We are now in Chodesh Elul, blowing the shofar and waging war against the yetzer hara (as is hinted at in the beginning of Parshas Ki Seitzei). Like every war, we require strategies that will help us win this great battle. Let's begin with understanding that the nature of this war is unlike any other war you know. The goal of a war fought between countries is to conquer the enemy. When the opposing army is defeated, the war is over. But it isn't so with the war against the yetzer hara. When we win one battle, we are confronted with yet another war. It is a never-ending fight. Chazal (Brachos 61a) call the yetzer hara "a fly" because, like a fly, after you banish it, it comes back again.
A bachur complained to Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt'l (rosh yeshivah of Kol Torah) that lately, he had fallen from his high level and wasn't studying as he used to. Reb Shlomo Zalman told him a mashal of a person who brought expensive cloth to a tailor and asked him to turn it into a suit. The tailor began cutting the fabric at several angles. "What are you doing?" the man shouted. "It's an expensive material. Why are you cutting it to pieces?" Soon, he discovered that one cut turned out to be a pocket; another cut became a sleeve, and so on.
"Similarly," Reb Shlomo Zalman told the bachur, "we would want the path of growth in Torah to be an upward ascent, always growing higher and higher, but it doesn't go that way. There needs to be ups and downs. There is no other way to grow in Torah." This is based on the concept of ירידה לצורך עליה, that one must fall in order to reach higher levels. The descent is the path that leads to even higher levels. When seeds are planted in the ground, they first rot and blossom only later. If they wouldn't rot, they would never grow. The Baal Shem Tov zy'a said that this represents the concept of falling to rise higher.
The Baal Shem Tov said that this is hinted at in the words (Bamidbar 13:20), והתחזקתם, make yourself strong and courageous. And when you find yourself falling, ולקחתם, take encouragement, מפרי הארץ, from fruit. Just as fruit seeds rot and then grow, you will rise from your fallen state and reach high levels. In this way as well, the war against the yetzer hara differs from most wars. Generally, at war, when one side suffers a loss, it won't lead them to win the war. But when we battle the yetzer hara and fall and pick ourselves up again, we will reach even higher levels.
