Chapter III

The desire to vanquish and control one's enemy is so great that any means are considered worthwhile to gain victory. In order to win a war, a king will spend precious treasures which have been accumulated and guarded for generations. So fierce is the desire for victory that both sides engage in battle with a firm determination to give their very lives if necessary.

This analogy can also be applied to the spiritual battle between the internal forces of good and evil; each side exerts itself to the utmost in order to win.

Various types of weapons are used in warfare. Certain types can only be used at short-range, while others can only be used at a distance. The yetzer tov and yetzer hora both possess armaments. The revealed or short-range weapons of the yetzer hora are physical and material matters, even those permitted by the Torah. For as the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya,1 food eaten only in order to satisfy one's corporeal desire becomes evil, even if the food is kosher. Food eaten only out of gross corporeal desire transforms the good into evil, and this evil eventually becomes a weapon which destroys a person, or at least makes him spiritually defective. He then receives his vitality from evil. This in turn leads him to indulge in even more corporeal pleasures and desires.

The yetzer hora also possesses weapons that work from afar. Unlike the short-range weapon of wrongful indulgence in permissible matters, the evil inclination can cause a person to transgress unwittingly with forbidden matters, thereby killing him spiritually.

A man once came with his scholarly son-in-law to the Alter Rebbe in Liozna, and complained that the young man, who had always conducted himself properly, had lately been beset with doubts about his faith. The Rebbe replied that the son-in-law must have unwittingly eaten forbidden food. The Rebbe showed him how to repent, and he became spiritually healthy again.

Thus, forbidden foods and the like are vile weapons of the yetzer hora, which can shoot arrows from afar and destroy a person, G-d forbid. At the very least, it can make one spiritually defective.

In summary: The task of illuminating the darkness of the evil inclination is a mighty battle in which both sides use all their powers in order to win. The revealed weapons of the evil inclination include a lustful indulgence in permitted matters, which causes one to become coarsened. The evil inclination's concealed weapons are those which cause an individual to sin unwittingly.