Remember…not to forget…remember…this is the message of Shabbat Zachor, just before Purim. We are to remember not to forget what Amalek did to us. He, or rather I imagine, his men on his command attacked our stragglers after the parting of the Red Sea. The women with kids, the old people, struggling to walk yet another step, the most vulnerable amongst us.
Later when Saul was told to wipe out all of the Amalekites, when he was commanded to essentially commit genocide, he left the King of the Amalekites alive. For that, Saul lost his own kingship and David became King.
There are those who see a direct line from Amalek to Haman. And those who see a direct line from Amalek and Haman to Hitler, even some of our modern despots. In the recent book group book, Thread of Grace, the scribe who has been sequestered away, hidden from the Nazis in a small town in Italy, remembers and enacts what his mentor had taught:
““Before beginning our task, we blot out the name of Amalek, the biblical enemy of Israel. Thus, we remember the prophesy: our enemies shall pass, and we live.” Humming absently, Giacomo selects a tiny piece of parchment from among the remnants. Inscribes on it, in the vowelless Hebrew, the consonants of Amalek’s name. Crosses them out with two lines, crushes the parchment in his palm. This much is tradition, but he takes up a second snippet of parchment. Smiling grimly at his innovation, Giacomo Tura writes four more letters: HTLR. These he crosses out three times, and then he burns the scrap.”
A rabbi I know in Boston with dual Israeli citizenship had this to say about Shabbat Zachor:
“Shabbat zachor (this Shabbat) is always challenging for me because it highlights and glorifies the desire for revenge. I am finding that challenging on the best of days. These are not the best of days. There are people out there who consider Amalek, not as a non existing Biblical enemy of times long gone, but as everyone who disagrees with them, everyone who is not part of their religion. Everyone they hate. And they use this Biblical call to blot out the memory of Amalek to justify their acts of hate and violence today. These people use a prayer book similar to the one I use, and we generally are thought of as part of one religion. But I have come to understand that we are not. So I don’t wish to remember Amalek this Shabbat. Let it be a Shabbat of forgetting Amalek instead. Of leaving old grudges and past injustices behind and returning to a tzelem, image, of the divine, that is loving, not hateful, embracing, not avenging.”
Memory is tricky. Complected. Important. Last night we talked about happiness and joy. I explained very briefly, that part of the reason we break a glass at a wedding is because even at our most joyous moments, there is some sadness. We miss those who we would have liked to be there. We are still mourning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Four times a year we recite Yizkor prayers, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot. The Bible tells us to remember.
It tells us to hear the shofar which Is called zihron t’rua.. In fact we add a section of liturgy for Rosh Hashanah called Zichronot precisely to remember. And the haftarah that day tells us that G-d remembered Hannah. (I Samuel 1:19)
Perhaps Passover is the holiday where we are told over and over again that we should remember and tell our children on that day what G-d did for us as we went forth from Egypt. We quote Rabban Gamliel in the Haggadah: “In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see himself (or herself, I add) as if he left Egypt, as it is stated (Ex. 13:8): ‘And you shall explain to your child on that day: For the sake of this, did the Lord do [this] for me in my going out of Egypt.’ Not only our ancestors did the Holy One, blessed be God, redeem, but also us [together] with them did God redeem, as it is stated (Deut. 6:23): ‘And God took us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which God swore unto our ancestors.’”
We don’t stop by remembering that G-d took us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. (We need both: the power of the mighty hand and the compassion of that outstretched arm.) We remember that we were slaves in Egypt so we are commanded to remember that we were slaves and to take care of the widow, the orphan and the stranger. It is not just the happy memories of past triumphs and previous journeys. It is not just the old joke, “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”. As My Jewish Learning reminds us, “Our memories shape us and guide our mission to build a better world. Our memories of bondage should remind us to wipe out slavery and to treat all people with dignity. Our memories of leaving the corners of our fields untouched should remind us to take care of “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” both within and outside our community. Our memories of Amalek should remind us of our role to blot out evil in the world. Ours is an active existence: We do not live in a state of forgetfulness or “forgottenness” but in a state of memory and consciousness that induces us to seek to make the world a better place. By doing so, we help realize the Baal Shem Tov‘s words that “in remembrance lies the secret of redemption.” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/remember-dont-forget/
In remembrance lies the secret of redemption. Let’s underscore that.
And yet, memory is tricky, I said. In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van der Koek, one of the leading thinkers on PTSD makes the point that the body holds on to past trauma. For healing to take place, for real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. As I have said, trauma can become generational, unless people learn that they are safe.
When I was in Heidelberg, working on my thesis about this very topic, what we now call generational trauma, and watching CNN (It was the only channel I could understand!) Israel had just accidentally hit an apartment building in Lebanon. While there were no injuries, miraculously, it was striking to hear a resident clutching his two month old daughter saying he didn’t blame the Israelis but that it would take 20 years for people to heal emotionally. A full generation. He wondered what message his two month old was receiving. People need to feel safe.
In 1994, an American Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein, used our text today to justify a massacre he perpetrated on the Muslim worshippers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. He was beaten to death by some of the survivors on the scene.
This week we saw at least two terrorist attacks in Israel, causing the deaths or Hallel and Yagel Yaniv and then Elan Ganeles, a 27 year old from West Hartford, back in Israel to attend the wedding of a friend. These attacks led to riots and protests in the town of Huwara where one Palestinian was killed, and much property was destroyed. The IDF then prevented a solidarity visit to Huwara on Friday afternoon that had been organized by an organization Standing Together and other peacenik organizations Friday afternoon. What messages did this next generation of Palestinians and Israelia receive? Do they feel safe? From a quick glance at Israeli media the answer is emphatically no. On any side.
