation is too much for us and we relinquish ourselves to its captivating embrace.  However in the cold light of day, when we begin to look back upon our conquest, we begin to regret our folly and see the sin for what it truly is, a façade that fooled us into believing in its rewards.  The pleasure we thought we would feel was so fleeting and we are left facing the overwhelming emotion of disappointment, so far from where we know we should be.  Yet often we continue unabated along the same path time after time until we are wedded to the sin, joined together in unholy matrimony, consigned to a life with the wrong we should have rejected the first moment we set our eyes upon it. 

This battleground is one we face every day.  It is for that purpose that we were created.  There are no shortages of temptations and they come before us unrelentingly, determined to make us yield to them.  Yet if we can focus on the knowledge of all those regrets we have felt in the past, perhaps we can start to win some of these conflicts. If we can remind ourselves of the fallacy of all the delights they seemed to offer, perhaps we can begin to be triumphant in battle.   And if we can envision the pain we know we will feel if we submit to those things we know will keep us further from our purpose, then with Hashem’s help, one day, we will win the war against the greatest adversary we will ever face. 

May the purity of Shabbos help us to discern all truth from falsehood. 

לעילוי נשמת לאה בת אברהם