Zachor: Don't Forget to Remember to Forget!

by Rav Aviad Gadot, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Purim appears to be an opportune time to fulfill the Torah commandment to remember Amalek and his evil and to wipe out all traces thereof. But – it would seem that the best way to wipe something out is not to talk about it. Why then does the Torah want us to talk about Amalek, and demand that we read about him at least once a year, and actively fulfill the mitzvah of forgetting and deleting him? How can there be two commands, both to remember what he did and to wipe out all traces of his memory? Maimonides, in his classic work The Book of Mitzvot, in which he explains in brief each of the 613 commandments, divides this mitzvah into two:

• The first part is the commandment to wage war against Amalek. This is a practical imperative, one that is incumbent upon us as a sovereign people in its land, applicable just like the mitzvot of installing a king and building the Holy Temple.
• The second part is one of understanding and remembering. We are instructed to always remember that which Amalek did to us on our way out of Egypt, and to "fight" the forgetfulness of it that stems naturally from the human condition and the passing of years and circumstances.

That is, we are enjoined to remember that the Amalekites were the first to battle us after we left Egypt. We must do so by citing the verses that recount what they did, and by arousing ourselves to battle them and to hate them and their deeds, ensuring that these feelings not abate with the passage of time. The Rambam also quotes the Medrash Sifri, which states: "Remember that which Amalek did to you – by speaking of it; and do not forget – in your heart."
There is therefore no paradox regarding these two commandments. One is to wipe out Amalek's memory by actively warring against him, and the other is to retain in our consciousness the memory of our military clash against him, for use in our other wars against our enemies – G-d's enemies – so that we will know how and why to fight them, in accordance with the Torah's desire and approach. We have no practical involvement today with the mitzvah of war with Amalek, as we did in the days of the Prophet Shmuel and King Sha'ul. The Mishna tells us that we can no longer identify the ancient nations, as King Sennacherib of Assyria transferred and resettled them to the point where their roots could no longer be traced. Still, the entire miracle of Purim that all of Israel commemorates every year is based on our war against Amalek (Megillah 7a) and the remembrance thereof by Mordechai and Esther – who lived after Sennacherib! However, they were still close enough in time to remember that Haman's hatred of Israel was based in his own Amalekite roots. On the other hand, the mitzvah of remembering and awareness of Amalek is independent of time and place, and applies – with Biblical authority – in every situation, every year on the Shabbat before Purim, known as Shabbat Zakhor [the Sabbath of Remember!]. The later Halakhic authorities discuss whether this commandment can be fulfilled on the day of Purim itself when we read from the Torah the passage of the war with Amalek: "Amalek came and warred with Israel in Refidim…" (Sh'mot 17,8-16). There is recounted the war that Yehoshua bin Nun led against Amalek, in which Moshe lifted his hands in prayer all night. The war ended with Israel's victory. The author of the Arukh HaShulchan rules that we cannot fulfill with this reading the mitzvah of remembering Amalek. Rather, we must read the passage in Parashat Ki Tetze (D'varim 25,17-19), which begins with the word Zakhor and refers specifically to Amalek's sneak-attack upon Israel as they left Egypt. This is a very curious ruling. Though this is in fact the way in which the mitzvah is universally fulfilled, why can't we remember Amalek with the reading of Yehoshua's war with Amalek as well? This is especially difficult considering that this passage includes the words, "G-d will be at war with Amalek for all generations!" However, this ruling can be satisfactorily explained according to the Rambam's words above. The mitzvah to remember is not merely to recall Amalek as a historic phenomenon and by bringing an example of a war with Amalek. Rather, each Jew is obligated to live with the awareness that the concept of Amalek exists and that evil must be eradicated. Yes, it's just a memory, but it is a practical mitzvah – one that validates the wars forced upon us in all generations, as we saw during the times of Mordechai and Esther. As the Talmud derives from the verse in Esther 9: "These days are [to be] remembered and made" – involving both practical action and memory.