“When you draw near to a city to wage war against it, you shall call out to it for peace. It shall be that if it responds to you in peace and opens for you, then the entire people found within it shall be as a tribute for you and they shall serve. But if it does not make peace with you, but makes war with you, you shall besiege it.” (Devarim 20:10-11) 

Parshas Shoftim ends with rules of engagement when going to war. Though obvious parallels could be drawn to these teachings and the perpetual conflict in the Middle East, very few of us can expect to wrestle with literal warfare tactics in our day to day. However, the Or HaChaim references the Zohar which teaches that every day we are at war… with ourselves. 

“There was a small city with only a few inhabitants and a mighty king came upon it and surrounded it… Present in the city was a poor wise man, and by his wisdom he saved the city.”  (Koheles 9:14-15)

According to the Sages, the verse from Koheles refers to the verse from Parshas Shoftim. The city is the human body. The mighty king is the yetzer hara (wicked inclination). The poor wise man is the holier dimension of soul (known as the neshama). With these symbols in mind, the war is over how we choose to behave. To act, not how our base selves desire, but how we know we should. How we aspire to be. This is known as the refinement of character traits (or middos). The Or HaChaim teaches that the rules of war listed above don’t just teach us how to fight the war, but how to fight it in a healthy and productive way that leads to real results and not a discarded New Year’s resolution list. 

Offer of Peace

It’s nice to know that before waging warfare, the Torah instructs the army of Israel to offer peace. It does what it can to avoid bloodshed. But what does that mean for war against the yetzer hara? How do you make compromises with your inner demons? You’d think staunch Jewish thought from hundreds of years ago would demand 100% uncompromising cessation of sinful acts. But the Or HaChaim instead says, “‘You shall call out to it for peace,’ means that you should not approach the body by jumping from one extreme to the other with complete abstinence and denial… He should give part of his attention to the needs of physicality and also give part of his attention to the needs of his spirituality.” Now he also stresses that the person should be aware that there is a judgment in the World to Come (Judaism’s afterlife). But also your spiritual acts/mitzvahs will be your sustenance in the next world. So these “offers of peace” aren’t tolerating sinful behavior, but are more about finding the right path that a person can stick with. Then they can slowly add more positive behaviors while decreasing the negative ones. 

Small steps are essential. We all know someone who decided to radically change their life seemingly overnight with an all-or-nothing attitude. How many of them stuck with it? Instead the Or HaChaim quotes a famous teaching on Shir HaShirim, “If you forge an opening [for change] as narrow as the eye of the needle, the Holy One, blessed is He, will make an opening for it as large as the entrance of [a stadium].” Hashem wants your character growth and the clearest revelation of Him I’ve seen in my life is when I am pursuing growth in my middos. 

Prepare for War

“But if it does not make peace with you but makes war with you, you shall besiege it.” Unfortunately, our growth and resolve doesn’t always last. Sometimes we fall off the derech (path). Even with tremendous progress we can regress. The Or HaChaim tells us this can inflict a heavy toll. “When this happens to a person, his wickedness increases and his yetzer hara influences him more strongly than before to battle the soul. This is what it means by ‘but makes war with you.’”

In addiction psychology this is known as the Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE) where a single “slip” can become a full-blown relapse. The Yetzer Hara isn’t satisfied with the single victory but uses such mentalities as all-or-nothing thinking, The “what’s the point?” mentality, guilt and shame, or the lie that this relapse will be their last hurrah and so they exercise no restraint. To combat this, now abstinence is required. But not just of the destructive behavior but of things that are permitted. This is one of the reasons we have fast days.

In the Jewish tradition, offering our physical comfort through fasting is spiritually likened to bringing a sacrifice on the Altar. Fasting also functions as a kind of “pattern interrupt.” By intentionally saying no to permissible physical needs, we break the autopilot that drives addictive behavior, and can bring a state of conscious mindfulness. That paired with the acts of teshuvah and reflection can be an effective reset, building our distress tolerance so we learn to sit with discomfort rather than instantly numbing it.

As the scripture continues, it describes the slaughter of combatants, taking spoils, what we do with women and children and the Or HaChaim has behavior parallels for all of it. But for the purposes of this post, the essential message is that taking part in the war, making the decision to improve, is what is important. 

We all have our struggles. Get the work done. Resist splurging. Control our temper. Put the phone down. Be present. Most of us barely have it in us to get through the day, how can we be expected to fight a war? But here’s the secret. We think our struggles get in the way of what we want to be focusing on. Our impatience in line at Starbucks gets in the way of getting to work. Getting stood up on a first date feels like a setback to finally getting married. But the truth is, our reaction to the obstacle IS the focus of life. The exterior goals (work, marriage, success, etc) are illusions. They are the carrot in life that never gets seized. If we do finally get the carrot, it’s not what we thought we wanted and there’s another carrot. That’s because our goals are really a vehicle so that we can experience and overcome those setbacks. The setbacks ARE the point. So we can develop and perfect our middos. 

This week we begin the month of Elul. We have 30 days until Rosh Hashanah where we are judged on whether we deserve another year of life. When we get to Rosh Hashanah we’re not going to be asked, “How many sales did you make?” We’re going to be asked, “How much did you work on yourself?” And if we’re involved in THAT war, Hashem will give us the upper hand. But what’s the point of going to services on Rosh Hashanah if we don’t even know what life is about? Make sure you’re fighting the right war.