Enemy ‘Innocence’: Complicity or Hineni?

Be happy, its Purim! We celebrate unity of the Jewish people, enjoying a feast and sharing gifts of goodwill with friends. Yet, along with its joy, Purim also asks us to remember Amalek. Amalek is a nation committed to the death and destruction of the Jewish people.  Purim reminds us that we have a responsibility and a recipe to defeat and destroy and eliminate Amalek.

The holiday shows Mordecai the Jew directing the Persian community to pray, to seek forgiveness, and atone for straying from God.  Mordecai’s call to his people was not unlike God’s call to Adam in the Garden of Eden.  Adam had strayed.  The Almighty called out – Ayekah!  Adam, “where” are you?  And such was the wake-up call inside Shushan and across Persia; where were the Persian Jews of the day?  They had strayed; but they answered the call of Mordecai and did teshuvah.  And they were rewarded with the redemption of the Purim story. The Jews answered the Ayekah call and rose up to be counted amongst the righteous:  Hineni.

We have Purim and Yom Kippur on our modern calendars, reminding us that repentance and teshuvah are always within reach.  When asked “Ayekah” we can always say “Hineni.”  But what of our modern enemies?   Where are they?  Do they stand up for truth and be counted?  Do they do “hineni” and will they have an opportunity to atone and make true choices?

God called out Adam, Ayekah.  He called to Cain in the field of brotherly murder, Ayekah.  And He so calls to the “innocents” of Gaza, Ayekah?  Where are you, “innocents of Gaza?”  What do you do when you see the kibbutz fences into Israel being breached?  Do you express outrage and clarity, or do you join in the extasy of terror?  What do you do while witnessing rape terror and blood thirsty-baby beheadings?  Do you speak to truth or join in frenzied slaughter?  What do you do when you see kidnapped Jewish hostages in your neighbor’s apartment?  Do you offer a smile as a sign of hope or humanity?  Perhaps you might toss a secreted piece of pita, expressing human compassion for the other?  Do you call the IDF and help rescue a soul going thru absolute hell?  Ayekah.  Ayekah!!  Where are you?

Innocent humanity?   How can either innocent or human you sit by idly and complicitly bearing witness to these bloody atrocities?  Perhaps you will have your hineni.  Perhaps.  When?  In the meantime, in the context of Purim, perhaps we will be strong and remember the messages of Amalek.  Amalek took our weak and assaulted us from behind as we left Egypt.  They attacked f rom Gaza, while our at-ease brothers and sisters and mothers and grandfathers and babies were at rest on holiday.  And the wicked assaulted us.  They attacked us from behind.   How do WE respond?  This is our hineni.