The Difference Between Holy and Evil: Shabbat Zachor.23

 

The Difference Between Holy and Evil: Shabbat Zachor

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The Sabbath before the holiday of Purim is known as “Shabbat Zachor”—the Sabbath of Remembrance. This refers to the special verses from the Torah that are read on this day—Deuteronomy 25:17-19: “Remember that which Amalek did to you... when you went out of Egypt.” This memory isn’t simply a reminiscence, a pretty postcard of some scenic spot along the way. Rather, it refers to a specific event, a horrific attack against the Israelites by the desert tribe of Amalek. 

But like so many other events described in the Torah, both good and bad, this one has taken on even larger meaning. The passage has come to serve as a signpost indicating evil itself.  

First told in Exodus 17, the attack by the Amalekites was the Israelites’ first encounter with an enemy after the exodus from Egypt. The passage we read on this Sabbath fills in some of the blanks: “[Amalek] met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary.” 

At the rear of the camp, just straggling along, were the aged and the children, the sick and weary, all those who had despaired and lost hope. If it is a holy commandment—a mitzvah—to help the weak and the needy, by their cowardly action the Amalekites provided an example of the total opposite.  From that point on, assaulting the weary and defenseless has become the epitome—the very definition—of evil.

Blotting out even the memory of Amalek becomes the charge Moses gives to Joshua as the Israelites prepare to enter the Promised Land. 

Sadly, however, the war against evil does not end with Joshua. On Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath before Purim, we read these verses from Deuteronomy precisely for that reason. As we are told in the Scroll of Esther, the founding story behind Purim, Haman is said to be a descendant of Amalek. Fortunately, his intent to kill off all Jews—men, women and children—is foiled by Mordechai and Esther. Yet even this victory does not stop the ongoing evil. Anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews and everything Jewish, continues to this day. Remembering this evil concept is a wakeup call for all of us, at every generation. 

The call to “wipe out the memory of Amalek” is not a call to war in itself, but rather to self-defense. That is our duty and right as a people, the right to survive with dignity and security.

But it is even more than that.

Evil does not stop with anti-Semitism. It is found in every hatred of “the other,” of those whom society deems marginal and irrelevant. 

Evil isn’t a word to be used lightly. Because of the tremendous danger it represents, it must not be applied at random to those with whom we disagree or even, at times, quarrel. It stands for something very specific. Its misuse can—and almost always does—become evil in itself.

The opposite of evil is not good, regardless of the common idiom. The opposite of evil is, by the Torah’s definition, holy. 

And that is what this week’s special reading has us remember. We must always remember the difference between these two concepts and, as a nation striving to be holy, focus on the historical meaning and purpose that we as a people have taken upon ourselves: To help the weak and needy, and not repress them.

We must never forget the difference.

© 2023 by Boaz D. Heilman