Between Holy And
Evil, Sorrow and Joy
D’var Torah for
Shabbat Zachor 5778
February 24, 2018
By Rabbi Boaz D.
Heilman
We find ourselves this evening at a strange point, at a
juncture between the sacred and the profane.
The last few days’ events have left us perplexed, torn between sadness
and joy, between fear and hope.
The Rabbis have taught that, mi-sh’nichnas Adar marbin b’simcha (with the arrival of the Hebrew month
of Adar, joy increases). We are that
much closer to spring, and that is reason in itself to feel more hopeful. But additionally, in just a few days we will
be celebrating the holiday of Purim, the silliest and yet most joyful holiday
in our calendar.
But tonight we also find ourselves in the midst of mourning
for the lives cut short by the senseless and horrific shooting at the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. We find ourselves
vacillating between sadness and anger, frustrated by our inability to stop
these random acts of evil that have become an almost regular feature on our
national scene.
“The evil that men do lives after them.” These words,
written by William Shakespeare more than 400 years ago, still ring true today. The emotional shockwaves continue to reverberate
within us as we continue to hear heart-breaking stories of tragedy and heroism
from the terrible events that that took place just over a week ago.
For families who lost loved ones, these emotions will last
for a lifetime or more. But for others,
life will all-too-soon return to its “normal” pace and routine.
For most of us, especially as memories fade into the past— lest
we forget—we need reminders.
As Jews, we have several opportunities to remember during
the year. There are of course personal yahrtzeits, on which we recall the
memories of our own loved ones. Then, four
times a year, we hold communal Yizkor services.
Additionally however, there are more than a dozen fast days on which we
recall national disasters, adversities that befell our people through our long
history.
And once a year, we are commanded to recall not a personal
or even a national loss, but rather a concept.
On the Sabbath before Purim, we observe Shabbat Zachor, a day to stop and reflect about Evil itself. And on our liturgical calendar, that day is
today.
Zachor is the
Hebrew word for “Remember!” It is in the imperative mode, an inviolable command,
as vital to our Jewish consciousness as the commandment to remember the Sabbath
day and make it holy. On the Shabbat preceding Purim, the holiday that
commemorates the overturning of an evil decree, a day when dread and fear turned
into joy and exultation, on this very Sabbath, we are called upon to remember
Amalek, the tribe singled out by the Torah as completely evil, a tribe we are
commanded to utterly destroy and wipe off the face of the earth.
Evil is a concept, an idea.
As such, it’s given to interpretation and analysis. What some call evil,
others see as necessary, or even just. To cut short the debate over what is
evil and what is not, the Torah makes its point succinctly and directly. The
commandment may be found in the special reading for this day (Deut. 25: 17-19). Zachor
et Amalek—“Remember Amalek”—calls the text, “how he met you on the way and
attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired
and weary, and he did not fear God.”
It isn’t merely that the Amalekites attacked the Israelites,
weary from their years of slavery in Egypt, exhausted by their wandering in the
Sinai Wilderness. It’s that they
targeted the rear of the camp, where the tired, the hungry, the poor and the
sick were, along with all others who had lost hope along the way.
“They did not fear God.” To fear God, in light of this
passage, means to offer help to the needy.
Evil means to keep them downtrodden, or worse.
This definition is necessary so that we don’t go around
calling people we don’t like, or don’t agree with, “evil.” Evil has a specific
meaning, and like its opposite, “holy,” must not be treated lightly. The philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the
phrase, “The banality of evil,” but the Torah reminds us that evil must never
become banal. Sadly, experience teaches
us that evil is as contagious and dangerous as any deadly virus, and must be
confronted and eradicated wherever and whenever we see it.
Amalek no longer exists today, but evil is still around, and
it is not limited by time, geography or demography.
We see evil when innocent people suffer indiscriminate
violence. We see evil where there is
bullying, harassment and abuse. We see
evil when safe harbor is denied to refugees trying to escape misery and
persecution.
Certainly all along the history of the Jewish People we see
evil in words and actions directed at men, women and children simply because
they are Jews. Sadly, statistics today indicate
a steep rise in anti-Semitism. It isn’t
only Israel that is targeted.
Anti-Semitism has become a worldwide trend again, even in those places
where there are no Jews.
The debate that rages in America today, is how exactly to
eradicate all that evil. I wish there
were some simple solution. The Torah’s
commandment to annihilate Amalek in its
entirety has long since been nullified by Rabbinic tradition and Jewish law. Though self-defense is permitted—and, in
fact, is considered a mitzvah (a
sacred commandment) in itself—genocide is not.
The many freedoms we cherish and live by in America include both the
right to bear arms and the right to free speech. Curtailing those is clearly not a simple
task.
And yet, we must take a hard and close look at our society, with
the Torah’s injunction to remember—zachor—as
our guide. Words that hurt, actions that
target the destitute and helpless, behavior directed against those who are
weaker than us—whether this happens in our homes and families, at our schools,
or in the workplace—must be seen as examples of the evil that exists in our midst. Our society must make every effort to put a
stop to this kind of behavior.
Evil is a choice. Bad
things may happen, but evil takes planning, intent and execution. Often, there are signs along the way. These cannot be ignored. We cannot turn a blind eye either to the ease
with which weapons may be obtained in our country, or to the plight of those
whose personal anguish is so great that the only way out they see is by
inflicting pain and suffering on others.
Sometimes, self-defense isn’t a matter of having more guns;
rather, it’s in how we reach out, offer help, show another way, a better way, out
of the vortex of anger and misery.
That, as I see it, is the role of the community. Existence may be a solitary struggle, but we
must be there for one another. Sometimes
that means that we must limit some of our freedoms; that we restrain ourselves
when our impulse is to lash out; that we think of the needs of others as equal
to our own.
Perhaps that is why, along with other traditions associated
with Purim, we exchange gifts of food with our neighbors and friends, and why
we give gifts to the poor, and charity to the needy among us.
Sometimes the best way to eradicate evil is by doing good
deeds. If there’s one lesson that we can learn from Esther and Mordechai, the
heroes of our upcoming holiday of Purim, it is that we can’t always count on
divine intervention to lead us to the Promised Land. If we want to reach the shores of a safer,
more peaceful world, we must become active participants in the process.
Hopefully that will be the lesson we take from last week’s
tragedy in Florida, so that we will truly be able to say we did something to
stop Evil in its tracks.
May our good deeds, today and every day, outweigh the evil
we see around us, and may we have many reasons to celebrate with hope and joy
in days to come.
© 2018 by Boaz D. Heilman
