This was the Torah portion (minus the homiletics specific for the shul) from my sermon this past Shabbos. The third explanation is my own thought - didn't see it anywhere.
Are we meant to carry a grudge against those who are not allowed to join the Jewish people? Or are there other lessons to be gleaned from these instructions, especially after Sannacherib obliterated these nations through mixing populations?
Parshat Zachor 5776
The Torah tells us זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק. REMEMBER WHAT AMALEK DID TO YOU!
Our question is simple: what did עמלק do to us? The Torah has a simple answer. They happened upon you on your way out of Egypt, and attacked the stragglers and the weak who were lagging behind. Despicable behavior. So what does this do for us? It seems to tell us to carry a grudge against our enemies forever. And it tells us, that even after Amalek is destroyed, that we have to hate them, even after they haven’t existed for millennia.
We often hear people say Nazis were Amalek. But from a technical vantage-point, the Nazis were not Amalek. They may have had Amalek-like qualities. But there is no direct blood-link between Amalek and Nazis. We carry a grudge against the Nazis because the wound is still fresh. But Amalek - what they did in the wilderness might not have even killed anyone!
Even if Amalek needs to be hated forever, whatever they DID is in the past and done. Especially if they no longer exist. So why do we need to remember?
The Midrash in Eichah Rabba highlights this question. In Parshas Beshalach, Hashem says to Moshe, מחה אמחה את זכר עמלק. I will wipe them out. And here we are told זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק. Remember what עמלק did to YOU. The Midrash asks the question – didn’t עמלק make the biggest 'חילול ה? Didn’t עמלק attack YOUR people, God, right after YOU took עם ישראל out of Egypt and after YOU split the sea? Weren’t they really attacking YOU? Why is it our job to remember עמלק? The offense was against YOU!!! Humans forget things – why challenge us with remembering things that don’t relate to us, thousands of years later? The Midrash says אתה אין שכחה לפניך, You don't forget anything ever... so let this be something YOU take care of!
The Pesikta presents a challenge to this, because of a keen insight into human nature: בא וראה שלא כמדת הקדוש ברוך הוא מדת בשר ודם. מדת בשר ודם אם עשה לו חברו [רעה] אינו זזה מלבו לעולם, אבל הב"ה אינו כן. A human being never forgives. God forgives. And the example the Pesikta gives is עמלק. If God were human, He should hate עמלק forever. But “the Edomi is not to be oppressed.” [Edomi is a descendant of Eisav, just as Amalek is a descendant of Eisav] לא תתעב אדומי כי אחיך הוא. He is allowed to join the Jewish people! לא תתעב מצרי – even the Egyptian! Who was worse than the Egyptian!?! He’s allowed to join the Jewish people!
It would seem, therefore, that the way to look at what עמלק did is not to be understood in terms of carrying a grudge. True - God doesn’t forget, and yet He doesn’t carry a grudge. So we humans, who have the capacity to forget, should carry a grudge forever? Remember the chapter about the FEUD in Huckleberry Finn? Two families, Grangerford and Shepherdson. Capulet and Montague, Hatfield and McCoy. They don’t even remember what they’re fighting over anymore.
After thousands of years, you’d think we could move on.
But there are other lessons to remember from the tale of עמלק. In the Pesikta of Rav Kahana, we find עמלק serving as a symbol of what ISRAEL did wrong. The immediate tale before עמלק came is when the people complain for water saying היש י"י בקרבינו אם אין. "Is God still with us, or not?" The result of their lack of faith in God’s presence is what brought about עמלק.
So here is Lesson #1. When we remember עמלק and what almost destroyed our people right after having been saved from Egypt, we must remember that it all happened ONLY because the people had forsaken God. One trial, one tribulation, and you say “Has God abandoned us?” ???
That will bring עמלק. Remember what Amalek did, not to you, but because of you.
The second lesson comes from the צרור המור. Remember עמלק – what were they really trying to do? They were trying to prevent you from fulfilling your destiny to get to the land. This is why the section in the Torah that immediately follows the Parsha of עמלק talks about כי תבא אל הארץ. When you come to land, bring the first fruits… Bilaam even describes עמלק as the first to fight you, whose destiny is to be destroyed. To counter them, because ראשית גוים עמלק, you will bring ראשית פרי האדמה – the first fruits of the Land.
Lesson #2. Remember עמלק – there will always be people who will try to prevent you from settling the land. When they are unsuccessful.ראוי לך להודות לשם. – You must thank God for the good you have. Did עמלק defeat you? NO. ויחלש יהושע את עמלק ואת עמו Yehoshua weakened THEM. That should always be the case when people try to prevent you from owning YOUR LAND. They should fail. And you should Praise God.
As for Lesson #3: Let us take a slightly different look at the words of the Pasuk: זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק. Rashi tells us in Parshas Yisro, when the Torah says the people camped ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר that the Torah describes Israel in the singular because everywhere else their unity was tainted by מחלוקת ותרעומות. Complaints and arguments.
עמלק came and fought with ישראל. They didn’t look at Israel as a bunch of groups of people, with internal מחלוקת and different factions. זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק. Not לכם! לך! In the singular. And maybe עשה does not mean DID, but the other meaning of עשה, which is MADE.
AMALEK MADE YOU – AS ONE PEOPLE – INTO A TARGET. AMALEK MADE YOU INTO A NATION TO BE TRIFLED WITH. You were NOTHING. Haggard. Disheveled. A people who needed God to fight your battles for you.
But AMALEK MADE YOU. They FORCED YOU TO UNITE. They PUSHED you to the battlefield. They turned you, from a bunch of helpless slaves, from a bunch of nebichs, into an army that struck FEAR into enemies.
THIS IS THE ULTIMATE LESSON WE NEED TO TAKE FROM THAT WHICH אשר עשה לך עמלק.
This is one of the reasons why the Holocaust is so profound, and why it resonates until today. Who were the Jewish people? What was a shtetl? A tiny fraction of a population that Hitler viewed as a threat to whatever his mind conjured up? Some will credit the Holocaust with directly bringing about the establishment of the State of Israel. With rare exception, Israel is what unites most Jews today. To bring one example, AIPAC, which is having its annual convention over the next few days, will have its largest gathering ever – over 18,000 participants. And what is Israel? A tiny country, with a tiny population that is feared by huge countries, and considered to be THE obstacle to world peace. Ha!
Remembering עמלק should teach us about the strength we, the Jewish people, could have, were we only to be united. Because no matter how weak we seem to be, when we are united, we could even defeat עמלק who is hell-bent on destroying us.
To review our three lessons of what it means to remember עמלק:
1. Don’t let one setback, no matter how major it is, get you to lose your faith in God. He is always there.
2. Enemies will always want to prevent our people from settling and living in our Land. Think "Fogel" (their yarzeit is around now), and think of all the korbanos, HYD of just these last few months. And of all of Israel’s existence. The pain will not go away. But there is still what to be grateful to God for. The enemy will not prevail.
3. Amalek had the special ability to unite the Jewish people, turning them into a force to be reckoned with, a nation whose strongest enemy was only themselves, when their unity would fall apart.
May we be blessed to take the lessons of remembering עמלק so we can understand how important having this memory is for the continuity of our people.
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