 by Rabbi Stuart Dauermann
Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogogue, Beverly Hills, California
In today's Haftarah we read of three leaders, one evil, one
ineffectually weak, and one decisive In today's d'rash, I encourage all
of us to consider the roles of evil, ineffectual weakness, and
decisiveness in our own lives. The identities the various parties in this story, and their meaning for contemporary life are the subject of extensive discussion in the Jewish world. In a fascinating posting on the web at http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/archives/020255.html , we read the following [ heavily edited by myself]. Amalek, or so the story goes, was the grandson of Esau and the ancestor of the biblical Jews' most implacable enemies. The tribe of Amalekites are mentioned in the Torah on several occasions, the most significant being their surprise attack on the Israelites soon after the departure from Egypt. It was this attack that resulted in the divine commandment to exterminate the Amalekite tribe:
Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way as ye came forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, all that were enfeebled in thy rear, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not G-d. Therefore it shall be, when HaShem thy G-d hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which HaShem thy G-d giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget.
The duty to obliterate Amalek is regarded as a positive commandment, and Saul's failure to comply with it cost him his kingship. Haman is likewise described as the heir of Agag king of Amalek, and the Book of Esther is the story of his attempt to exterminate the Jews of Persia - a story that ends with the Jews being given permission to defend themselves and decimating his tribe instead.
What is one to do today, though, with a positive commandment to commit genocide? The dilemma is made somewhat easier by the fact that there is no nation or ethnic group today that claims descent from Amalek, but to those Orthodox Jews for whom all 613 commandments have continuing relevance, it must retain some form of meaning. The modern-day significance given to it, however, varies widely from interpreter to interpreter.
There are three ways that the commandment to exterminate Amalek can be interpreted today. One is to regard it as a dormant duty, similar to the commandments relating to sacrifices in the Temple - one that cannot be performed today because there is no Amalekite tribe, but which will be incumbent upon Jews if Amalek returns to the world. In some variations on this theme, the identity of Amalek wil be made known upon the coming of the Messiah:
... we won't know who the people of Amalek are until Elijah the Prophet comes and tells us. And then, we will wipe out all remembrance of Amalek from under Heaven.
Another possibility, which is sometimes advocated by Kahanist extremists, is to equate Amalek with the enemies of the Jews, and to accord the legal status of Amalek to any group that aligns itself against the Jewish nation. Under this interpretation, the term "Amalek" has been used to describe the Nazis and the latter- day enemies of the State of Israel, particularly the Palestinian Arabs. To those who follow this doctrine, a religious duty exists to make war upon the Palestinians until they cease to exist as a people or cease to threaten the Jews. Some go so far as to describe the Baruch Goldstein massacre [In Hebron some years ago] as a sort of perverse reenactment of the Purim story.
The third interpretation removes the concept of Amalek from the physical world entirely and recasts it as an idea. This could involve Amalek being equated with anti-Semitism, and the duty to exterminate it being reinterpreted as one to fight against anti-Jewish bigotry in all its forms. The battle against Amalek may also be viewed as a personal struggle against the evil within. To Rabbi Shraga Simmons, for instance, Amalek is the force of chaos and irreligion, and Jews may fight against it by embracing Torah:
In our own lives, we can gauge the extent of Amalek's encroachment by measuring our own level of belief in God. To the extent that an individual doubts the existence of God, is the extent that Amalek's philosophy of randomness has become a part of us. One of Amalek's battle tactics is to create doubt about God's presence, in an attempt to confuse and ultimately destroy the Jewish people. Appropriately, the numerical value of "Amalek" -- 240, is the same value as the Hebrew word safek, meaning "doubt."
Reform rabbi Sylvia Rothschild prefers an Enlightenment-based interpretation, equating Amalek more generally with injustice and inhumanity:
Our tradition paints a picture of Amalek as one who will hurt for the sheer pleasure of hurting, who will destroy aimlessly, who derives no benefit from the destruction or mutilation of the other but will do so anyway. The word describes the one who is the antithesis of 'godly' in that they see no humanity in the other, recognise no common bond between people, care not one whit for the feelings or emotions of the stranger. The Amalakite is estranged from relationship, alienated from a sense of shared ancestry, views others as commodities or objects. It is a state of being we can all slide into on occasion - we too can be Amalek [...] as we celebrate the gory end of those who tried to murder us, as we relieve ourselves of some of the stress of a minority existence amongst people who resist our particular difference, lets spare a thought for the Amalek inside all of us, the characteristics of selfishness or conceit, of narrow mindedness or wilful ignorance of other's pain. Our world contains violence and famine, slavery, hatred, huge discrepancy between rich and poor, warfare and oppression. If that isn't the presence of Amalek, I don't know what is.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs also equates the struggle against Amalek with the pursuit of justice, and applies it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in precisely the opposite way the Kahanists do: as "our internal Jewish fight against justifying the oppression of another people, and as our attempt to guarantee that this people may live in dignity."
I would add but one interpretation the excellent material quoted here, and that is this. We all have Amalek in our lives, and each of us, as well as each of our groups, congregations, organizations, affiliations, families, or whatever, are challenged by God as to whether we will be Saul or Samuel in dealing with them.
In such a construct, we might take Amalek to be a symbol of irremediable evil or sin. God calls upon us to deal with such evil decisively and thoroughly, as was his commandment to the Jewish people and as was His word to Saul.
Yeshua mirrors this mentality for us in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, where we are told:
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
This is very decisive language, reminiscent of God's instructions about dealing with Amalek.
If Amalek is a symbol of irremediable evil, then Saul is a symbol of ineffectual weakness. At the very best, Saul's approach to dealing with irremediable evil was a form of tokenism. But isn't that true in our own lives as well? Are there not areas of evil, of sin, of compromise in our lives, which we know God has called us to deal with in a radical manner, which we instead deal with ineffectually, making only a token effort to deal with "our stuff"? And in our organizational or congregational lives, are there not times when we tolerate things that are intolerable, and put off dealing with them far too long? Yes, my friends, we are often Saul. And our ineffectual weakness will eventually lead to a loss of authority, power and opportunity.
Finally there is Samuel. Notice how decisive he is in dealing with matters here first in confronting the waffling Saul, and then in dealing with Agag.
Samuel said, "Bring forward to me King Agag of Amalek." Agag approached him with faltering steps; and Agag said, "Ah, bitter death is at hand!" Samuel said: "As your sword has bereaved women, So shall your mother be bereaved among women."A nd Samuel cut Agag down before the Lord at Gilgal.
There will always be Agags/Amaleks in our own lives, in our own contexts, which God has called us to cut down. The only question is, will we be Samuel or will we be Saul? Deuteronomy 25:19 tells us what we must do: "you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!"
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