blogs/rabbi-huberman

From Amalek to Parkland -- How Do We Remember?

There is a new movement within the United States which is showing success in reversing negative feelings towards Israel.

The approach, particularly successful on some college campuses, involves in part, turning down the volume on anti-Semitism through the ages, and increasing focus on Israel today, as a positive and progressive world player.

This new philosophy promotes an evolved view of Israel today. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, a fully equipped Israel mobile hospital is the first to land to assist the victims.

Israel currently boasts more tech startups per capita than any country on earth. Thousands of medical and technological advances have originated in Israel.

Tel Aviv is recognized as the most gay- and lesbian-friendly city on earth.

Israel, in spite of some imperfections, is the only democracy in the Middle East. All citizens, regardless of gender or ethnicity, have a vote.

Israel rests at the center of many complex issues, but we must marshal these challenging discussions through these positive realities.

So many millennials ask, "Who cares about the Dreyfus Affair, the Balfour Declaration, or the Holocaust?"

Why remember?

We struggle with these issues in the education of our own Hebrew school children. How far should we go in depicting events of the Holocaust?

We want our children to feel safe. So why upset them?

It is this issue of remembrance which rises to the surface this week, as we observe Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance.

This is the second of four special Shabbatot we commemorate in advance of Passover, and it occurs on the Sabbath before Purim -- the wildest and happiest holiday of the Jewish year. 

But before we let our hair down with crazy costumes, and excessive consumption of food and drink, there is some business to attend to.

It involves Amalek.

The Torah recounts that as the Israelites were leaving Egypt after years of slavery, it was the nation of Amalek which attacked the stragglers -- killing the elderly, the physically challenged, and the exhausted -- the ones who couldn't keep up.

I often ask, "What were the weakest of our people doing back there in the first place?" Shouldn't our most vulnerable been surrounded and protected? But that is a discussion for later.

Each year at this time, we recall the emotional and physical scars of that original desert attack. Moreover, we are told that Haman, the villain in the Purim story, was a descendant of Amalek.

The Torah reminds us in a special reading this week, "You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!" (Deuteronomy 25:19).

So, within a millennial mindset, which focuses less on history and tribalism, and more on positivity, unity and progress, how do we relate to Amalek today?

Should we remember Shabbat Zachor, or forget it?

The answer, according to our Sages, is connected to the notion that society's ongoing progress is eternally linked to our understanding of events past.

Almost two thousand years ago, our sage Akavia ben Mehalalel wrote, "Know where you come from and know to where you are going." (Pirkei Avot 3:1)

The truth is that hate crimes are on the rise within the United States. CTI's congregational leaders meet regularly with local police to evaluate our security systems and protocols. 

If we believe we are safe as Jews in the United States, we need only consult the countless American-based anti-Semitic websites.

Last summer, those carrying torches stood outside a synagogue in Charlottesville chanting, "BURN IT DOWN!"

Many Sages over the centuries have acknowledged that the commandment to "blot out Amalek" remains literally "undoable" for most Jews.

So why remember?

The Sephardic scholar Rabbi Yaakov Culi perhaps said it best when he wrote in his eighteenth-century commentary Me'am Loez, "In every generation Amalek rises to destroy us, and each time he clothes himself in a different nation."

The Roman Empire, Stalin, Nazi Germany, Iran, Hamas, and white supremacy.

Is Amalek dead? No: Amalek lives today. 

Amalek has never been more clearly manifesting than within events which occurred nine days ago in Parkland, Florida, and within previous tragedies.

Indeed, Amalek is not limited to the Torah. Today, it relates to the disturbed and racially motivated, carrying weapons manufactured to murder, used to attack the most exposed and helpless.

Indeed, the vulnerable stragglers depicted in the Bible have become the defenseless and innocent children and adults gunned down in schools, campuses, malls, clubs, cinemas and festivals.

There is much to be learned from millennials who warns us not to mire ourselves in self-reinforcing history lessons. But let us never forget the value of history, particularly within a Jewish context. 

For in every generation, descendants of Amalek will rise and victimize the exposed and the helpless.

The progress within the past nine days by the impassioned students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has taught us that the present is now, and that change is possible. 

We applaud the courage and resolve of their movement which is pressuring politicians and other adult leaders to rise from their spiritual Amalek.

In the wake of countless school shootings every year, the survivors of Parkland are saying "We must be the last." They are looking to their history as they understand it.

This is a main component of the Jewish central mission - L'Taken Olam; To repair this broken world.

As we prepare to mark Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance, let us salute these passionate young citizens, embracing a lesson which should have been practiced thousands of years ago in the desert.

Society must protect our most weary, our most vulnerable, our most helpless. We failed to do so in Biblical times. "The system" failed to do so at Parkland.

The Zohar, the most important Kabbalistic text, reminds us that Purim is the most holy day of the year. It is an eternal day to turn negativity into positivity.

It is a holiday that reveals not who we aren't or could have been, but rather, who we are becoming and we can be.

On Shabbat Zachor, on the heals of the tragic events of Parkland, let us remember. Let us challenge our own complacency and reinforce, as the Torah teaches, to strengthen our commitment to protect the most vulnerable among us.

Let the memory of the victims of Parkland continue to inspire us to blot out Amalek: the enemy within. 

And let us use history and remembrance not to promote complacency and retrenchment, but rather to inspire us towards action and change.

On this, the eve of Purim, may we always remember -- and never forget.

From the deserts of Israel to the hallways of Parkland, Florida.

Shabbat Shalom, v'kol tuv.

Rabbi Irwin Huberman