Part 10- Other Important Techniques for Success
Chapter 44- Toiling in Torah
There are other crucial techniques that indirectly increase our success against desire. These methods strengthen us and help us win our battles.
The first of these techniques is toiling in Torah study. Engaging in diligent Torah study every day is vital for success against the yetzer hara, especially in the battle against desire. Without Torah, we won’t have the strength to fight the yetzer hara, and we will weaken in other areas as well.
Torah study is the spiritual fuel we need to fulfill our potential. Just as food strengthens a famished person, Torah study strengthens us spiritually, providing us with the determination we need to stand up to the yetzer hara. It automatically strengthens us in many areas of our observance, and it reinforces the levels we have toiled to acquire so we don’t lose what we worked so hard for. These are some benefits of Torah study.
In Mesillas Yesharim (Chapter 5), the Ramchal elaborates on the importance of Torah study for fighting the yetzer hara:
Hashem, Who created the yetzer hara in man, is the One Who created Torah as its antidote, as our sages said (Kiddushin 30b), “[Hashem says,] ‘I created the yetzer hara and I created its antidote, Torah.’” Now, it is obvious that if the Creator did not create any cure for this wound [the yetzer hara] other than this antidote [Torah], it is impossible for man to be healed from this wound in any manner other than with this cure. Any person who thinks he will be saved without Torah is making a mistake, and he will eventually realize his mistake when he dies with his sins. This is because the yetzer hara really is very strong within man, and without the person realizing it, the yetzer hara increases his strength over the person and rules over him. And if a person uses all the tactics in the world but does not take the medicine that was created for the yetzer hara, which is Torah as I wrote, he will not notice or realize as his illness [the yetzer hara’s manipulation] increases and overpowers him, [and he will not realize what is happening] until he dies in his sins and his soul is lost.
What can this be compared to? To a sick person diagnosed by doctors and told to take a certain medicine. This man, knowing nothing about medicine, did not take that medicine and instead took whatever medicines he decided. Of course this man will die! The same applies here, because there is nobody who knows the illness known as the yetzer hara and the strength embedded within it other than the Creator Who created it, and He warned us that its antidote is Torah. Who can disregard Torah and take something else instead and live? Surely, the darkness of physicality will progressively overpower him, and he won’t even realize it until he discovers that he is so entrenched in evil and so far from the truth that it doesn’t enter his mind to seek the truth.
But if he toils in Torah, when he sees its ways, its positive commandments, and its prohibitions, it will eventually automatically renew within him motivation that will bring him to the right path. This is what our sages said (Eichah Rabbah, Pesichta 2), “[Hashem said,] ‘If only they had left Me [but] kept my Torah, because the light within it would bring them back to good.’”
Hashem is practically begging us to learn Torah, because He knows it is vital for success. He wants us to use this weapon because He wants us to win, and He knows that if we don’t use it, the odds of us defeating the yetzer hara are slim.