CIDA'S WAR

Earlier today I was talking to my buddy CIDA!!!! (a.k.a. Mister Lyde, a.k.a The Fades, and once known as Bernard- check out his awesome blog www.thefades.blogspot.com) and he gave me a message to tell one of the rebbeim here. The message was simply "Eem takum alai milchama, bizot ani botayach". I replied in the "huh?"He didn't really explain it to me, and so I went ahead to this Rav and told him what CIDA!!!! (obviously not his real name) said. The Rav was a bit taken back, if not shocked, but had a huge smile and wanted verification that he actually said it. I jokingly told him why would I just randomly come up to him and say that of all quotes? I then wanted to know what it meant. I tried to translate the words but it just sounded really weird when I did. So then he told me that it was a quote from Ledavid Ori (that prayer than now makes shacharit and maariv 90 seconds longer). He invited me to pull up a chair and told me the following Dvar Torah from the Yismach Yisroel:
So like I said it says, "Eem Takum alai milchama, bizot ani botayach" which means "If a war comes upon me, in this I will trust", and to this my Rav said what we are now all thinking, "What the hell does that mean?" So I'll tell you what it means. It means that the yeser hora will try to get you to do wrong. He's going to fight with you. He's going to cause an internal war inside you....if you're lucky that is. IF YOU'RE LUCKY?! What?!
What this is actually saying is that no one is 100% perfect, we all have flaws. But sometimes our flaws completely consume us, and so the Yetzer Hara doesn't even bother with us anymore, he's totally won, no need to start any wars. A king doesn't attack a land he's already conquered. But if the Yetzer Hara is still firing at you that means you're worth something, you still have value, and he's going to try to do all he can to take you over. Some have more worth than others to the Yetzer Hara, but as no one is 100% perfect, we all have some value to him. But we have to realize that as valuable as we are to him, we have even more worth we are capable of. If that war comes upon us, however, we have to trust. We have to believe in ourselves, in our own worthiness, and in Hashem. We actually have to appreciate the fact that there's a war. It means we're worth it, and that we just have to fight back, and thus grow. Will we ever be free of these battles? Who knows? Hopefully we'll have to fight less and less as time goes by and we grow.
My Rav then explained that I, like my friend, struggle a lot with the external secular world, and that we are high on the Yetzer Hara's hit list, but that we should be proud of that, and though we have been very succesful in the past we should also fight him harder now that we know it. We have to trust.
I was very glad my friend made me the messenger of this awesome, inspiring piece of Torah. In fact it was the only thing I've learned since I've been here that chipped away at the apathetic attitude I've had since I've been here...heck, it chunked away.

Things here are still OK, but hopefully I'll have more strengthening bits like that to inspire me. There will be some interesting dating topics coming up next week so stay tuned, but for now I'd just like to wish you all a great and holy shabbos!!