Stop saying “I have to” and start saying “I want to!”

First, a little story: The Brisker Rav was once looking for a bride for a young man he was close to.

“I have an excellent shidduch for you,” one matchmaker declared. “This young lady is known for her incredible mesirus nefesh (self-sacrifice) for Torah and mitzvos.”

“Mesirus nefesh?” replied the Rav. “I’m not looking for someone who would need to be moser nefesh. I’m looking for someone who finds Torah and mitzvos pleasing and enjoyable.”

What about us? Do we see Judaism as pleasing and enjoyable?

Psukim throughout Sefer Devarim stress that Hashem gave us the mitzvos for our benefit. Yes, Judaism is about serving Hashem, but that service isn’t meant to be a burden. The Torah was actually designed to provide us with the best life possible!

Our yetzer tov, tuned in as he is to truth, has no trouble recognizing this. Our yetzer hara, however, isn’t convinced. How can we win him over? How can we actually experience Judaism as the best life possible?

Remember our four negotiation tips? Taken together, they form the “4-S Formula” for winning over our yetzer hara.

The first S stands for Small: As Rav Yisrael Salanter teaches us, growth needs to happen in small steps. If we push our yetzer hara too hard, he’ll push back even harder. If, however, we make the work look easy and reasonable, he’ll be much more likely to come on board.

S number two stands for Simple: Intellectual that he is, our yetzer tov often comes to the table with deep, content-heavy arguments. To deflect them, our yetzer hara puts on the mask of a simpleton. So, we need to address him in simpleton’s language, with straightforward, logic-based arguments that would make emotional sense even to a child.

S three stands for Satisfying: The yetzer hara is wired to seek pleasure, comfort and satisfaction. If we want him to join us in making proper choices, we need to show him how Torah and mitzvos can satisfy his desires. Yes, if we do things his way, we’ll get immediate gratification – but the satisfaction from Torah and mitzvos will be much deeper and longer-lasting. We communicate this to him through Chazal’s cheshbono shel olam, where we weigh the loss of a mitzvah against its gain, and the gain of an aveirah against its loss.

The last S stands for Steady. What carved Rabi Akiva’s rock? A steady drip of water. Its power came from its consistency. If we want to win over our yetzer hara, we need to harness that power. In his Mesillas Yesharim, the Ramchal cautions that reading through the sefer once isn’t enough. Only through chazarah, review, will we profit from wisdom it holds. Every time we review a piece of Torah or repeat a mitzvah, we enable it to make a deeper impression on us – until we’ve become completely different people.

Small. Simple. Satisfying. Steady. Bit by bit, these four steps will wear away at the yetzer hara’s grip on our minds. We’ll stop looking at Torah and mitzvos as something we have to do, and start seeing them as something we want to do.

In other words, we’ll start living the very best life possible.