Who, What, Why is Amalek?
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
March 19th, 2011
Through the Rabbinic prism, the Megillah of Esther is the continuation of the initial attempt by Amalek to annihilate the Jewish people. In reading Haman's pedigree, he is called an "Agagite." This name leads us back to the story of King Saul and the Prophet Samuel's command to him to exterminate the people of Amalek for their continuing threat to Israelite existence. The Amalek king is Agag. When Saul does not kill Agag, Samuel does. Though its description is minimal, we clearly understand the bloodiness of it. Mordechai is called the "son of Kish, eish yemini." This pedigree makes Mordechai a descendant of Saul, for Saul's father was Kish and yemini is short for Benjamin, the name of the tribe. Yet the struggle-to-the-death has a previous episode, namely in the days following the Exodus from Egypt, when Amalek, unprovoked, with out cause, rhyme or reason, attacked the recently freed Israelite slaves at the very end of the column, with the most vulnerable of the weak, young and elderly exposed to the onslaught. There is no explanation for the attack, for the hatred, for the mercilessness. The Rabbis specifically chose today's maftir Aliyah and the Haftarah for Shabbat Zachor because they wanted to connect the dots in the episodes of our history. Amalek after the Exodus, Amalek during Saul's kingship, Amalek in the Megillah are all one and the same. The hatred is one and the same. The design against us is one and the same. I always wondered why Hitler's name had to begin with an "h" to follow after Haman. For the Holocaust, another "h" word, follows precisely in the footsteps of Amalek. It is all so inexplicable.
This understanding leads into the custom of why we make noise whenever Haman's name is mentioned during the reading of the Megillah. The Torah says that we are to "blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven." Since Haman is an Amalekite, we fulfill the Torah mitzvah by using the grogger, stamping our feet or shouting out 'boo.' Yet at the same time the Torah commands us "Do not forget." The implication of this verse in Torah is that we must not forget the Amalekite aggression for, by any other name, it is unending, and we will always have to "stamp it out," "drown it out," fight back. Always. Forever.
I have been asked many questions. I have many more of my own.
Will there ever stop being an Amalek?
Why did Amalek do it? Why during Moses? Why during Saul? Why in Shushan?
Why by Germany? Why by the Arabs?
Why do people hate us?
What does it mean to be hated in history?
What does it do to us?
Can we ever become Amalek back at them, whomever 'them' may be?
Do we have enough tears to cry over our dead?
Are we still obligated to fulfill the mitzvah to exterminate Amalek? And,
Who is Amalek today?
This is a seminar and not a sermon. But I will respond to a few of them.
Perhaps I will first answer who I think 'Amalek" is, or who could be an 'Amalek.' In the source in Deuteronomy it says that Amalek was "undeterred by fear of God," – they were not God-fearing. What does this mean? That answer is connected to the understanding of what is the essence that God wants from us, namely, through the institution of law, God wants us to codify and enact the protection and elevation of the holiness and the equality of each individual. That is the essence of Judaism. That is how we are "God-fearing." Beginning at least from the Exodus, the experience of slavery, in which one people subjugated another, wherein each person's humanity was destroyed, wherein the image of God was destroyed, where holiness was destroyed, Judaism has enunciated a universal vision of all humanity's equality, each person's holiness and the need of law to protect each of us from each other, to protect the weak, the young, the old, the defenseless, the sick, the disabled. When a Jew identifies with their Judaism, and for others, even if you don't,
we represent this message to the world.
We are the light.
We are the beacon.
We are the messenger.
That message is contrary to human history which is the domination, subjugation and even the extermination of one people by another. It is still going on! No one wants to hear this message. So they kill the messenger hoping to kill the message. God won't let them. That is the other reason for our existence. Each prophet has enunciated why God wants us, why God needs us on earth.
Whenever I look at the world, in the macrocosm and the microcosm, when I see unbridled, pointless, senseless hatred of others I see Amalek. Amalek's attack is against God's creatures, whether the young woman murdered last week on Broad Street, or the woman in the science lab in Maryland whose murderer just confessed. It is an Amalek that brutally murdered the members of the Fogel family. For them there will never be enough tears. Upon hearing of the horror, I immediately remembered other such moments in Israel's history. I remembered Ma'alot. I remember when Ruby and I were driving in the Galilee and I saw the signpost to the community. My heart went up to my throat. When will it end? I feel the pain of the Rabbinic debate whether or not mankind should have ever been created. They correctly saw our brutality, our viciousness, our destructiveness, our blood thirstiness. If God had asked the Rabbis prior to Creation whether or not He should have created us, there would have been a resounding "No!"
How much blood would not have been shed!
How many millions and billions of people would not have been murdered!
How many tears would not have been shed!
When will the Messiah come?
Maybe it will not happen until we stop being Amalek.
Maybe Amalek will only be destroyed when the Messiah comes.
If it is the first answer, then we have exceedingly urgent work, for there is an awfully steep mountain before us to change humanity.
And if it is the second, then I hope and pray the Messiah comes this afternoon so I don't need to make such noise tonight blotting out Haman's name.
There is one further piece I wish to address:
Despite the heavy questions that Purim provokes, we really need its frivolity. We need that levity to help us keep our balance, our equilibrium and not fall off the very narrow path that we follow. And we need to see that it takes courage and commitment to be a dedicated Jew, for that means to accept and embody our mission and purpose in the world. I look to the Megillah to teach me, to teach us. Esther, a Persian name, was prepared to remove the mask and be Hadassah, to assert her Jewishness, to accept the responsibility for her people, to step up and step forward. It took courage to say "I am a Jew and I will either rise or go down with my people." It took courage to keep a moral sanity in the insane world portrayed by the Megillah and the numerous and unending drinking that corrupted physical and moral existence. The Megillah is about an upside down world, inverted in every important sense. It took courage to keep an ethical compass. Mordechai stepped forward and refused to bow down to that world. He refused to abdicate his being, his essence to a Haman. We know the end of the story but Mordechai did not. He put his life on the line. He put his people on the line. He was prepared to live and die as a Jew, faithfully, publicly, proudly, courageously! As Helen Zimm says, "forever and ever!"
It can be tough to be a Jew. It can be risky and dangerous. It is elevating. It is illuminating. It is uplifting. It is inspiring. That pride and self-worth is the counter-balance to the hatred. I know why I am here, we are here. I know my purpose, our purpose in the world. I am proud to be a Jew. I read the Megillah and understand the cast of characters, and pray that someday there will be no more Amalek in the world.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
Temple Beth-El
3330 Grove Avenue
Richmond, VA 23221
Phone 804-355-3564
Fax 804-257-7152
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