Reb Ezriel Tauber zt'l brought a bachur to Reb Chaim Kanievsky zt'l. This bachur was at the very beginning stages of his teshuvah. The bachur told Reb Chaim that he wanted to keep Shabbos and that his main obstacle was his addiction to cigarettes.
Reb Chaim said, "Extinguishing a cigarette is also an aveirah. Therefore, when you finish a cigarette on Shabbos, don't put it out."
The bachur followed this counsel. He kept Shabbos by not putting out his cigarettes, not cooking, not turning on the electricity, etc. He understood that the notion of "all or nothing" is a fallacy and kept as much of Shabbos as he felt he could at the time.
It didn't take long before he stopped smoking on Shabbos and became a full shomer Shabbos Yid.
Above, we discussed the process of teshuvah. There, our discussion was primarily about performing mitzvos, such as davening with kavanah, learning more Torah, and to do so by taking on kabalos for small intervals of time, which are easier to keep. We now extend the conversation to avoiding aveiros. There, too, it is helpful when one takes on smaller kabalos or for a short period. Even if we aren’t perfect, taking a step in the right direction can bring us to great heights.
Someone asked the Tchebiner Rav zt'l whether hitting Amalek is also part of the mitzvah of מחיית עמלק? Or perhaps the mitzvah is to kill Amalek, and anything less than total annihilation isn't a mitzvah at all?
The Tchebiner Rav replied that it is indeed a mitzvah to hit Amalek, even if you can't kill him. He proved this from a Rashi in Pesachim 88. The Gemara discusses cleaning out the innards of the Korban Pesach. The process begins by poking the innards with a knife and then cleaning out its waste. The Gemara calls the process מיחוי קרביו, and Rashi writes that the word מיחוי is like the word found by Amalek, זכר את תמחה עמלק. So, we can take from this discussion that the mitzvah of mechiyas Amalek is also to poke, make holes, and wound, even if we don't end up destroying Amalek. Harming and weakening Amalek is also a mitzvah.
The holy sefarim say that every Yid has an element of Amalek in himself – his yetzer hara. We destroy Amalek through our battles against the yetzer hara. As we explained, even if we don't succeed in removing the yetzer hara entirely, each time we don't listen to the yetzer hara, we are hitting him, a fulfillment of the mitzvah to destroy Amalek.
