Israel-Gaza War 5784: Ki Teitzei – Forgive, But Do Not Forget

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, skips around a lot. It talks about the laws of the female war captive, prohibitions against cutting down fruit trees during war, and various exemptions given from military service. But it also legislates kindness to animals, widows, orphans, and the stranger and respect for the debtor. It recognizes the reality that there will be times of war and times of peace, with rules around both. Even in war, there are rules that mitigate the worst behaviors.

But perhaps the most important thing we learn from Ki Teitzei is the danger of hatred.

The Israelites would have been justified, one would think, in hating the Egyptians who enslaved them and murdered their first-born. They might have hated the Edomites, who refused to let them pass through their land on the way to Canaan, even though they promised not to stray off the highway while passing through and offered to pay for the water they drank. Yet Moses told the people, “Do not despise an Edomite, for your brother he is; do not despise an Egyptian, for a sojourner you were in his land.” (Deuteronomy 23:8)

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks notes that hatred makes you a slave to your past, unable to move on. To be free, Rabbi Sacks says, one has to let go of even justified hatred. And so the Israelites, poised to become a free people in their own land, had to purge hatred and be compassionate, certainly to their fellows, but even to their enemies, even during war.

Yet Moses goes on to say: “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, in your going out from Egypt, that he encountered you on the way and cut down the stragglers among you, all the weaklings at your rear…and did not fear G-d.” (Deuteronomy 25:17-18)

Rabbi Sacks talks about two kinds of hate. There is hatred that can be reasoned with. The Egyptians feared the Hebrews might be a fifth column in their midst. They were mistaken, but not irrational. Similarly, the Edomites feared unknown outsiders who might turn against them. But Amalek had no reason to hate. They just hated. Antisemitism historically has been irrational and impervious to reason. And ever since Amalek, irrational Jew-hatred has persisted. As Amalek attacked the weak, so Hamas murdered the helpless, in their homes, in the fields, and in the tunnels. In the savage cruelties they perpetrated on October 7th and since, they followed no rules of restraint.

Israel left Gaza to make peace, yet the hatred persisted. Hamas’ charter calls to destroy and drive out the Jews from all the land between the river and the sea. Yet despite terror attacks and rockets fired at civilian centers, Israelis persisted in trying to make peace. Gazans were given jobs on the kibbutzim attacked on October 7th. Kibbutzniks who believed passionately in peace drove Gazans to Israeli hospitals for medical care. In the longing for peace, it was easy to forget that some hatred, like that of Amalek, is unreasoning and cannot be appeased.

Evidently, we are to forgive, but not forget. We cannot be trapped in hatred, for it will destroy our souls, as it destroyed the souls of Hamas. But we must not forget that not everyone wants to be freed from hatred.