What Does This Have To Do With The HH?

It is well known that in order to rehabilitate oneself spiritually one must exercise repentance, prayer and tzedakah. All of these three factors of a person's rehabilitation depend on their mouth. Prayer - "my mouth shall praise Ad-nai etc" (Ps. 145:21). And so too Torah study - "and you shall teach them etc" (Deut. 6:7), that one should repeat them with your mouth. Repentance - they already said "in your mouth and in your heart to to it" (Deut. 30:14) refers to repentance, and the essence of repentance is verbal confession through a broken heart (Eruvin 54) and so too "bring words with you and return" (Hosea 14:3) Charity, too, as our sages (Baba Batra 9b) say that anyone who gives charity acquires six blessings; if someone also tries to make the recipient feel better by kind and encouraging words he will qualify for eleven blessings - behold the essence of tzedakah is verbal encouragement. Therefore, the words voice, fasting and money [קול צום ממון] all have the same numerical value - 136, and they are [symbolic of] tefilah, tzedakah and teshuvah. The very first part of our parsha Ki Tetze alludes to all the three ingredients of repentance. Even tough the plain meaning is war, the paragraph refers to the ongoing battle between a person and their evil urge. Many of the commentators wrote, regarding the previous portion in Parashat Shoftim on the verse about the siege laid to a city (Deut. 20:19) that this is about the greatest war a person has to fight in this life. The matter is illustrated in the Talmud by the story of the elderly sage who met soldiers of the army of Alexander the Great at the time of his victorious return from a major battle. These soldiers were in a very happy for having conquered such a big city. The sage told them 'you came back from a small battle, get ready for the battle of your lives, against the evil inclination.' This is what the sages meant when they said "the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination" (Kidushin 21b). Through this allegory, we can understand the whole reason why these rules are only regarding a permitted war - permission has been given to us and the choice is ours. Once a person makes the first move in this war, then one can be certain that the Holy one of Blessing will help, as our sages say "were it not for the help of the Holy One, people would not be able to subdue the evil inclination" (Sukkah 52b) - and this is "God delivers him to your hand" (Deut. 21:10). It is significant that the Torah here employs the singular. Behold, regarding war we have a tradition that a nation does not succumb to another nation unless its angel (ie, protective spirit) in Above has first suffered defeat. Therefore the text says "and gave him" - him is the protective spirit. And this is also regarding the other war [the personal] because a person has many enemies, which are the negative forces created by one's evil deeds - from every sin a destroying angel is created, and they are all presided by the evil inclination, which is Samael, Satan, the Angel of Death, etc. (Baba Batra 16a). And this is the meaning of "Ad-nai your God will deliver him into your hand and you will take him captive" (Deut. 21:10). Taking this enemy prisoner is possible only with the help of Torah study and mitzvot, as it is written about Torah: "You went up to the heights, having taken captives" (Ps. 68:19).

From the Ba'al Shem Tov - the explanation of "when you go to war against your enemy and you take his captives" (Deut. 21:10) - it is that through the argument of the inclination to evil you can conquer it. Meaning, that if the evil inclination is quick in its work of enticing a person to transgress, in order to do its bidding from the Holy One, as it is explained in the allegory of the prostitute in the Zohar, a person should take this lesson (mussar) to heart, and similarly be quick not to listen to the evil inclination - which is the desire of one's Maker, Blessed! And this is "you take him captive", precisely.

This is the explanation: Should you go out to battle again st your enemies—This being the Evil Inclination,

and you take some of them captive—In other words, by using that very thing with which it seeks to overpower you—namely, pride—to overpower it. That is, say to it, “How can I rule when I feel haughty, and the Holy Blessed One does not reside with me?” This is sufficient for the insightful.

When you go out to war against your enemy etc and you take captives - that is the good that is found in the nation, since in every nation there is a force for good. And while that force is "among them" it is "in captivity", but when it comes "in Israel" then it is good in its completed form. And this good, while "among them" is "desire" since while it is found "among them" it is impermanent. Yet, when those who understand see that this desire will be missing, they need to make it enter "in Israel", since while the desire is "among them" it is "in captivity" - and since the force of desire comes from the Holy One of Blessing it is only appropriate to get it "in Israel."

And you desire her and take her as a wife, and you bring her etc and she shaves etc and takes off the clothes of captivity - this is that everything that finds grace in the eyes of Israel certainly has in it something good, yet, it is necessary to make many selections so as to know if this is true grace or some external trapping that met one's eye. That is why it commanded that she should distance herself from all externalities, and after that, if grace is still found in his eyes, then obviously something good is found in her.

And you see in captivity - and it is written in the Gemarah "Torah only spoke like this due to the inclination to evil" (Kiddushin 21b) - and this is found nowhere [else]. Yet, sometimes the inclination to evil can dominate a person so much that they will not be able to move [spiritually] in any way, and so it is clear that from God it comes, as we find regarding Yehudah [and Tamar] and that is why the Torah revealed this specific law, so that the awareness of the doer will not fall completely.