There is a little story about an American Indian who had a phenomenal memory. He had the amazing ability to recall everything he had done in his long life down to the most minute detail. On the Indian’s one hundredth birthday, he was interviewed by a newspaper reporter. The reporter decided to end the interview by testing the old man’s fabulous memory. “Can you tell me,” he asked, “What you had for breakfast four days after your forty-sixth birthday?”
“Sausages,” the Indian replied.
Two years later, the reporter heard that the old man was very sick and was dying and so went to visit him. As he approached the bedside, the reporter raised his right hand in Indian fashion and said, “How.”
Without missing a beat, the Indian responded, “Broiled!”
To have an amazing memory is considered one of the great gifts that a person can have. The ability to accurately remember names and faces, situations and events helps us to relive and learn from those experiences. But, as with everything, there is a downside to having a good memory.
The Jewish people has had a very, very good memory for the past 3,500 years or so. It can be said that the Torah is our collective memory and that our Jewish experiences arise from that document. And while we bring to mind every year our memories of our heroes and the wonderful faith and commitment they had to Israel and to the Jewish people, we also remember those things that we would just as soon like to forget. In this week’s Torah portion, we have such a person. Fortunately, the Torah does not let us forget it for the writers and editors of the Torah knew that, if we forget it, our commandment to be a holy people would be in serious jeopardy.
The portion has a commandment in it that is very peculiar. It says:
“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.”
It is a fascinating verse because what we are being asked to do is remember to forget Amalek. How can we ‘remember to forget’? It seems to make no sense. But it does make sense and the lesson it has for all of us is a very powerful one.
Amalek, you may recall from the first time we met him in Exodus. was a really nasty guy. The first time we encounter Amalek it is right after we crossed the Reed Sea. The Egyptians experienced ten plagues, which finally convinced them that God was more powerful than their Pharaoh, and they let us leave their land. The Egyptians had second thoughts about this, as you know, and the mighty Egyptian army pursued us all the way to the Sea. And, again as you know, the most powerful army was destroyed as the Sea of Reeds swallowed them up and allowed the Jews to cross.
The Israelites, in the meantime, were exhausted by the ordeal, hungry and thirsty. It is at this moment that Amalek strikes them in the wilderness, ‘undeterred by the fear of God,, the Bible tells us. They were totally unimpressed with the news reports about the ten plagues. The headlines about the destruction of the most powerful army in the world meant nothing to them. They were going to destroy us and, with us, the last vestiges of a belief in One God who rules the world with justice and Mercy. They would silence forever the idea that the Creator of the Universe is not a capricious and self-absorbed deity, as the pagans believed, but rather a kind and nurturing Parent helping His children to grow into mature, honest, moral adults responsible for their own actions, caring for each other and the world the Creator has given them.
Now, as terrible as that was, the Torah gives us a most important detail. It tells us that Amalek attacked our people from the rear. Why does it tell us this? The answer is easy. Who is at the rear of a large group of people marching through a wilderness? The sick. The children. The elderly. The weak. Everyone but the soldiers. Amalek’s attack was on the weakest of our group. At a time when the group itself was weakened. They did not pick on the soldiers, the strong ones, the ones their own size. Like the schoolyard bully, they attacked the ones they could easily defeat.
In short, Amalek represents the essence of evil. We were victorious against Amalek at that time, as we learn from the account of the story in the book of Exodus. Whenever Moses held up his arms, we miraculously prevailed in the battle, when Mosses dropped his arms we would be set back. Finally, Moses is assisted in propping up his arms so that we route the Amalekites. However, we did not succeed in wiping them out. Evil lived to fight again.
The commandment given to us in the Torah to “wipe out the memory of Amalek” is not to wipe Amalek off the face of the earth. To wipe evil out is impossible and, besides, since when do we have the mandate to kill anyone who we believe is acting evilly? Indeed, the commandment is not even meant for us to forget Amalek. That, too, is impossible. Rather, what the commandment is telling us to do is to wipe out the image of Amalek from ‘under the heavens.’ That means we are commanded to remove it from everyone’s memory. In other words, if we erase the paradigm of evil – attacking the vulnerable, the children, the sick, and the weak – then we have confronted the spirit of evil and when that spirit is confronted, people change. To remember Amalek is not a “Remember the Alamo” war cry. It is not a call for vengeance. Rather, it is a call for vigilance.
The spirit of Amalek always goes after the weakest among us, the ones who are easiest to write off. This is the spirit of arrogance. It is the spirit of Richard Daley who, as mayor of Chicago, was once caught in one of his famous political boondoggles of corruption that typified his administration. He was confronted by a young reporter who said, “Aren’t you concerned and embarrassed by these activities, Mr. Mayor?” Daley turned to the young reporter and said, “Son, nothing embarrasses us.”
As ludicrous as that kind of response is, it exactly that kind of arrogance that we put up with everyday. It is the arrogance of the violence that we tolerate in our society and violence that is taught to our children through video games, TV and movies. Anyone who says that TV does not influence children has, I am sure, no children! The association is obvious to any parent with a set of eyes.
And what is worse, is that this spirit of Amalek is not embarrassed by what it portrays. Christianity may call it the ‘devil’ but Judaism believes you don’t need an outside agent to teach arrogance. Arrogance has been mastered by us all. It is humanity without self-restraint. That is the spirit of Amalek. But when each of us rises and says ‘enough’ both to the providers and to those who emulate the violence then we will chip away at that spirit of Amalek.
