Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

There is a long-standing tradition that on the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim, a special Maftir and Haftarah are included in the readings for that day.  Both these additional readings are associated obliquely with the coming festival. 

The Maftir known as Parashat Zachor, is a short passage from Deuteronomy 25: 17-19 which recalls an unprovoked attack upon the Israelites soon after they had left Egypt. 

 זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵֽאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם:  אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָֽרְךָ֜ בַּדֶּ֗רֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כָּל־הַנֶּֽחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחֲרֶ֔יךָ וְאַתָּ֖ה עָיֵ֣ף וְיָגֵ֑עַ וְלֹ֥א יָרֵ֖א אֱלֹקִים: וְהָיָ֡ה בְּֽהָנִ֣יחַֽ ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ֠ מִכָּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֨רֶץ֙ אֲשֶׁר ה’ אֱלֹקֶיךָ נֹתֵ֨ן לְךָ֤ נַֽחֲלָה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ תִּמְחֶה֙ אֶת־זֵ֣כֶר עֲמָלֵ֔ק מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לֹ֖א תִּשְׁכָּֽח

Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt.  When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God.  When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

This exceptionally vile attack on defenceless members of the Israelite people was carried out by a notoriously violent and sadistic tribe known as the Amalekites.  According to some scholars the Hebrew word עֲמָלֵק is etymologized as עם לק am lak, ‘a people who have a preponderance to lick up (blood)‘.  Its founding father, Amalek was in fact the grandson of Esau – so it is perhaps no surprise to find that there remained a deep-seated hatred of Jacob’s family bearing in mind the history between the twin brothers. 

Nor was this to be a one-off attack upon the Jewish people, for as the Torah makes clear in Exodus 17:16: מִלְחָמָה לַה’ בַּעֲמָלֵק מִדֹר דֹר – the war against the Amalekites would sadly recur at regular intervals throughout history.

Indeed the special Haftarah tells of one such occasion. 

During the days of King Saul, as recounted in the Book of Samuel, the Amalekites resumed hostilities against the Israelites.  They were led by a king known as Agag.  Herein we find the connection between these stories and the festival of Purim.  The arch-enemy of the Jews of Persia was none other than a direct descendant of Agag.  His name was Haman – and just as Deuteronomy 25 instructs the Israelites to erase the memory of the Amalekites, so the custom came about to erase the name of Haman when it is recited during the reading of the Book of Esther either by making a noise as the reader says his name, or by writing his name in chalk on the soles of one’s shoes and stamping one’s feet vigorously during the reading of the Megillah – so that by the time the reading is concluded, his name has been deleted.

The tragedy of Jewish history is that this conflict has endured for thousands of years.  Jews butchered by the Cossacks, mercilessly slain by the Nazis and murdered in cold blood by barbaric Arabs, are simply further examples of the oldest hatred recorded in the Bible: Amalekites, or at least those with the same blood-thirsty appetite, gleefully attacking the weakest and most vulnerable members of our people.

It comes as no surprise therefore, that following the return of more hostages in body bags, in one case a mother and her two children that Israel’s Prime Minister said that Israelis were united in their fight against Hamas, whom he described as an enemy of incomparable cruelty.  “Israel,” he said, “is 100% committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world.”  Netanyahu then added: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you.  And we do remember.”

There is no doubt, he was making a very specific point that Amalekites specialize in attacking the defenceless and exposed.  Moses reminds Israel that Amalek “attacked all who were lagging behind when you were faint and weary” (Deut. 25:18).  Amalekite raiders attacked Ziklag when David and his mighty men were marching with the Philistines to fight Saul, when only women and children were present (1 Sam. 30:2–3) and of course Haman conspired to enlist the incomparable power of the Persian Empire to exterminate the Jews who had no means by which to defend themselves until Mordechai and Esther won the support of King Ahasuerus.

As one writer expressed it – Amalekites aren’t just cruel, Amalek is the inverse—the photonegative—of Israel.  Again and again, the Lord instructs Israel to care for orphans, widows, strangers, and other vulnerable people (Ex. 22:22; Deut. 10:18; 14:29; 24:19–21; 26:12–13).  At Mt Ebal and Mt Gerizim, Israel pronounces a curse against anyone who “perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow” (Deut. 27:19), and prophet after prophet rails against Israel and her leaders for abusing the weak (Isa. 1:17; Jer. 7:6; 22:3; Ezek. 16:49; Zech. 7:10).

Amalekites don’t just happen to harm women and children as “collateral damage”, it is their raison d’être.  A straight line can be drawn between the brutality and inhumanity of the Amalekites and those in the Arab world who use women and children as human shields, who dig their tunnels beneath schools and hospitals, and who steal much needed aid from the general population.  Amalekites, whether found in Biblical times or in today’s Middle East can be considered the anti-Israel; a people whose way of life, values, and military tactics are set in direct opposition to God’s purpose for humanity.

It is no coincidence that as I write this article, news has just come through regarding yet another terrorist attack in Europe.  The UK Telegraph reports that one person has been killed and two police officers seriously injured in what Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terror attack” in eastern France.  The Algerian suspect, who authorities said was on a terror prevention watch-list, shouted “Allahu Akbar” multiple times during the attack, according to France’s national anti-terror prosecutors unit (PNAT), which has taken charge of the investigation.  This death-cult lies in direct opposition to the teachings of Judaism which hold life in all its forms to be sacred.  These are the tactics not only of Hamas, but of many other Muslim terror groups such as Indonesian Islamists who deploy women as suicide bombers, Boko Haram which uses children as “human bombs,” and terrorists in Afghanistan who have killed pregnant women and babies in maternity wards.

