Parshas Zachor
Remembering Amalek, Defeating Amalek
The Torah's Call to Ethical Memory
The Torah’s Strange Command: Remember to Erase
The first mitzvah of Purim is not about costumes or even Megillat Esther—it’s about memory. We are commanded to hear Parshat Zachor, to listen to a short Torah reading from Deuteronomy that commands us to remember what Amalek did to us when we left Egypt. Some authorities, such as the Ramban, argue this mitzvah is d’oraita, biblical in origin. What’s puzzling, though, is that the verse commands us to both remember and erase the memory of Amalek.
How can you remember something in order to forget it? And why would God, Creator of all life, command us to hold onto hatred? Isn’t that a toxic way to live? Doesn’t our Torah tell us not to bear a grudge, to love even the stranger, to be humble and forgiving?
Yes—and yet Amalek must be remembered and erased. This paradox is not a bug of the Torah; it’s a feature. Because what we are being commanded to destroy is not a people but an idea. Amalek is not just a nation; it is a spiritual virus, a cultural cancer. Amalek is the archetype of evil without cause, of war without reason, of violence as entertainment and identity.
The Two Accounts of Amalek
The Torah gives us two key moments involving Amalek. In Exodus 17, Amalek attacks Israel from behind, targeting the stragglers—those who were weak and tired. There was no territorial dispute, no provocation, no justification. It was cruelty for its own sake. In Deuteronomy 25, the Torah recalls this unprovoked attack and commands us:
"Remember what Amalek did to you on the way out of Egypt… you must obliterate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do not forget."
We are told to remember—and to erase. But the text does not say to kill individuals randomly. Instead, the command is to erase their memory. What does that mean?
Not Genocide—Spiritual Surgery
There’s a critical disagreement between Rashi and Rambam. Rashi seems to imply that Amalek, by nature, is irredeemable. But Rambam, in Hilchot Melachim, codifies that even Amalek—like the seven Canaanite nations—must first be offered peace. If they accept the seven Noahide laws and abandon their culture of violence, they can live. They stop being Amalek, because Amalek is not a race. Amalek is a philosophy.
"The command to obliterate Amalek refers to those who refuse a peaceful settlement." (Hilchot Melachim 6:4–5)
Thus, the mitzvah is not genocide—it’s ideological warfare. We are not commanded to kill people for being born into a certain tribe, but to destroy the ideology that makes war and cruelty into a virtue.
This is what makes Amalek so dangerous. They do not kill for power or gain. They kill because they can. Like Hitler, may his name be erased, who wrote and said explicitly that the Jews were dangerous not for their wealth or land but for their ideas.
"Conscience is a Jewish invention; it is a blemish, like circumcision."
Why We Drink on Purim
Why do we get drunk on Purim? One answer: because Amalek represents cold, calculating logic stripped of compassion or faith. The Torah describes Amalek as those who “did not fear God.” Haman, descendant of Amalek, plots to destroy an entire people for daring to be different. Purim is our defiant response: a day of ecstatic joy, divine irony, and spiritual reversal.
We drink not to forget reality but to see it differently—to pierce the mask of history and realize that God is hidden within it. That even when God’s Name is absent, as it is in Megillat Esther, Providence is present.
Hitler and Amalek: When Philosophy Becomes Bloodlust
Let’s be clear: not every enemy is Amalek. But Hitler was. His obsession with Jews was not rational—it was mythic, philosophical, even metaphysical. He blamed Jews for morality, for conscience, for spirituality itself. His aim was not conquest, but purification. This is Amalek.
They don’t fight to win something. They fight because they hate the existence of the other.
The Torah is telling us that this kind of evil must be fought, named, remembered, and defeated. It must not be tolerated, explained away, or psychoanalyzed into irrelevance. Amalek is the ideology that says the weak are subhuman and the strong have a right to kill them. That culture must die.
Masculinity, Zachor, and the War of Ideas
The word zachor (remember) shares a root with zachar (male). That’s not accidental. In Kabbalah, masculine energy represents abstract ideals—seed, potential, concept. Feminine energy represents embodiment, nurturing, and realization.
Amalek hates the idea of the Jew. Not our bodies, but our influence. Our Torah, our claim that the world is moral, meaningful, and governed by a Divine Unity. Amalek would rather live in a world of nihilistic power than hear a Jew whisper Shema Yisrael. They don’t just hate Jews—they hate God, and we are His witnesses.
So they try to erase the concept of God by erasing the people who carry His message. The mitzvah to remember and erase Amalek is the mitzvah to never let go of that message. To stay proud. To teach Torah. To fight evil when it arises.
Zachor is Not About Hate. It’s About Responsibility.
We don’t remember Amalek to fuel hatred. We remember to protect the future. To stay vigilant against ideologies that dehumanize others.
If we forget Amalek, we risk welcoming them back. We risk becoming them.
The end goal is not war but peace. In the messianic future, we’re told, there will be no more killing. Because when Amalek is erased—not the people but the idea—there will no longer be a reason for war. The world will no longer need to choose between "good" killing and "bad" killing. All murder will be obsolete.
But to get there, we have to remember. We have to name evil when it arises. And we have to know that Purim is not a carnival of forgetfulness—it is a war of memory. It is joy with teeth. Laughter as resistance. Drunkenness with clarity.
May we remember Amalek only long enough to erase it.
