Rabbi Danny Seigel – Head of Jewish Life

The Promise of Purim 

The Shabbat just past is called Shabbat Zakhor, for we read the following biblical passage: ‘Remember/Zakhor what Amalek did to you…blot out the remembrance/zekher of Amalek’.

In the reading of the Prophets for Shabbat Zakhor, we are told that King Saul loses his kingship because he did not kill King Agag of Amalek.  In the name of God, Samuel had instructed Saul:
‘Now go smite Amalek, and utterly destroy them…kill all alike, men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep’.

Before killing Agag of Amalek himself, Samuel says ‘The eternal one of Israel does not change His mind’. The biblical command to utterly destroy Amalek is never to be revoked and always to be heeded.

This week, following Shabbat Zakhor, we celebrate Purim and read Megillat Ester wherein Haman, descendant of Agag of Amalek confronts Mordechai, descendant of Saul, seeking to kill him and all the Jews. It is as if the author of this Megillah is reminding us that if we don’t completely eradicate Amalek, we might end up being the ones eradicated. Clearly, Samuel himself could not “finish the job”, and so we must remain steadfast in leaving no Amalekite alive. Accordingly, at the end of the Megillah, we read that not only Haman the Amalekite is killed but all his ten sons are slain, as well.

Children killed for the deeds of their parents or of their very distant relatives, while a biblical notion, does not “sit well’ with our Rabbinic tradition. The Talmudic Rabbi Mani presents Saul as arguing with God: ‘If a man has transgressed, did his animal transgress. If adults transgressed, did children transgress’.

Why wholesale extinction of the Amalekite people?

Significantly, this week’s parashah, Ki Tisa, presents God as declaring: ‘The Lord…a god compassionate and gracious…forgiving iniquity…and transgression, yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children’. Thus, during this week of Purim, we are reminded of the concept of inherited sin and consequent punishment for those who were not alive when the transgression was committed.

Yet, the siddur, our prayer book, argues that this is not the final word. Quoting this very verse from our parashah it says: ‘The Lord…a God compassionate and gracious…forgiving iniquity… and transgression’. Rather than prescribing punishment of all descendants of the initial transgressor, it excises the remaining words of the verse.

Indeed, this is reflected in a lesser known Purim tradition of celebrating until “Ad Lo Yada” – “Until one can no longer distinguish between ‘Cursed be Haman (the Amalekite) and blessed be Mordechai (the Jew)’ ”.

Inherited hate yields inherited destruction, for both ‘sides’.

The Talmudic Rabbis long ago sought to dispel the notion of forever eradicating Amalek, when they said: ‘The grandchildren of Haman studied Torah in Bnei Brak’.

The Israelites and the Amalekites, Haman and Mordechai, the past of our parents need not be the future of our children. We can and must live together, and learn from each other, even if our ancestors could not.