Teacher's Guide שיחת פרשת האזינו ח׳ תשרי תשמ״ו
“Know your enemy”, is one of the most essential fundamentals in war. In order for a soldier to go into battle confidently, he must be thoroughly fluent in all the tactics that his enemy may use against him. If not, all his training and ammunition will not help. How could a soldier be commanded to fight, when he does not know who he is fighting against? How could a soldier
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know what type of ammunition to use, if he does not know the ammunition of the enemy? Part of the rigorous training of a soldier is to be able to spot and identify an enemy at first sight, and destroy him. As our general, the Rebbe devoted many talks to Tzivos Hashem identifying the claims of the Yetzer Hora. “The Yetzer Hora will come to a Yiddishe child and tell him…” is an oft-expressed opening of the Rebbe’s “Order of the Day”. Because before a soldier can begin a mission in battle, he must first know exactly what he is up against. The Rebbe makes us fluent in the claims of the Yetzer Hora, in order to be able to identify him at first sight, not giving any attention to his words, and definitely not falling further into his trap. Sometimes the Yetzer Hora may even seem to be saying something very true. The Yetzer Hora is very sly and cunning, and knows how to manipulate his intention into a seemingly true point. Yes, it may seem that the Yetzer Hora is saying true facts. But these facts are misconstrued by the world’s perception of these facts. The true and only reality of this world however, is only in the Torah. To fight back the Yetzer Hora, The Rebbe shows us, that if we look into the Torah, we will see that the Yetzer Hora’s words are based off the falseness of this world’s misconception. Based on the Torah’s lessons and instructions to us, we can see how the Yetzer Hora’s claims are actually baseless and inherently flawed.
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