Purim is now finished, and with that, the remembrance in Parashat Zachor of Amalek, which we read on Purim. But remembering Amalek is really for every day of the year. Many people say it every day after Alenu Leshabeach.
It’s important to understand why we need to constantly remember Amalek.
The Sefer Melechet Shelomo, from Shlomo Adni, in Masechet Megilah
(chapter 3,mishna 4) quotes from an earlier sefer, Sefer Chen Tov ( at the end of Beshalach) which asks a question:
Why do we have to remember Amalek if there is nothing we can do about it? We can’t wipe them out…
And furthermore, the 613 Mitzvot don’t change, and there will still be a Mitzvah to remember Amalek after they are eradicated in the time of Mashiach. So why should we continue to remember?
The answer is that it’s a commemoration of the concept that when the Jewish people sin, problems arise.
It says that Amalek came to attack by Refidim. There was a weakness in the Jewish people. They questioned whether God was with them or not, and that is when Amalek came. Amalek came to show us that we are supposed to do Teshuva.
Similarly, in the times of Purim, when the Jewish people were dispersed, and they went to the seuda, Haman, who was from Amalek, came, to remind us to that there is something to do Teshuva on.
He says, that is what it means that we have to continue to remember Amalek. We have to remember the concept that Amalek comes to remind us that when we sin, we have to fix it.
The Midrash, in Parashat Ki Tetzeh, says that it’s comparable to a father walking with a son. The son did something wrong, and then got bitten by a dog.
As a reminder, the father doesn’t say, “Remember the dog.” Instead, he says, “Remember what you did wrong,” because it’s a nicer way of telling him to remember what he did wrong.
Hashem wants us to remember Amalek, in order to remember that our job, when things go wrong in life, is to fix them and do Teshuva, and not just think they’re happenstance.
Amalek believed in Mikreh/happenstance. They believed that every thing was coincidence. He doesn’t believe that God controls every detail in life. One of the things that the Rambam say, in the laws of Taanit, is very, very powerful.
“It’s a mitzva from the Torah to cry out, anytime there is tsara/trouble that comes upon the sibbur/multitudes.”
He quotes a pasuk in Bamidbar י,
“When an enemy comes, blow with trumpets..” and he says this isn’t only in war, it’s when any problem happens.
He says, to blow on a trumpet, to have a tehilim reading, is Teshuva.
He says that when we cry out to God, it means that we are saying that this problem came because of our deeds. And that will cause the problem to leave us.
But if we don’t cry out to God, and do Teshuva, and instead we say that this is just the way of the world, that it’s just a coincidence, this is a cruelty.”
One who reacts to world events as happenstance is cruelty, because it causes you not only to continue, but to cleave to your deeds and could bring, God forbid, more Tsarot.”
Like it says in the Torah, “If you go with the approach to life that things happen by, coincidence, then God brings has v’shalom…”
That is from the Torah, and he adds that rabbinically; we fast when something goes wrong. The whole Masechet Taanit is about fast days, when things go wrong.
The Rambam says that the concept of fasting for the public also applies to the individual. If someone has a problem in his house, he should also fast.
Why? To remind himself that it’s not happenstance.
He gives an example of someone whose family member is sick. He should fast and pray, and say Anenu…
But the fast is not the end goal, it’s just the way we show Hashem that we recognize that we have to change and fix things.
That’s the takeaway message of Amalek:
When things go wrong, we must do Teshuva.
B’ezrat Hashem, we will all do Teshuva and all good things will happen to us.
Have a wonderful day.