Amalek - who cares anyway?

Zachor.

Once a year, Jews are commanded to read this paragraph aloud in Synagogue:

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt;
How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God.

This commandment is taken very seriously, and the synagogue is much more crowded than usual as the late sleepers force themselves out of bed. (Some communities even read the paragraph twice in different accents to make sure it is understood by all!)

The essence of the commandment is to remember a nation named Amalek (descended from Esau), in order to blot out their name entirely. The question begs to be asked - if we had not bothered to remember Amalek all these years, their name would long ago have dropped out of human history. Thus we end up achieving the opposite effect from the one ostensibly desired. 

Furthermore, what is the point of this mitzvah anyway today? Amalek probably died out long ago, no one knows for sure, so why can't we stop flogging a dead horse?

This year, noticing my friends grappling with this question, I understood something. Since it is not obvious who Amalek is, the commandment forces us once a year to try to pinpoint what evil is. Is Amalek an evil nation? Is it a spiritual evil, and if so, what is its nature (doubt? chance? meaninglessness? rejection?) The commandment generates discussion and debate on this topic.

I think once a year to attempt to define what evil is constitutes an important and meaningful act. We remember that there is evil in the world... and perhaps ask ourselves what we can do in order to combat it.

(With thanks to Ethan Stephen Press and Barak Tzuberi, through whose struggle with the question of Amalek this insight arose).

Singing your soul song

The Nadvorna Rebbe (צמח ה' לצבי) points out that it was only when the people of Israel, after the splitting of the Sea, finally at long last

"believed in G-d, and in Moses His prophet," (Exodus 14:31)

that

"Then Moses sang this song" (Exodus 15:1) - which is of course the famous song of praise, Az Yashir.

The Nadvorna takes this in a certain direction (that we should sing even before the miracle occurs).
However I noticed another point that speaks to me: that just before the song, we hear that the people believed in G-d and in Moses.

Moses, who held back so much in following his calling at the beginning; Moses of "the uncircumcized lips", who resisted the call to leadership; who was also uncertain what to do at the Red Sea and had to be firmly instructed by G-d, "Why do you cry to me? Speak to the people of Israel, that they go forward!" (Ex. 14:15). This is the Moses who suddenly sings out without hesitation, with great confidence.

Perhaps it was precisely the people's palpable faith in him that now suddenly granted Moses the ability to sing  this extended, articulate and poetic paean to G-d. Perhaps this even enables the next phase of his spiritual career, as he becomes a fine-tuned instrument of G-d and goes on to receive the Torah on Mt Sinai.

Faith in G-d, is one important lesson of this part of the Exodus narrative; but here we also have a window into the importance of faith in people, especially our leaders.

The famous Torah of R' Nachman, the Azamra Torah (292) that speaks of finding the good points in another person and thus elevating them, continues with the following:

In just the same way you must carry on searching until you find another good point. Even if you feel that this good point is also full of flaws, you must still search for some good in it. And so you must continue finding more and more good points. This is how songs are made.

Now I understand this idea expressed by R' Nachman, which I have read several times in the past, in a more meaningful way. This truly is how songs are made.

Also, we are told they believed in Moses G-d's servant. Thus, our perception of the potential in people and leaders is most empowering to them when we focus on their calling in this life, on how they can be of unique Divine service.

So let us hold a gaze of steady faith in those others we have been given to love and admire - friends, family, leaders - so as to enable them to sing their unique divine soul song, a gift to all who surround them.

Noah and his moment

This year I have been feeling the story of Noah very deeply. Particularly, the image of this man who essentially went through a Holocaust with his family.

There is an interesting tension within our commentators (revolving around the words "in his generations") between those who would see Noah as righteous and those who would see him as mediocre at best.

It's easy to judge Noah. He wasn't Abraham - he did not plead to G-d to save the world, and he did not run around telling everyone that they needed to repent. He was "נח", passive. That is why we do not adopt him as one of our patriarchs or as a role model.

Abraham was told "Lech Lecha, leave behind everything you know and set out on a long journey." So was Noah. Both obeyed G-d. 

Abraham opened his house to guests. Noah built a (floating) house and faithfully took care of hundreds of animal guests for over a year.

Yet to be fair, Noah did not have any role models for action. G-d came and told him to do something very difficult, and he did it. He obeyed. We praise Abraham for his obedience at the Akedah, why should we not give Noah the credit for fulfilling the extremely challenging task he was given.

