Zakhor - Remembering and Doing

One of the beauties of reading and rereading Torah is how our understanding of specific narratives, laws and even sentences or words can change annually.  Take this Shabbat, the one immediately preceding Purim, for example.  Known as Shabbat Zakhor, we read a special Maftir Aliyah, one that reminds of what the Amalekites did to our ancestors as they wandered in the desert.  They did not confront Israel from the front where, presumably, they were strongest.  According to Torah, Amalek came from behind, killing those who moved slowest, who were most vulnerable.  As a result, Amalek becomes the paradigmatic enemy of the Israelites and of Am Yisrael throughout history.  The end of the special maftir this Shabbat commands us to wipe out the memory of Amalek from beneath Heaven.  In wiping them out, we are also commanded to commit them to our eternal memory.  What does it mean to blot out the memory of Amalek?  To not forget?  How is it possible to wipe out all memory and to remember at the same time?

Rashi understands our maftir literally: We are to eliminate any and all evidence of the Amalekites existence: the humans, the property and even the animals.  Rashi’s reading is based on Samuel where King Saul ultimately loses his throne to David due to his failure to carry out God’s instruction.  Saul leaves the King of Amalek alive and the people to keep the animals, purportedly to make offerings to God.  There is something visceral both about the original text in Torah and in Rashi’s explanation.  Our modern mindset rejects the active, physical, complete nature of this understanding.

I have to admit: there were times when my own discomfort with literalness of the command to eliminate Amalek gave way to a desire to see the haters of Israel and the Jewish People disappear ,in a very real way.  Sitting in a “sealed” room during the First Gulf War, wearing my gas mask, knowing there were people around the world dancing on their rooftops in celebration of our being attacked, part of me wanted them to be blotted out, to be erased.  And, frankly, there is a part of me that always remembers that feeling.  Even though reason gives way, my modern sensibility prevails and my humanity returns, hatred breeds hatred and there is a little part of me that wonders what would have happened if Amalek really was completely wiped out long ago.

Ramban and the Pesikta Rabbati, however, can be interpreted to read the passage figuratively.  If the literal reading of the text is one of vengeance and murder, the figurative approach lets us consider what Amalek represents:   the impulse to hate, to take advantage of the weak, the forgotten, the easy target.  It also demands us to act in opposition to Amalek: To love Humanity, to sanctify God’s Name in this world, to care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger.  Defeating hatred and evil required greater emphasis on love, on understanding, on communicating, on building.  Ramban argues that as long as Amalek is present in the world, God’s name and God’s Holy Seat remain incomplete.  Obviously, once Amalek disappears from the world, the unification of God’s Name and Seat in this world are completed.  That time is what we call The Messianic Era, the time of Eternal World Peace.  The question is:what are each of us doing to bring about this Era?

This week, I sat in Jerusalem with an exceptional Rabbi who suggested we start a Gemach, A Loving-Kindness Fund, together, one that will bring something real, something good, to individuals who need it.  On my next trip, we are going to choose an area not currently being taken care of, a population not being cared for, and start collecting so we can help.  One possibility, based on models of Gemachim in Israel that collect wedding dresses for brides who cannot afford them and projects in the US that collect prom dresses for girls who cannot afford them, is to collect bat mitzvah and bridesmaid dresses and make them available to those in need.  It is small but concrete and is the anti-Amalek: it supports those in need rather than taking advantage of them.  

This Shabbat, as we hear the words of the Maftir of Zakhor, we must take time to think, in very concrete terms, about what we are doing to be the antithesis of Amalek.  What are we doing to increase good in the world?  What are we doing to support those who fall through the cracks, who fall behind, who are attacked for no other reason than they are weak and forgotten?  And how can we do more?   

As soon as the focus of our Gemach is determined,  I hope you will join us in the effort.  I hope you will be inspired, as I was this week, by my friend, colleague and teacher, Rabbah Tamar Elad Applebaum, who suggested the idea of a joint-Gemach.  Similarly, I hope you will be inspired by my teacher, Danny Siegel, to find ways you can be the anti-Amalek and contribute to bringing about the completion of God’s Honored Throne in this world.  Finally, please share with me your own projects so I can spread the word and invite others to join you.  In so doing, we will all eliminate the memory of Amalek - of hatred, of suffering, of advantage-taking - and eternally remember the needs to bring more love and humanity into God’s Divine creation.

Shabbat Shalom.

כל דבר מזכיר לי - “Every Thing Reminds Me...” Thoughts on Parashat Tetzaveh - Shabbat Zachor

Annually, one of my last  stops in Israel is at the duty-free music store in Ben Gurion Airport.  I like to pick up a new recording of Israeli or Jewish music or at least listen to the new options they are playing for other shoppers.  This time, my mission was to buy the first season of “S’rugim” which translates as “Crocheted” and is a reference to young religious Israelis and their daily life experiences.  The salesman helped me find what I was looking for and started suggesting additional options. He clearly had me sized up and pegged to my age cohort and brought me new and classic recordings of Shlomo Artzi, Shalom Chanoch, Sarit Haddad and Arik Einstein.  He paused, looked at me again and said, “I bet you would love this new recording from Yehuda Poliker.”  How did this guy know?  Was it the bit of gray showing up in my hair?  