Amalek goes after the young. As in the desert, the young are the last ones to catch up and so they need special protection. So, too, in our day as the spirit of Amalek still lurks. Everyone who wants to build a movement always goes after the young ones first regardless of the merits of the movement. For instance, who makes up the racists who kill gays and immigrants and blacks? They are rarely stodgy old men reliving their glory days when they used to drive Panzers around the French countryside. No. Those old men are the leaders. The vast majority of the ones who perpetuate the violence are the kids for it is the kids who have been taught that someone else is responsible for their adolescent rage.
In the world of the hate mongers who go after children, one particular name stands out: George Burdi who founded a record company called “Resistance Records.” The music he sells is called “Hatecore” and it is awash with violent images and epithets aimed at blacks, Jews, Asians, and all immigrants. He promotes racist bands with names like ‘Aggravated Assault,’ ‘Nordic Thunder,’ ‘Angry Aryans,’ ‘Brutal Attack,’ ‘Blue-Eyed Devils,’ and ‘Plunder and Pillage.’ Their music sounds like mainstream rock – and that is why it appeals to young people – but its message is pure hate. One line from one song should give you an idea of how unsubtle these bands are: Kill all the niggers and you gas all the Jews, Kill a gypsy, and a colored, too.’
This is the spirit of Amalck. And that is why it is absolutely imperative that synagogues and churches and mosques make an effort both in words and deeds to teach young people not of their own religious persuasion that the people who worship in those places are not monsters. Interfaith cooperation is not just a nice neighborly get-together. It can be utterly transforming in the life of a young person. To worship together is a sure-fire way to dilute the spirit of Amalek.
Amalek always goes after the vulnerable. This the bully and the one who is power-hungry and we must stand up to that, too, no matter how difficult.
We can all relate to the true story of Sandy Katz, a woman who grew up with a violent bully of an older brother. As a child, he abused her with a screwdriver, and even set her on fire. Throughout all this violence, her parents looked the other way and never acknowledged what he did to her. She said, “He continued to behave this way and they continued to insist that I submit” and added “my mother would say, ‘He’s just trying to get close to you because he doesn’t know how to be friends.”’
Yeah, right. Parents like these often feel pressure to promote family harmony, so they deny one child’s viciousness and try to force the victimized child to be “mature” and “rise above it.” But Sandy knew that she was being abused and that justice was not being done, so at age 35 she finally defied her parents by refusing her brother’s phone calls. I started getting guilt-inducing messages from them saying that I was abandoning him and destroying the family,” she recounts. “They became increasingly angry and accusatory, haranguing me to forgive and forget without admitting there was anything to forgive and forget.”
And so she penned her brother a note trying to dilute this spirit of Amalek, not with easy forgiveness but with a response to his bullying. She even told him that she would not speak to him until he was willing to acknowledge it. He responded with a letter taking the moral high ground, saying that he was just as hurt as she was, and that all children fight – as if abuse with tools and fire is part of normal childhood squabbling! He said he was willing to let bygones be bygones, so why couldn’t she?
The bully misses the point. The bully needs to be stood up to until such time as they just get tired and go away. Amalek and his descendants only attacked Jews because they knew they could get away with it. It is only when the Jewsstart standing up that Amalek starts to back off.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke when, in a fight with a prison bully that he could not possibly defeat, Luke is struck again and again until he goes down. He rises, and it begins again. The rhythm goes on, as blood continues and eyes puff closed. ‘Stay down,’ friends yell. But he rises, again … and again. The watchers look away, then walk away. Finally there are only the two fighters. Luke is hit again. ‘Stay down!’ But he won’t. With tears, the bully leaves. Luke stands alone, as if with the question, “Is that all you’re made of?” The Amalek never bothered him again.
Amalek goes after the vulnerable and that is why the Torah enjoins us again and again to protect the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our gate.’ If we do not stand up for them, no one will. Or to paraphrase Hillel, “If not us, who? And if not now, when?”
So who then is this Amalek? One of the interesting things about Amalek and the Amalekites in the Torah is that the word Amalek has no plural. it is always in the singular. The Amalekites are called ‘the Amalekite.’ Maybe this is the Torah’s way of saying that the Amalek is a person, any person like you and like me. It is the spirit in each of us which takes advantage of the weak, that exudes not confidence but arrogance, and that bullies its way through life. It is the spirit that everyone of self-perceived superiority and invulnerability that leads to arrogance that poisons every relationship we have.
There is a Portuguese saying that goes like this:
Let no one say
And say it to your shame
That all was beauty here
Until you came.
My friends, the spirit of Amalek still lives. That is why we are commanded to remember it. But our commandment is also to erase the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. We must erase that spirit wherever it is whether it comes from without or from within.
It means taking stand against arrogance, bullying, and manipulation wherever it is found. And while it is true that making these stands may not make us the popular person, it will certainly not shame our names and it may leave the world a little better than the way we found it. And that, after all, is what it means to be a Jew. May God give us all the inner strength to be good Jews.
From <https://americanrabbi.com/the-spirit-of-amalek-within-and-without-by-cy-stanway/>
