PARSHAT KI TEITZEI – WHAT DO I REALLY WANT?

ב”ה

Hashem created us with desires, but He also gave us something deeper: the ability to choose what we truly want to become.

Parshat Ki Teitzei begins with one of the Torah’s most surprising laws.

A Jewish soldier goes to war, sees among the captives a beautiful woman — an eshet yefat to’ar — and desires her. The Torah then establishes a special process governing what happens next.

Rachi explique :

“Lo dibrah Torah ela keneged yetzer hara” — “The Torah spoke only in response to the yetzer hara.”¹

The Torah recognizes the enormous power of human desire.

But who is this soldier?

Is he a morally corrupt person who has spent years feeding his lowest instincts?

The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out something remarkable. This same soldier has just gone out to battle with mesirat nefesh, prepared to risk his life. He can be standing at an extremely elevated spiritual level — and nevertheless, immediately afterward, the Torah warns him about the temptation of the yefat to’ar.

Even a person at a very high level must remain vigilant against the yetzer hara. And, the Rebbe adds, even someone who has descended very low retains the ability to rise again.²

This teaches us something fundamental about being human.

Who Created the Desire?

We sometimes imagine that a truly spiritual person should eventually stop experiencing improper desires.

If I struggle, perhaps something is wrong with me.

But Hashem created the human being.

He created appetite, attraction, ambition, sexuality, anger, competitiveness, ego and the desire for pleasure. These forces can be used properly or improperly. They can be elevated or degraded.

The capacity for desire itself is part of our design.

This does not mean that every human being naturally desires every forbidden thing. Rather, Hashem created powerful human drives that, under certain circumstances, can become directed toward
something forbidden.

The question is therefore not only:

“What do I feel?”

It is:

“What will I do with what I feel?”

Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah expresses this with extraordinary honesty. A Jew should not say: “I have no desire for pork,” or “I have no desire for forbidden relationships.”

Rather:

“I desire it — but what can I do? My Father in Heaven has decreed upon me otherwise.”³

Torah does not define holiness as never experiencing temptation.

Holiness begins when desire meets something higher than desire.

But What Do I Really Want?

Here Chazal take us one level deeper.

The Gemara records a remarkable prayer:

“Master of the Universe, it is revealed and known before You that our will is to do Your will. What prevents us? The yeast in the dough and the subjugation of the nations.”⁴

The “yeast in the dough” is the yetzer hara.

So now we seem to have a contradiction.

On one level I can say:

“I want this forbidden thing.”

Yet the Gemara says:

“Our will is to do Your will.”

Which is the real me?

The Rambam gives an extraordinary answer.

He discusses a Jewish husband who is halachically obligated to give his wife a get but refuses. Under the conditions defined by halachah, a Jewish court may compel him until he declares:

“Rotzeh ani — I want to.”

How can a coerced statement be considered his genuine will?

The Rambam explains that fundamentally this Jew wants to be part of Israel, wants to perform all the mitzvot and distance himself from transgressions. What is stopping him?

His yetzer has overpowered him.⁵

The coercion does not create a new will. It removes the obstruction that is preventing his deeper will
from being expressed.

This is a revolutionary way of understanding ourselves.

A desire can be real without being my deepest desire.

I can genuinely say:

“I want this.”

And somewhere deeper within me another voice can say:

“But this is not who I ultimately want to be.”

The Spirit of Folly

Why, then, does a person sin?

The Gemara states:

“Ein adam over aveirah ela im ken nichnas bo ruach shtut” — “A person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly enters him.”⁶

Tanya chapter 24 explains this idea.

The ruach shtut — the spirit of folly — obscures the Jew’s deeper bond with Hashem. Tanya gives the example of someone who might surrender to a forbidden passion, even though that same person could be prepared to sacrifice his life rather than sever his connection with Hashem through idolatry.

Why the inconsistency?

Because at the moment of temptation, the person convinces himself that this particular act does not really affect his relationship with Hashem.

That is the folly.

If he fully experienced what his deeper self really wanted, Tanya says, he could overcome even a powerful passion.⁶

So the yetzer hara can influence what I feel without defining who I am.

Why Doesn’t Hashem Remove the Struggle?

But another question remains.

If Hashem wants us to choose correctly, why not remove the yetzer?

Tanya chapter 27 gives an astonishing answer.

A person may struggle repeatedly with unwanted thoughts and become discouraged:

“Why am I still fighting this?”

The Alter Rebbe answers:

Perhaps this is what he was created for.

Every time he rejects the improper thought, he achieves iskafya — the subjugation of the negative force. The repeated battle may itself be part of his Divine service.⁷

If Hashem wanted beings without conflicting desires, He already had angels.