The fact is, I love the music of Yehuda Poliker.  I first heard it in 1990-1991 when I studied in Israel during my rabbinical school year.  Poliker’s music was a soothing balm during the stresses of the first Gulf War.  They served as  the uplifting tones that energized me while working with recently arrived members of the second aliyah from Ethiopia.  The only rock concert I ever attended in my life was Yehuda Poliker live at the Roman Amphitheater on Mt. Scopus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Poliker’s music is haunting, inspiring, energizing.  Drawing on his family roots from Saloniki, Greece, Poliker weaves together rhythms and tones, as well as lyrics, from Greece, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.  His music touches my soul in a very deep way.

The salesman brought over the new recording.  Titled כל דבר מזכיר לי, “Every Thing Reminds Me...” the CD is a combination of love songs and life songs.  On almost all of Poliker’s recordings, at least one title is sung in Greek.  This new CD begins with the title song in Greek and ends with the same song translated into Hebrew.  כל דבר מזכיר לי is a powerful, sad song of longing.  In everything - every moment, every image, every place -  the singer sees and feels and longs for a lover who is no longer.  It is not clear if the lover is dead or just gone but she is definitely no longer there.  The power of זכרון, of memory, is so intense you can feel and hear it in the singer’s voice.  What is not clear is whether or not the strength of memory is holding the singer back from moving forward with his life or if there is just an intense sadness as he navigates the tasks of daily living.  When is memory a blessing and when is it a curse?

Memory is at the heart of this Shabbat, the Shabbat before Purim.  On Shabbat Zakhor, the Shabbat of Remembrance, the maftir aliyah is read from a second Torah scroll and is taken from Deuteronomy 25:17-19:

זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָיִם.  אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל-הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיך -וְאַתָּה, עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ וְלֹא יָרֵא, אֱלֹקים. וְהָיָה בְּהָנִיחַ היְ אֱלֹקֶיךָ לְךָ מִכָּל-אֹיְבֶיךָ מִסָּבִיב בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר הי-אֱלֹקֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם לֹא, תִּשְׁכָּח

Remember What Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt.  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.  Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven.  Do not forget!

As we prepare to remember and blot out Haman and Zeresh, and to remember joyously our ancestors Esther and Mordechai, the special reading for Shabbat Zachor with its admonition to blot out the memory of our historical enemy, Amalek, serves as the context-setter for Haman as Amalek’s midrashic descendant.  I find the language of this reading confusing.  After all, the Torah commands us to “Remember” what Amalek did to our ancestors while simultaneously commanding us to erase or “blot out” the memory of Amalek from under Heaven.  Is it possible to remember and blot out at the same time?  If so, how? Finally, what role does the phrase ”...when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you...” play in explaining the apparent contradiction between commanding memory and commanding the blotting out of memory?

One possible explanation is that until such time as the Jewish People lives in complete safety from all enemies in all places, when ultimate Peace is granted from the Heavens, that we are obligated to remember that there are ongoing threats to our existence.  Perhaps by being cognizant of these threats, we will work harder to create conditions favorable to achieving the Messianic Era and the World Peace that comes with it.  At that time, we will blot out the memory of hatred for it will be irrelevant for all eternity.  According to this explanation, memory serves as a motivator not to achieve the negative of slaughter but to bring about the positive condition of Peace in the world.  The retaining of the memory of a national homeland in The Promised Land ultimately led to the positive outcome of the establishment of the modern State of Israel.  Remembering Gilad Shalit while in captivity provided the energy and motivation to achieve his release even at the highest of prices.  Memory of this sort can link people together across cities and countries and ideologies in order to reach achievements that might have seemed impossible otherwise.

If the above explanation provides me with an understanding of the positive power of memory, however, I am still left with the question of its negative consequences.  Memory preserving hatred leads to ethnic cleansing, to vengeance on the individual and national level.  Memory in the form of longing for that which is lost and never to return, be it love or a loved one, can paralyze a person, preventing them from moving forward into a new and more positive phase of life, to finding love anew, to find new motivation for purpose in life.  Finally, the power of Memory can prevent innovation and change.  “We have always done it this way”, if more than just a sweet recalling of prior experience, serves to block change when it is demanded because the world changes or required because certain conditions change.  When memory serves to stagnate and stifle, it leads to whithering and extinction.

Salo Baron z”l, the dean of modern Jewish historians, argued against what he referred to as the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” a scholarly viewpoint that he believed was mistaken as it looked only at the various periods of persecution of the Jewish people while ignoring any and all positive periods or events in Jewish life, thought and culture.  For Baron and his disciples, remembrance of Jewish history must be far more than the book “Every Day Remembrance Day,” a work that lists all of the tragedies that befell Jews on each and every day of the year.  Jewish memory has to include positive achievements in economics, in theology, in art, in science, etc throughout history.  On this Shabbat, as we remember what Amalek did to us, as we keep fresh in our mind what the modern descendants of Amalek, in all of their forms, attempt to do to the Jewish People and to the world, I also encourage each of us to remember and be motivated by our positive history and memories, by positive achievements and accomplishments, and that these memories help us to discover new inner strengths to change the world and ourselves in positive ways.

As I prepare for Shabbat, the music of Yehuda Poliker plays from my iPhone and yes,        כל דבר מזכיר לד “Everything reminds me.”  The sounds and the smells, the tastes and the tasks of getting ready for Shabbat remind me of what I love about Shabbat.  They remind me of sweet Shabbatot in the past.  And they stir thoughts about the sweet Shabbatot to come - those in Chicago, those on Lake Buckatabon, and those in our Jewish national homeland, Israel.

Shabbat Shalom.