Has anyone ever been mean to you?
This week we celebrate a special Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembering. On this Shabbat we are required to remember the biggest bully in the Torah.
In the lengthy list of instructions to the Israelite people towards the end of the Torah, 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 the rear. Therefore... you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!"
It's a strange, paradoxical instruction - blot out the memory of Amalek, AND do not forget. You would think that if you could blot out a memory, you would no longer need to (or want to) remember. But the Israelites are instructed to somehow do both, and every year we are invited to ponder what this might mean to us.
We are reminded about Amalek on this Shabbat before the holiday of Purim, because the wicked Haman in the Purim story is supposedly a distant descendant of Amalek. For some Jews, Amalek thus became symbolic of all haters of Jews throughout our history.
But it is important to go back to the text of the Torah and notice what it is in particular that is so despicable about Amalek: He and his army are not just nasty, they are cowardly. They come up from behind and attack the Israelites who are unarmed and helpless - the women and children and old people in the back. The Torah considers this behavior much worse than, for example, how the Egyptians treated the Israelites in all their years in slavery.
So we are commanded in the Torah to blot out the memory of Amalek, and to not forget. Here is a powerful, psychological interpretation of this puzzling instruction:
Rabbi Simcha Bunim, a 19th century Chasidic master, points out that in the Hebrew text of the Torah, the instruction to blot out the memory of Amalek is written in the singular, not the plural. Simcha Bunim says, it is thus not a command to the Israelites to destroy the Amalekites, but rather a command to each individual to search out and destroy the Amalek tendencies within themselves.
This makes sense of the paradoxical instruction to blot out the memory and also to not forget - because the inner work of uprooting hatred and cowardice from our own hearts is an on-going effort. We need to return to it over and over every year, for our whole lives.
There will always be real bullies, in our personal lives and in the world at large. We will always need to protect ourselves and those we love, AND, as Simcha Bunim teaches us, there is always spiritual work to be done to look inside ourselves - to blot out the tendencies within our own hearts and minds to be cowardly, mean, and cruel. This kind of inner work can - and does - change the world.
This week we celebrate a special Shabbat called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembering. On this Shabbat we are required to remember the biggest bully in the Torah.
In the lengthy list of instructions to the Israelite people towards the end of the Torah, 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 the rear. Therefore... you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!"
It's a strange, paradoxical instruction - blot out the memory of Amalek, AND do not forget. You would think that if you could blot out a memory, you would no longer need to (or want to) remember. But the Israelites are instructed to somehow do both, and every year we are invited to ponder what this might mean to us.
We are reminded about Amalek on this Shabbat before the holiday of Purim, because the wicked Haman in the Purim story is supposedly a distant descendant of Amalek. For some Jews, Amalek thus became symbolic of all haters of Jews throughout our history.
But it is important to go back to the text of the Torah and notice what it is in particular that is so despicable about Amalek: He and his army are not just nasty, they are cowardly. They come up from behind and attack the Israelites who are unarmed and helpless - the women and children and old people in the back. The Torah considers this behavior much worse than, for example, how the Egyptians treated the Israelites in all their years in slavery.
So we are commanded in the Torah to blot out the memory of Amalek, and to not forget. Here is a powerful, psychological interpretation of this puzzling instruction:
Rabbi Simcha Bunim, a 19th century Chasidic master, points out that in the Hebrew text of the Torah, the instruction to blot out the memory of Amalek is written in the singular, not the plural. Simcha Bunim says, it is thus not a command to the Israelites to destroy the Amalekites, but rather a command to each individual to search out and destroy the Amalek tendencies within themselves.
This makes sense of the paradoxical instruction to blot out the memory and also to not forget - because the inner work of uprooting hatred and cowardice from our own hearts is an on-going effort. We need to return to it over and over every year, for our whole lives.
There will always be real bullies, in our personal lives and in the world at large. We will always need to protect ourselves and those we love, AND, as Simcha Bunim teaches us, there is always spiritual work to be done to look inside ourselves - to blot out the tendencies within our own hearts and minds to be cowardly, mean, and cruel. This kind of inner work can - and does - change the world.