Dear TBZ Community,
This Shabbat before Purim is known as Shabbat Zachor (Shabbat of Remembrance), named after the special maftir (concluding section of the Torah reading) from the book of Deuteronomy 25:17-19 which begins with the word zachor (remember).
זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָיִם
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—
אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ וְאַתָּה עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ וְלֹא יָרֵא אֱלֹהִים
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 your rear.
וְהָיָה בְּהָנִיחַ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לְךָ מִכָּל־אֹיְבֶיךָ מִסָּבִיב בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יְהֹוָה־אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ תִּמְחֶה אֶת־זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם לֹא תִּשְׁכָּח
Therefore, when your God Adonai grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God Adonai is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!
We read: remember what Amalek did! We are commanded to hear this Torah reading, and in hearing it we fulfill the mitzvah (commandment) of remembering.
This reading is traditionally connected to the holiday of Purim. The connection comes from Haman’s name in the megillah – ha-Agagi (the Agagite) – and Agag, the king of Amalek. Besides the mention of Amalek being called Hagagi, we don’t know more about the continuity of Amalek. But the rabbis taught us that Amalek symbolizes all the enemies of the Jewish people throughout history.
We also read and are challenged by the instructions: blot out the memory of our enemies. What does that mean? Tragically, in some circles, these verses of Torah are used to teach that the Jews are commanded to wipe out their enemy, literally to do so. This year, this week, it feels especially crucial to stand against this understanding, a teaching that is dangerous and that is being followed by Jewish extremists who believe that God and our tradition calls us to wipe out other people, other nations, people’s homes and villages.
As we continue to closely follow the situation in Israel under the power of the new, extremist, right-wing government, we are witnessing what has been incited by those in the highest powers of the land. Last Sunday, following a tragic terror attack that killed two Israeli brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, Jewish extremists took it upon themselves to respond with violence: a deadly attack in the Palestinian village of Huwara by Israeli settlers who set fire to Palestinian homes and cars, injuring close to 100 Palestinian residents and killing one person, Samah Hamdallah Aktash. The sight of settlers wearing kippot and tzitzit, and even pausing for maariv (evening prayers) in the midst of the attack is a chillul Hashem, a desecration of the Divine name, of the highest order.
Some people say that those who carried out the pogrom in Huwara were “wild weeds,” but that is not true. These people were not acting out of spontaneous anger about a terror attack. They are an organized terror group and the direct product of years of incitement by elected officials and extremist rabbis. Many Knesset members backed up this rampage; far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the most senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, said Wednesday that Israel should “wipe out” the Palestinian town of Huwara in the West Bank. People who call themselves religious Jews, who stopped to pray while burning a village, are using religion wrong. The prophet Isaish says explicitly:
גַּ֛ם כִּֽי־תַרְבּ֥וּ תְפִלָּ֖ה אֵינֶ֣נִּי שֹׁמֵ֑עַ יְדֵיכֶ֖ם דָּמִ֥ים מָלֵֽאוּ
Though you pray at length, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood
Prayer will not be heard if our hands are full of blood.
The last few days have also brought so much concern in Israel. Protests against the judiciary overhaul continue in Israel, with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. In a significant ramping up of their crowd dispersal tactics, police used stun grenades and water cannons against the demonstrators who blocked a key junction in Tel Aviv. For me, personally, when seeing the pictures and watching the news from Israel, I saw something familiar, something I have seen before during my childhood and teenage years under the dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile. As I looked at the pictures, I remembered the taste in my mouth and throat of the tear gas bombs when we were kids.
As I have been saying and writing the last couple of months, it is our duty to speak up. I continue to be urged by many of my colleagues and friends in Israel who have said clearly to me, that we, Jews living in the diaspora, religious leaders, all of us, whether Israelis or not, must raise our voices with them. Keeping silent now is not the way to go. It is imperative for us to condemn this new government’s attempts to institutionalize discrimination and racism, its attacks on the judicial system, its attempts to undermine the free press, its handover of law enforcement powers to extremist politicians, and the backing of violence.
So back to the text of Zachor: I invite you to read the text in the way that Beruria (one of several women sages in the Talmud) reads the verse in Psalm 104:35:
יתמו חטאים מן הארץ ורשעים עוד אינם
Let sins cease from earth, and let the wicked be no more.
In the Babylonian Talmud 10a we learn the following story:
There were thugs in the neighborhood of Rabbi Meir who caused him a great deal of trouble.
Rabbi Meir accordingly prayed that they should die.
His wife Beruria said to him: How do you make out [that such a prayer should be permitted]?
[She added:] Because it is written itamu hatta’im min haaretz – Let hatta’im* (sins) cease from earth? Is it written hot’im (sinners)?
It is written hatta’im (sins)!
Further, look at the end of the verse: and let the wicked be no more. Since the sins will cease, there will be no more wicked men!
Rather pray for them that they should repent, and there will be no more
wicked.
He did pray for them, and they repented.
*The words hata’im (sins) and hot’im (sinners) are written in the same way.
Beruria differentiates between praying for the sinners to die, and sins to disappear.
Beruria teaches us that we can not stand indifferently to wrong doing in the world, but that the solution can not be as simplistic as getting rid of those who do wrong. That is what Zachor also means, to remember, to know, to hold onto the memory of the sinners; holding the memory of the wrongdoing in the world is part of our growth as human beings. Our knowledge helps us become better people in the world. But Beruria also challenges us and reminds us that getting rid, blotting out, is not the way. We don’t get rid of the sinner, of the person; we do not shed blood or destroy the sinner. What we do is believe in the possibility of change: we build and create societies and communities where the possibility of change is possible.
Purim is a complicated holiday – so complicated that we often prefer not to deal with the hard issues it contains. Perhaps that is why we put so much emphasis in the costumes and the party! On Purim we read about oppressed people fighting for freedom and celebrating redemption; we celebrate the fact that we were saved from evil, from the enemy. We celebrate victory and by celebrating victory, we celebrate violence – and that is disturbing!
Monday is ta’anit Esther, the fast of Esther, one of the small fasts in Jewish tradition based on the part of the story where Esther decides to fast and asks the Jewish people to do so for three days, before she goes to see the king. A fast before a celebration of victory is an opportunity to look inward and perhaps to think about what happens when we move from being the victim to being the one with power and victory.
These are hard times. Hard times to hold onto during the joy of Adar and the joy of Purim. Still, we prepare for this joyful day, but look into our pain, into our suffering, remembering, recommitting ourselves, not to forget but also to believe in and create change. We hold the victories of our people, and we recognize the violence and the suffering that we bring to others.
May this Shabbat bring renewal and blessings to all of you and your loved ones.
May we find strength, courage, and patience, and open our hearts with generosity.
May all those who are ill find healing. And may we have a joyful, sweet, and peaceful Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rav Claudia