Recently we read the section of the Torah that includes the suggestion that punishment should be eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We talked about whether that commandment had actually ever been carried out. While the Talmud teaches that if capital punishment once in 70 years it was a bloodthirsty court, it is not clear that it never happened. And we are reminded again that we should not hold a grudge or carry out vindictive punishment. “Vengeance is Mine,” says God.
This model isn’t working. It’s like the fights in the sandbox. If you hit me, I’ll hit you back. Then you’ll go get your mother and I get my father. Soon the whole neighborhood is involved.
What if there is another way? When I was a college student, I was madly in love with an Israeli. We were engaged. We were going to get married and spend half the year in Israel and half in the United States, working with the Reform Movement youth movement helping other students learn a love of Judaism and Israel. Sadly, those dreams ended when he was killed by a terrorist bomb serving as an IDF officer. The year, 1983. 40 years ago. Two generations. Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, and his subsequent works, helped me heal from that trauma. But the memory was reawakened this week. When will the victims’ families heal? Will they ever? There has to be another way.
An organization that also helped me in my own journey is Parents Circle Family Forum. https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/pcff-home-page-en/ They bring Israelis and Palestinians together who have lost loved ones to the ongoing conflict. No one should have to endure the pain I endured as a 22 year old. Their work, however, is under attack. Yet again. Dialogue is not in vogue at the moment. I gave to them again this week. In memory of Yuval, the three Israelis killed and the Palestinian.
Yossi Klein Halevi wrote an important article several years ago detailing the fact that there are two kinds of Jews. Purim Jews and Passover Jews. I have talked about this before. I thought he had found the description of my own home. You see, Simon hates Purim. I always thought it was the chaos that ensues, but he posted an important article about the underside of the Purim story published by the Reform Movement. https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/purim/adult-look-less-savory-truths-purim?fbclid=IwAR1dqGhgOTRqbGSCBhLbw1YH69CcpX22lUlU0B77rRJkAhUW5_oi6I-Nc0k
Simon loves Passover. The food, the language, the expanded time to sit at dinner and discuss the issues of the day.
Yossi , however, is teaching something different. Some Jews get the message of Purim—the world is a scary place. They are always out to get us. There are always Amalekites. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And then there are Passover Jews, those who believe that we have to welcome the widow the orphan the strangers because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. We know what it is to be a slave.
I think there is a third way. I have said we need to have both philosophies at the same time. It is a both/and. A balancing act.
Perhaps we also need to remember Esther this weekend. Mordechai told her emphatically that perhaps she was in that time and place precisely to find her voice in order to help the Jewish people survive. Maybe we all need to find our voices today. The protests that have happened in Israel almost every Saturday night since the election are heartwarming. They are finding their voices. The air force generals who are speaking out have found their voices.
“The Jewish past is always present – we invoke it and remember it as a guide for our actions today; this is our transgenerational obligation. Thus, at the beginning of the Amida prayer, we invoke our biblical ancestors.
Golda Meir reminds us of this challenge when it comes to remembering the past: “One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present” (My Life, p. 231).
https://www.jpost.com/judaism/torah-portion/article-733182
My friend from Boston ended her post with an Israeli poem. I will leave you with his words:
“Order of the Day” by Yitzhak Laor
Remember
That which
Amalek did,
to you
of course,
Over.
Do unto Amalek
what Amalek
did, to you
of course,
Over.
If you can’t
find yourself
an Amalek, call
Amalek whomever
you want to do
to him what
Amalek did,
to you of course,
Over.
Don’t compare
anything
to what Amalek
did, to you
of course,
Over.
Not when
you want to do
that which
Amalek did,
to you of course,
Over and out,
Remember.
R. Margaret,
So timely. I broke into tears. Chills ran up and down my back and my arms. Today I had a terrible, extreme reaction to a very open-minded Christian friend of mine who posted a note about Purim, and next to his note added a symbol of the cross. I came unglued. I went behind the scenes because I could not trust myself in a public space. I told him that every time he comments about the relationship of Christianity and Judaism, notes his perception that the Old Testament is the New Testament hidden, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed, all I can think of is the way that Jews have, in worst case moments, to hide themselves to survive, and in many best case moments, choose to hide themselves so as to live more peacefully and raise their children without fear. I told him if he thinks this is not the case, he should notice all of the Jews who no longer feel safe to admit that they believe that Israel has a right to exist.
I asked him why he felt compelled to stick across on a post about a purely Jewish holiday with no historical relationship to Christianity at all. I told him I did not mind if Christians want to celebrate Purim, but not to conflate Judaism with Christianity. For a million reasons, the utmost of which is that Christianity and Judaism are different at their very core but nobody wants to say that out loud, especially not Jews for fear of further othering and ostracization. I asked him not to be fooled by the supposed Judeo-Christian ethic since he thinks about this, and gave him a link to a bunch of materials written by Jews debating this supposed parallel ethic. But putting the utmost to the side and reflecting solely on his cross overlaying my Purim holiday, mostly in this minute because if The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed, then what does the majority need with the Old Testament anymore? What does anyone need with Jews anymore? It just makes it so easy to feel okay about getting rid of us, one way or the other. I told him that I have a running gene in my DNA, that his cross triggered it, that my daughters have their not-Jewish father’s fighting gene, and that scares me to death. I told him that every one of my family members who stayed to fight died. Only those who ran lived to tell the tale.
All of that because he was (most innocently) trying to signal to his Christian friends that even though this was a Jewish holiday, it was worth reading about. This is what generations of PTSD will do for a Jew.
Thank you for this timely article, and I’m going to repost it on my wall. Without all of this trauma as context.
There was an interesting article I saw earlier today on what happens when Christians appropriate Purim. I’ll find it for you.