Remember Amalek

Torah study

RICHARD ABRAMS
Ki Teitzei/Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19

• Moses reviews a wide variety of laws regarding family, animals and property.
  
  
• Various civil and criminal laws are delineated, including those regarding sexual relationships, interaction with non-Israelites, loans and divorce.
  
  
• The portion concludes with the commandment to remember the most heinous act committed against the Israelites - Amalek's killing of the old, weak and infirm after the Israelites left Egypt.
  

When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow - in order that Adonai your God may bless you in all your undertakings. (Deuteronomy 24:19)

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt - how, undeterred by fear of God, he ... cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when Adonai your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you ... you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

1. The first text states that if you leave what you've forgotten for the stranger, the orphan and the widow, God will "bless you in all your undertakings." Do you think that God blesses us when we act ethically?
   
   
2. The biblical text says that we should both "remember what Amalek did" to us and "blot out the memory of Amalek." Are these conflicting instructions?
   

• When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you ... so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. (Genesis 9:14-15)
  
  
• Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Adonai your God: You shall not do any work. ... For in six days Adonai made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them, and God rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 20:9-11)
  
  
• Rabbi Abahu said: Why do we blow on a ram's horn? The Holy One of blessing said, "Sound before Me a ram's horn so that I may remember on your behalf the binding of Isaac the son of Abraham and account it to you as if you had bound yourselves before Me." (Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 15a)
  

1. What is the significance of the "signs" of remembrance discussed in the first three texts above? What techniques do you use to remind yourself of important names, events, etc.?
   

The act of remembering recurs throughout Judaism.

It should be apparent, however, that we don't stop there, content with our happy memories of past triumphs. Our memories shape us and guide our mission to build a better world. Our memories of bondage should remind us 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." 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, but in a state of memory that induces us to seek to make the world a better place.