“When you go to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive. And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire her and take her as a wife for yourself … And if it came to pass that you do not want her, you shall let her go where she wishes.” RASHI interprets that the verse speaks of “optional war.”

We should interpret this by the way of intimation. It is known that there are two kinds of work: the work of the general public and the work of the individual. In both, there is the war against the inclination. The work of the general public is called “a war of commandment,” or “mandatory.” In other words, we must fight in order to observe the Mitzvot [commandments] and not commit transgressions.

The work of the individual is called “optional war” and concerns things that are neither transgressions nor Mitzvot. The work is to do them with the intention to bestow.

When a person is in this optional war, the verse tells us “delivers them into your hands,” meaning that he will succeed in the war. “And you take them away captive,” and then you are rewarded with “And you see among the captives a beautiful woman.” The Shechina [Divinity] is called “a beautiful woman,” as in “Who will find a woman of valor,” since when a person fights, he is a man of valor, and the Shechina is called “a woman of valor.”

Concerning beauty, it is written in The Zohar, “a good world,” since the light of Hochma [wisdom] is revealed there, and the light of Hochma is called “beauty.” “And you desire her” means that you will have a desire and yearning to receive her.

In that case, we should know that we must perform corrections so we can receive not because of the desire but in order to bestow. “And if it came to pass that you do not want her,” meaning perform the corrections in order to bestow, then “you shall let her go where she wishes,” meaning that it is forbidden to use that quality with which he has been rewarded because it is forbidden to receive without a Masach [screen].

Precisely if his war is “optional war,” meaning in things he wants to do in order to bestow, then he is rewarded with a woman of valor, and then begins the work of the Masachim [pl. of Masach].