Human beings can experience one desire and choose something higher.

That choice has enormous value.

And What About Bnei Noach?

The Rambam’s teaching about Rotzeh ani and Tanya’s explanation of the hidden Divine love refer specifically to the Jewish soul.

But the broader principle of human refinement has a profound message for Bnei Noach as well.

At the end of Tanya chapter 1, the Alter Rebbe cites Chazal that the good performed by the nations can naturally be mixed with self-interest — “le-garmayhu,” for oneself.

A person may give charity, but part of the motivation may be:

I want recognition.

I want people to admire me.

I want to feel important.

The commentary Lessons in Tanya immediately notes an important exception: among the nations are Chasidei Umos HaOlam, the Pious Among the Nations, whose goodness can come from genuine concern for another rather than self-interest.⁸

This means that natural motivation need not be our final destination.

A person can begin with:

“What will I get from this?”

He can grow toward:

“What does the other person need?”

And ultimately:

“What does Hashem want from me?”

The Rebbe himself addressed the difficult wording of Tanya chapter 1. He explains that it cannot mean that a non-Jew possesses literally no spark of good — without a spark of G-dliness, nothing could exist. Rather, that spark may be deeply concealed and lack conscious sensitivity to its Divine source.⁹

The human being can refine himself.

And the Rambam tells us where that journey can lead.

A non-Jew who accepts and observes the Seven Noahide Laws because the Holy One commanded them in the Torah and made them known through Moshe is called a:

Chasid MiUmos HaOlam — one of the Pious Among the Nations.¹⁰

Not merely:

“I don’t steal because prison is unpleasant.”

But:

“I don’t steal because my Creator commanded humanity not to steal.”

Not merely:

“I behave morally because society functions better.”

But:

“I want to live according to the will of Hashem.”

The self is no longer the final authority

The Real Battle of Ki Teitzei

Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of:

“Ki teitzei lamilchamah al oyevecha” — “When you go out to war against your enemy.”

There are enemies outside us.

But there is also a battlefield within.

Torah does not teach us to hate ourselves for having desires.
Nor does Torah tell us that because a desire is natural, we must follow it.

It teaches us something far greater:

A desire is real, but it does not have to be my master.

For a Jew, there is an even deeper discovery:

I may say, “I want this.”

But my neshamah can answer:

“Rotzeh ani. What I truly want is to do the will of Hashem.”

And for a Ben Noach, there is also a journey upward — from instinct to self-control, from self-interest to genuine goodness, and from human reasoning alone to consciously serving the Creator through the Seven Laws.

Hashem did not create us as finished products.

He created us capable of refinement.

Perhaps the greatest freedom is not doing whatever I want.

It is discovering that I can choose which “want” will define me.

And perhaps that is why the battle exists.

The struggle is not necessarily an obstacle to our mission.

It may be the very place where our mission is fulfilled.

Shabbat Shalom.

By Rabbi Avriel Rabenou, MSc. MBA

Sources et notes

1 Devarim 21:10–14; Kiddushin 21b; Rashi to Devarim 21:11 — “Lo dibrah Torah ela keneged yetzer hara.”
2. Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Sichat Shabbat Parshat Ki Teitzei, 11 Elul 5727 (1967). (chabad.org)
3. Sifra/Torat Kohanim, Kedoshim, on Vayikra 20:26; Rashi ad loc. — “Efshi, umah e’eseh, v’Avi
shebashamayim gazar alai.”
4. Berachot 17a — the prayer of Rabbi Alexandri: “Galui veyadua lefanecha sheretzoneinu la’asot retzonecha…
se’or sheba’isah veshibud malchuyot.” (Sefaria)
5. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Gerushin 2:20 — the explanation of “Rotzeh ani.” (Chabad.org)
6. Sotah 3a; Tanya, Likutei Amarim, ch. 24 (and see ch. 25, where the Alter Rebbe explains that the hidden
love empowers a person to overcome temptation). (Chabad.org)
7. Tanya, Likutei Amarim, ch. 27 — “Perhaps this is what he was created for…” and the avodah of iskafya.
(Chabad.org)
8. Tanya, Likutei Amarim, end of ch. 1; Lessons in Tanya commentary (n. 33) concerning Chasidei Umos
HaOlam. (Chabad.org)
9. Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Letter No. 95, 29 Menachem Av 5703, explaining the conclusion of Tanya
ch. 1. (Chabad.org)
10. Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim U’Milchamot 8:11 — definition of Chasidei Umos HaOlam.
(Chabad.org)

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