You could argue that neither did Abraham have any role models before him. True. But he did have Noah and the flood story (a midrash even claims that Noah was still alive when Abraham was born). He had a negative example to learn from. He also had a contemporary (and who knows, perhaps he even spoke to him?) to whom G-d had spoken and who had obeyed.  In other words, perhaps without Noah there could not have been an Abraham. Noah's actions and activities created the basis, was a precursor, for the greatness of Abraham.

Hegel speaks of thesis and anti-thesis. Perhaps Noah's very passivity and lack of pleading (thesis) led to the antithesis, Abraham's active mode and his intercession before G-d.

- - -

But, truth to tell, Noah did miss a tremendous opportunity. After the flood, all idol-worship had been wiped out. There was only Noah and his family, and they know of the one G-d. Judaism's entire theology is bent towards the day when the entire world will know G-d. Noah had an opportunity to set the world on a foundation of monotheism when he emerged from the ark; to go out into the world and serve G-d. Instead, he got drunk and ended up cursing his own descendants. It is hard to blame Noah for getting drunk - he must have been unimaginably traumatised by emerging from the ark into a world where nothing he had known even existed any more and everyone was dead. But it was a lost opportunity and hence, it was subsequently up to Abraham to try to introduce monotheism into a world already riddled with idol-worship.

N.B. Interestingly enough, a lecture I heard last week by Dr Paula Friedrikssohn taught me that during the time of Jesus, another such moment came along in history. At that time, pagans were pluralists, and even those who might admire the Israelite G-d, would still cling to their own nation's gods. In other words, the norm was to worship numerous gods at the same time, but never to let go of your family gods. Along came Saul/Paul and began to announce to the pagans that they must surrender their idols and worship only the G-d of Israel (who was of course the G-d that Jesus and his followers believed in, being Jewish). At that time, many pagans converted to a form of Judaism, or at least Jewish belief (I am not sure if they had any practice).

Of course, the moment was lost, on some level, when this form of Judaism then morphed into a new religion that no longer resembled Judaism. Still, this series of events set into motion the advent of a new monotheistic trend in the world that would come to embrace millions and bring them closer to one G-d. Let's hope, pray and believe that this has to be a good thing.

True direction of growth

Every year when shaking the arba minim, I find myself confused about which way up to hold the etrog. There are two ends, the pitom and the oketz, (stem). You are supposed to start off with it in in the wrong direction and then for the blessing turn it upside down to the correct direction. But which way is which?

This year, I discovered a way to remember it. According to the halacha, all the minim are supposed to be held in the direction of their growth. Thus, the myrtles must be held upright, for example. The etrog's growth is deemed to be upright too, and hence the correct direction is with the stem (oketz) facing down. In other words, we start off with the stem up, make the blessing, and then turn it around with stem down to shake it.

The problem is though, that if you look at a fruit tree, fruit do not grow upright! They hang down from the tree. The Mishnah Brurah (651:17) has an answer to this seeming contradiction to the laws of nature - its true direction of growth is, in fact, upright, but the fruit makes it heavy and that is why it hangs down.

And I think that this is an apt metaphor for our lives: our true direction of growth is upwards. Things do make us heavy and droopy but that's not who we really are...

The Two Towers and Carlebach

There is a musical refrain appearing throughout Peter Jackson's film "The Two Towers" (the second in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) that is extremely similar to a melody by R Shlomo Carlebach.  Compare the melody that appears in the film at 1 hr 32 mins, with

http://www.mostlymusic.com/in-the-palace-of-the-king.html (click mikdash melech, at 14 seconds).

Oddly enough, the Two Towers tells of kings who rise "mitoch hahafecha" to fight evil. I find the Lord of the Rings full of inspiring moral motifs, such as the need to stop fleeing and join to fight evil, the nature of true nobility and the importance of the courage of one small individual.

Mikdash melech is a verse from Lecha Dodi, one of the most beautiful Jewish liturgical pieces ever composed. I find Lecha Dodi, too, replete with noble and mythic elements and images, of blessing, kingdom, Messiah, awakening, rebuilding. The lines   

קומי צאי מתוך ההפכה

רב לך שבת בעמק הבכה

and

לבשי בגדי תפארתך עמי

have reflected my own feelings about my personal and the national situation on many an occasion when things were low.  What a privilege and joy to sing it every week, and even at times to the Carlebach tune (when I daven at Yakar).

And Frodo's lonely journey into Mordor, has inspired me whenever I feel as if life is one, long, huge mountain to climb...