Reply To: Ki Tzeitaei – How to fight the Yetzer Hara, Our Bad Inflinations

The Ben Ish Chai says that the name ??-? the Almighty is the name to fight the yetzer hara with as when each letter of ??? is written in full ???, ??? and ??? the last letters add up to ??-?. When we recognize the Almighty, we realize that He gives us the strength and abilities to be able to fight the yetzer hara. It says in the parasha that it we fight the yetzer hara, ????? ?’ ????? ????, Hashem will help us to capture him. The Chasam Sofer gives us a practical means to fight him. It says ????? ???? grab a methodology from the yetzer hara. He sways us away from Hashem step wise in slow increments. He does not want for us to violate the greatest aveiros but starts from the smallest ones first. Similarly when correcting ourselves we should improve ourselves by fixing incrementally our smallest violations first. It says ??? ??? ???? ???, turn away from bad and do good ??? ???? ??????, look for peace and chase it, fight it, fight the peace that the yetzer hara is making. There is always a conflict between body and soul. What one wants, the other does not. But the yetzer hara makes peace by having the soul want what the body wants. We should disturb this peace and have the soul do something that the body does not like and continue doing it until we make peace by having the body get used to it. Continue this by improving ourselves constantly in small increments.