And may we live to see the day when the sword is broken forever by the word of God.
The first mitzvah of Purim is not about costumes or even Megillat Esther—it’s about memory. We are commanded to hear Parshat Zachor, to listen to a short Torah reading from Deuteronomy that commands us to remember what Amalek did to us when we left Egypt. Some authorities, such as the Ramban, argue this mitzvah is d’oraita, biblical in origin. What’s puzzling, though, is that the verse commands us to both remember and erase the memory of Amalek.
How can you remember something in order to forget it? And why would God, Creator of all life, command us to hold onto hatred? Isn’t that a toxic way to live? Doesn’t our Torah tell us not to bear a grudge, to love even the stranger, to be humble and forgiving?
Yes—and yet Amalek must be remembered and erased. This paradox is not a bug of the Torah; it’s a feature. Because what we are being commanded to destroy is not a people but an idea. Amalek is not just a nation; it is a spiritual virus, a cultural cancer. Amalek is the archetype of evil without cause, of war without reason, of violence as entertainment and identity.
The Two Accounts of Amalek
The Torah gives us two key moments involving Amalek. In Exodus 17, Amalek attacks Israel from behind, targeting the stragglers—those who were weak and tired. There was no territorial dispute, no provocation, no justification. It was cruelty for its own sake. In Deuteronomy 25, the Torah recalls this unprovoked attack and commands us:
"Remember what Amalek did to you on the way out of Egypt… you must obliterate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. Do not forget."
We are told to remember—and to erase. But the text does not say to kill individuals randomly. Instead, the command is to erase their memory. What does that mean?
Not Genocide—Spiritual Surgery
There’s a critical disagreement between Rashi and Rambam. Rashi seems to imply that Amalek, by nature, is irredeemable. But Rambam, in Hilchot Melachim, codifies that even Amalek—like the seven Canaanite nations—must first be offered peace. If they accept the seven Noahide laws and abandon their culture of violence, they can live. They stop being Amalek, because Amalek is not a race. Amalek is a philosophy.
"The command to obliterate Amalek refers to those who refuse a peaceful settlement." (Hilchot Melachim 6:4–5)
Thus, the mitzvah is not genocide—it’s ideological warfare. We are not commanded to kill people for being born into a certain tribe, but to destroy the ideology that makes war and cruelty into a virtue.
This is what makes Amalek so dangerous. They do not kill for power or gain. They kill because they can. Like Hitler, may his name be erased, who wrote and said explicitly that the Jews were dangerous not for their wealth or land but for their ideas.
"Conscience is a Jewish invention; it is a blemish, like circumcision."
Why We Drink on Purim
Why do we get drunk on Purim? One answer: because Amalek represents cold, calculating logic stripped of compassion or faith. The Torah describes Amalek as those who “did not fear God.” Haman, descendant of Amalek, plots to destroy an entire people for daring to be different. Purim is our defiant response: a day of ecstatic joy, divine irony, and spiritual reversal.
We drink not to forget reality but to see it differently—to pierce the mask of history and realize that God is hidden within it. That even when God’s Name is absent, as it is in Megillat Esther, Providence is present.
Hitler and Amalek: When Philosophy Becomes Bloodlust
Let’s be clear: not every enemy is Amalek. But Hitler was. His obsession with Jews was not rational—it was mythic, philosophical, even metaphysical. He blamed Jews for morality, for conscience, for spirituality itself. His aim was not conquest, but purification. This is Amalek.
They don’t fight to win something. They fight because they hate the existence of the other.
The Torah is telling us that this kind of evil must be fought, named, remembered, and defeated. It must not be tolerated, explained away, or psychoanalyzed into irrelevance. Amalek is the ideology that says the weak are subhuman and the strong have a right to kill them. That culture must die.
Masculinity, Zachor, and the War of Ideas
The word zachor (remember) shares a root with zachar (male). That’s not accidental. In Kabbalah, masculine energy represents abstract ideals—seed, potential, concept. Feminine energy represents embodiment, nurturing, and realization.
Amalek hates the idea of the Jew. Not our bodies, but our influence. Our Torah, our claim that the world is moral, meaningful, and governed by a Divine Unity. Amalek would rather live in a world of nihilistic power than hear a Jew whisper Shema Yisrael. They don’t just hate Jews—they hate God, and we are His witnesses.
So they try to erase the concept of God by erasing the people who carry His message. The mitzvah to remember and erase Amalek is the mitzvah to never let go of that message. To stay proud. To teach Torah. To fight evil when it arises.
Zachor is Not About Hate. It’s About Responsibility.
We don’t remember Amalek to fuel hatred. We remember to protect the future. To stay vigilant against ideologies that dehumanize others.
If we forget Amalek, we risk welcoming them back. We risk becoming them.
The end goal is not war but peace. In the messianic future, we’re told, there will be no more killing. Because when Amalek is erased—not the people but the idea—there will no longer be a reason for war. The world will no longer need to choose between "good" killing and "bad" killing. All murder will be obsolete.
But to get there, we have to remember. We have to name evil when it arises. And we have to know that Purim is not a carnival of forgetfulness—it is a war of memory. It is joy with teeth. Laughter as resistance. Drunkenness with clarity.
May we remember Amalek only long enough to erase it.
And may we live to see the day when the sword is broken forever by the word of God.