Remember…What?

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The following interpretation of the relevant Biblical verses is grammatically erroneous, and also, most likely, textually and theologically inadequate and unsupportable. That never stopped me before when I believed the message to be sound, so here goes.

At the conclusion of last week’s parsha, we are commanded to remember the heinous deeds of Amalek. Accordingly, each year, on the Shabbat preceding Purim, we are required to read that portion of the Torah in which the treacherous, unprovoked attack of Amalek on the nascent nation of Israel is recalled, as well as what we have been taught is the eternal commandment to extirpate the memory of Amalek. The Haftarah of that Shabbat Zachor–Shabbat of Remembrance–deals with the Prophet Samuel’s order to King Saul that he fulfill the commandment to obliterate Amalek, and the dire consequences of Saul’s failure to do so fully.

Basic message traditionally interpreted: We should remember that Amalek is the eternal enemy of God and of Israel; we must never forget the mission to annihilate them.

But is that what the actual language of the Torah says? The Torah indeed says that we must remember, and, in a manner that would enrage a teacher of freshman composition, also never forget, what Amalek did to us:

זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק בדרך בצאתכם ממצרים

Remember what Amalek did to you when you were in the midst of your departure from Egypt.

The Torah also confirms that God’s war against Amalek is eternal:

מלחמה להשם בעמלק מדר דר

And that God has resolved to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven:

כי-מחה אמחה את-זכר עמלק מתחת השמים.

But are we actually commanded to annihilate them? The applicable verses say:

והיה בהניח השם אלקיך לך מכל-איביך מסביב בארץ אשר השם-אלקיך נתן לך נחלה לרשתה תמחה את-זכר עמלק מתחת השמים, לא תשכח.

And when the Lord, your God, relieves you of all your surrounding enemies, in the land that the Lord, your God gives to you as an inheritance to possess, erase the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget.

Remember. Do not forget. Erase the remembrance. Do these verses not contain the most self-contradictory and impossible commandments imaginable? Always remember to eradicate the memory. Once you erase something from memory, do you not render it impossible to remember? If you always remember, have you not failed to eradicate remembrance? Is God asking us to do something that is inherently impossible: always remember and do not forget to erase the memory of what, notwithstanding the erasure–you must always remember?

That conundrum aside, the question of how to confront Jew-hatred resonates throughout Jewish history and appears particularly relevant today, as our politicians and generals promise us that they will defeat and utterly wipe out Hamas–arguably, the contemporary Amalek–at the very same time that political observers and many pundits and scholars tell us that Hamas, being an ideology, cannot be eradicated, no matter how many terrorists are killed.

Right. The Torah understands that.

Look at what the Torah actually says: the war between God and Amalek is eternal.  God will provide a land for us as an inheritance to possess and will (may the day arrive soon) relieve us of our surrounding enemies.

And then, what shall we always remember, and never forget, to do? Wipe out זכר עמלק, all remembrance of Amalek. Not wipe out Amalek–God has already relieved us of our enemies. זכר עמלק–not our memory of what they did, but the murderous content of their own minds. It is their memory, their consciousness, their indoctrination, their despicable antisemitism, their collective memory, that we must constantly strive to eliminate from under heaven. Until their minds are purged of Jew-hatred, the struggle will never end. There will be no day after, just everlasting enmity and strife.

The Torah does not tell us how to accomplish this cleansing, or erasure, of זכר עמלק, the Jungian collective memory of Amalek, with its archetypal myth of a lost homeland, its seemingly ineradicable anti-semitism and hatred, its dedication to violence. But, in this (I admit) idiosyncratic interpretation, we are required to eternally remember that, beyond the constant physical threats, we are engaged in an eternal war with the mendacious lies and treacherous ideologies of our enemies, Amalekites all, whether in Gaza or Morningside Heights, whose propaganda and education teach them that the Jews have no right to this–or any–homeland. We need not wipe out Amalek if we are able to successfully improve the content of their ideology, their attitude, their collective memory of hatred.

And that is why, after we are told to remember, the Torah tells us not to forget.  Because after you are fortunate enough–or blessed enough–to win the physical battle, you tend to relax and forget that you also need to win the battle for hearts and minds, for zecher, for the collective memory. We must remember–to continuously fight against the ideas–the memory, the thought processes, the hatred, the animus–of Amalek regarding our people. The battle will never be done until the hatred in זכר עמלק is erased.

תמחה את-זכר עמלק מתחת השמים; לא תשכח.

The military victory–may it soon arrive–is not enough. We must win the battle for the minds of successive generations. And that will be even harder to accomplish.