Such horror elicits two responses – the first is contained in the Hebrew phrase – אֵין מִילִים – that feeling of utter shock and bewilderment that leaves all decent people speechless when they consider how some humans treat their fellow human beings.  There are no words that can adequately describe our innermost feelings when we heard that two innocent children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas had been murdered and then their bodies mutilated in such a way as to cast the blame on others.   What words can express our complete disgust at the remains of an unknown woman being substituted for the mother of these poor children, Shiri Bibas?  אֵין מִילִים – there are no words.

The second response is one of incredulity that certain Western governments as well as NGO’s, who have been constant critics of Israel, have now resorted to a stony silence in the face of such barbarism.  Where Jews have no words due to shock and disbelief – others have no words because it suits their political persuasion. 

Journalist, Jake Wallis Simons penned an article questioning how anyone with a hint of humanity running through their blood could still sympathise with Hamas.

How hard is it to condemn a group that strangles a baby and a toddler, mutilates their corpses with rocks to make it look like they were killed in an airstrike, then returns them amid cheering crowds in locked coffins – no keys provided – with propaganda material stuffed around the bodies?

Yet, writes Simons, politicians in the UK and elsewhere together with aid agencies such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International continue to avoid naming and shaming the guilty party.  He also questions where is the condemnation from the Islamic communities? 

Writing from a British perspective, he noted that last March a poll showed that 46 per cent of Britain’s Islamic community sympathise with Hamas; the same number, coincidentally, that were found to believe that Jews have too much power over government policy. 

I fear the figures might be similar in Australia. 

Only last week I was listening to Mike Jeffreys on 2GB interviewing Muslim psychiatrist and social commentator, Tanveer Ahmed.  Ahmed explained how as a young Australian Muslim it was normal practice to be exposed to negative views about Jews, essentially that they were like a cancer in society, hell-bent on destroying Muslims.  In his words –this was just the norm and one wouldn’t particularly question these ideas since very few people would ever have the opportunity of meeting a Jew and being able to form their own opinion.

He expressed the view that there was a serious problem of antisemitism within Muslim communities that had emerged and developed mainly throughout the twentieth century as a direct result of the existence of the State of Israel.  This virulent antisemitism, claims Ahmed, is rooted in similar ideology to Islamic terrorism and is based on the fact that Muslims feel completely humiliated and that Palestine therefore has become the meta-symbol of that humiliation; hence Israel and Jews are tied to the perceived dominance of the West which, in the eyes of Muslims is the major reason why progress within the Islamic world has been arrested.

In comparing our enemies of today with our enemies of yesteryear, it might be useful to read what Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote about the Amalekites: his words are terrifyingly prescient:

We are commanded not to hate Egypt, but never to forget Amalek. Why the difference?  The simplest answer is to recall the Rabbis’ statement in The Ethics of the Fathers: “If love depends on a specific cause, when the cause ends, so does the love.  If love does not depend on a specific cause, then it never ends.”  The same applies to hate.  When hate depends on a specific cause, it ends once the cause disappears.  Causeless, baseless hate lasts forever.

The Egyptians oppressed the Israelites because, in Pharaoh’s words, “The Israelites are becoming too numerous and strong for us” (Ex. 1:9).  Their hate, in other words, came from fear.  It was not irrational.  The Egyptians had been attacked and conquered before by a foreign group known as the Hyksos, and the memory of that period was still acute and painful.  The Amalekites, however, were not being threatened by the Israelites.  They attacked a people who were “weary and worn out,” specifically those who were “lagging behind.”  In short: The Egyptians feared the Israelites because they were strong.  The Amalekites attacked the Israelites because they were weak.

Rarely was a biblical message so relevant to the future of the West and of freedom itself.  Peace is possible, implies Moses, even with an Egypt that enslaved and tried to destroy us.  But peace is not possible with those who attack people they see as weak and who deny their own people the freedom for which they claim to be fighting.  Freedom depends on our ability to remember and, whenever necessary, confront “the eternal gang of ruthless men,” the face of Amalek throughout history.  Sometimes there may be no alternative but to fight evil and defeat it.  This may be the only path to peace.

Hence the commandment, restated annually on Shabbat Zachor, never to allow the callous nature of the Amalekites, past and present, to lapse from our consciousness.  The spirit of Amalek is a spirit of undying envy and hostility towards Israel.  It was embedded in the original members of this tribe and has attached itself to many peoples and cultures since – including by way of example the ancient Persians, as well as the modern Iranians (together with its proxies); the Roman Empire, as well as its Church, which in Medieval times could not tolerate the Jewish rejection of Jesus; and now Islam too has been infected with the disposition of Amalek, which in its hatred of Jews believes that the wishes of Allah are being fulfilled.

There are occasions when we read texts that are rooted in the past and remain in every sense historic – but not so this week – we know it, Israel knows it too – and that is why we must be ready to combat our enemies wherever and whenever they arise.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman