Laws of War: September 18, 2024, Ki Tetze

I have no idea how to win a war. Not the war in Gaza nor the war in Lebanon, nor the West Bank… Is this war just? Is it necessary? What I do know is that children should not be the targets of war. 

Last Shabbat we read the Parashat Ki Tetze which ends with these words about Amalek:  

Therefore, when your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God יהוה is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:19)

The traditional commentators, including Rashi, Iben Ezra and Sforno, see this as a commandment to kill every “man, woman, child, ox and sheep” even though none of this is mentioned in the Torah text. They base their interpretation on the story in Samuels where God revokes King Saul’s kingship for sparing Amalek’s king and livestock.

I was horrified to see posts online comparing Amalek to Hamas and justifying the killing of civilians in Gaza, extreme ideas that have taken root in parts of the Israeli mainstream. Recall Prime Minister Netanyahu letter to soldiers back in March where he said the following:

“Before our eyes stand the murdered, the wounded, the kidnapped, the fallen of the IDF and the security forces. In their name, and for their sake, we went into battle… since time immemorial we have fought against bitter enemies… The current struggle against the murderers of Hamas is another chapter in the story of national resistance for generations. “Remember what Amalek did to you.”

Israel has been at war for almost a year following the horrific Hamas attack on October 7th. The trauma, loss and the anxiety have strengthened extreme right-wing trends within the Religious Zionist community. 

This shift is evident not only in the political sphere but also in Torah interpretations. The political leaders of the “Dati Leumi” (religious national) parties, including finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have risen to power while normalizing racist, homophobic, and misogynist views, which they are enacting through governmental policies. Recently, a mob, led by Knesset members, stormed an army base, calling for the release of soldiers under investigation for raping a Palestinian prisoner.

There are also increasing claims that Jews are superior to non-Jews genetically, or by virtue of being God’s chosen people. Among the extreme religious right, there is enthusiasm for reclaiming a pre-modern, biblical vision of war and land conquest. On a recent podcast, a rabbi invoked the genocidal wars of the biblical Joshua as inspiration for how to conduct wars today. 

These trends terrify to me more than the external threats to Israel’s safety. They promote a religious-Israeli culture, alien to our moral tradition and our modern values. It does not value liberal democracy, science, or humanism. These ideologies have little regard for international law, or human rights. Among them are people who burn humanitarian aid for Gaza snd dance while violently attacking Palestinians shepherds. To these nationalists, negotiating for the release of hostages like Ariel Bibas or Hersh Goldberg-Polin is not a priority.

Our Jewish corpus is wide and deep. Texts that are thousands of years old are layered with centuries of interpretation to meet the ethical and intellectual standards of later generations. Famosly, the rabbinic reinterpretation of “an eye for an eye” moved from revenge to financial compensation for injury, infusing the Mitzvah with compassion and justice. 

Therefore, I would like to offer and different interpretation of the Amalek commandment, one which is supported by a code reading of the text, and aligns with my ethical values. 

The paragraph about Amalek opens with a statement that this commandment comes into effect “when your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you.”  At the time when wars have ended and the people have settled in the land, at that time, they will be asked to erase the memory of Amalek. 

The story of Amalek in the book of Exodus presents a different response to this enemy. While Deuteronomy commands the Israelites to actively erase Amalek, in Exodus God promises to do this (Exodus 17:14): “I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek.” This discrepancy raises an important question about who should be “erasing Amalek”. 

I also wonder about the choice of the word “Timche”, erase. The Torah elsewhere explicitly commands the Israelites to kill their enemies “strike all males by sword… do not let a soul live….” (Deuteronomy 20:13, 16). If the Torah wants us to kill Amalek, why does it use the word “erase”? 

To understand this, we can look at other instances where the word Timche (“erase”) appears. In Exodus 32:32, Moses pleads with God to forgive the Israelites after the sin of the golden calf: “If not, erase me from the book You have written.” Similarly, Psalms 51:3 calls on God to “blot out my transgressions,” and in Isaiah 44:22, God says, “I wipe away your sins like a cloud.” In these verses, Meche does not mean physical destruction but rather the erasure of sins or memories of the sin.

Drawing from these examples, we might read the Amalek commandment in a new light. God commands the Israelites to erase the concept of evil and war, to forgo violence once they are secure and at peace. This suggests that the erasure of Amalek is not about physical extermination but about transcending the need for war and violence.

Why propose this interpretation now? 

In the current climate, extreme right-wing religious groups promote views of Jewish supremacy in which the lives of Jews are not just holy but holier than those of non-Jews. Seek to reinstate ancient practices some long for the return of animal sacrifice, and use violence and harassment to clear areas in the West Bank of their Palestinian inhabitants.

In this moment, it is critical for those committed to Torah and ethical values to offer new interpretations that resist these fascist trends and reaffirm the universal and just nature of Judaism. 

If we believe that God is eternal and just, so too must God’s Torah be eternal and just.