by Rabbi Avi Billet
Parshat Zachor has a little bit of a cultish following. People who are not necessarily strict to hear Torah reading in general run to shul to hear Parshat Zachor. Many synagogues have multiple readings to make sure everyone has a chance to hear it.
Why?
Certainly there’s an element of an opportunity that comes up once a year. But before Zachor was set to be the Shabbos before Purim (for example, before Purim existed), Zachor could have likely been fulfilled any time of year.
The Slonimer Rebbe asked a few questions about Zachor.
- The mitzvah is dependent on Israel having gotten past fighting against their enemies –Why? Why not destroy them at the first opportunity?
- Why destroy their descendants, if we can’t identify them, and perhaps they don’t identify with the ways of their ancestors?
- Why Amalek specifically? There are so many nations that were bad to Israel – some far worse than Amalek!
- What strength and power does Amalek possess, that their presence on earth prevents God from being complete in this world? Is that even possible?
- Why is it an all out war – men, women, children, animals? Is this necessary?
- Why is the war against them generational? Can’t they be destroyed, and then it’s over? Why the perpetual battle? Why does it never end?
- In B’shalach we learned that Yehoshua weakened them. He had the chance! Why didn’t he destroy them at that time? Get it over with!
The Slonimer Rebbe explains the reason why the war with Amalek is forever, why we need to remember, and perhaps we can take from there why we go crazy to be sure to hear the reading. We should also be seeking to understand how it is supposed to impact our lives all the time.
Firstly, he notes that the battle with Amalek is not a physical battle.
Amalek is the “dark side” (sitra achra) and is representative of the spiritual battle every Jew faces every day of the year (until the Messiah comes).
Amalek is representative of the idea that people have free choice. There is the path of goodness, and there is the path of evil.
Amalek is an ideology, or even just an idea, that stands on an eternal battleground against goodness. After the splitting of the sea, Israel were ready to bring the world to where it needed to be. But Amalek came and threw them for a loop, and things were pushed off. Then they were at Sinai, and they could have done it again. But then they worshiped the Golden Calf further delaying this opportunity. In fact, the Slonimer Rebbe blames the event of the Golden Calf on Amalek, on account of the damage they did to the trajectory of the people.
Yehoshua weakening Amalek represents weakening the negative shell that Amalek represents, but not eradicating it.
Every sin a Jew commits strengthens the negative force that is represented by Amalek. Amalek was successful in whatever manner they were in the battle against Yehoshua, because they fought against Israel at Refidim, the place described by the rabbis as the place where “Rafu yedeihem” - the people removed their hands from their commitment to the Torah.
BilaAM (בלעם) and BaLAK (בלק) also represented Amalek, which is embedded in the combining of the last two letters of both their names. Amalek had the ability to hide their power of destruction in their animals, which is why their animals needed to be destroyed as well.
The same was true during the time of Mordechai, when the Jews were slated to return to the Holy Land to build the Temple, and Haman’s evil designs threw those plans for a loop.
And the same is true in every generation, when God wants us to arrive at that Messianic Era, and we are so close to getting there. It is the evil of Amalek which overpowers, which gets in the way, which raises its ugly head and stops us from achieving our goal. It is an ideology in individuals and in certain hate groups that prey on the weak, as Amalek did, that froth at the mouth at the idea of destroying others, that wish for the world to be in chaos and for the Jews to be in turmoil. That is Amalek. And, as we all know, Amalek is alive and well in our world.
“When God gives you rest from all of your enemies” is when you have to wipe out the memory of Amalek. The enemies may be physical, but they are also your spiritual enemies, including those who want the Jewish soul destroyed, the Jewish soul converted. It is hard to eradicate such an enemy. It remains a thorn in our side.
The Slonimer Rebbe also notes that the instruction to remember Amalek is written in the singular because it is every person’s battle. It is a spiritual battle against evil, that every time we give in to temptation, every time we lose a personal battle and sin, we are giving a victory to Amalek. Amalek started its national aim against Israel right as the Israelites left Egypt. All it wants to do is make problems for us, and Amalek is very capable of knocking us down again.
Moshe is the ultimate symbol of defeating Amalek. And Moshe is also a symbol for accepting the Torah – as he is the Ultimate Master and Teacher.
Purim is also about accepting the Torah and defeating Amalek.
The way we can, in a very practical sense, “remember what Amalek did” is through making a conscious effort to fight what Amalek represented through choosing to fit the Torah into our lives first. Amalek embodied evil, preying on the weak, taking the focus away from getting closer to God with distractions we didn’t need, including a physical confrontation on the battlefield, and an ideology that says God is irrelevant.
This battle faces us every day. So we must take the responsibility to remember who we are, and how we are to defeat Amalek day in and day out, and especially with the coming of Purim. Amalek attacked each person in the singular “what Amalek did l’kha – to you” to remind each of us to make the commitment to do what I can to eradicate the distraction of Amalek from my own experience, and the snapshot of the world on which I can have an impact.
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