Zakhor | "I Have Remembered What Amalek Did" (Shmuel I 15:2-34)

Translated by Kaeren Fish

 

a. Remember in order to wipe out

 

We learn in the Tosefta on Megilla 30a:

 

"On the second [of the four special Shabbatot, we read] Zakhor, and the haftora is "So says the Lord, I have remembered what Amalek did to Israel..." What is considered the second week [out of the four]? The week in which Purim falls."

 

The connection between the Torah reading and the haftora is clear and obvious. The verses of the Torah contain the mitzva to "remember what Amalek did to you" – a remembrance that is meant to lead us to wipe Amalek out, as we are told later on: "And it shall be when God your Lord gives you rest from all your enemies around you...you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek." The verses of the haftora contain a narration of how the mitzva was fulfilled – "And Shaul smote Amalek" (I Shmuel 15:7). In other words, the mitzva is not merely theoretical, such that we may "study it in order to receive reward," but is in fact meant to be carried out. It is not sufficient that the evil nation and their evil acts be remembered and mentioned; we must act to uproot them. But the story also teaches us other things.

 

b. Command vs. Fulfillment

 

First and foremost we learn of the difficulty of fulfilling the command perfectly and completely. King Shaul succeeded in recruiting a great army (two hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand men of Yehuda – I Shmuel 15:4), but he failed in his mission, for he did not succeed in completely wiping out the memory of Amalek. This was not for lack of physical ability (the usual reason underlying the disparity between an idea and its realization), but rather because of psychological inability. Shaul, it seems, could not bring himself to fulfill this difficult mitzva, and Chazal (our Sages) point this out in their interpretation of the expression in I Shmuel 15:5, "and he laid wait in the valley":

 

"When the Holy One told Shaul, "Go and smite Amalek," he said: if the phenomenon of a single dead person causes the Torah to command us to bring a heifer as atonement (the mitzva of "egla arufa," Devarim 21:1-9), how much more so for all these souls. Perhaps the people have indeed sinned, but what about the animals? Perhaps the adult have sinned, but what about the children?" (Yoma 22b)

 

This inappropriate mercy for Amalek cost Shaul his kingship, as we read in the concluding verses of the haftora. This mercy shows that Shaul did not fulfill the mitzva of remembering the deeds of Amalek as required, and had not properly internalized the memory of Amalek's deeds and cruelty. The command to destroy the memory of Amalek was meant to remove every last remainder of that fundamental evil symbolized by Amalek. It is specifically Shaul's failure that gives emphasis and weight to what precedes the destruction – the mitzva of remembrance.

 

c. The timing of the mitzva

 

On the other hand, the haftora teaches that in order for this "wiping out of Amalek" to be fulfilled there must first be an explicit Divine command, from a prophet. The timing of the mitzva is stipulated clearly in the Torah: "and it shall come to pass when God your Lord gives you rest...," but the decision that that time has come must apparently come from Above, as is evidenced by the prophetic declaration with regard to the time in the haftora: "NOW go and smite Amalek". Indeed, among the later commentators there are those who learn from this that a war against Amalek requires a command from a prophet. It would seem that this fateful decision – to wage a war that is not defensive, but rather to wipe out the memory of an entire nation – cannot be made by humans, but rather must rely on an explicit Divine command. Rabbi Yehoshua rules in the Mekhilta on the end of parashat Beshalach that "[only] when the Holy One is seated on His throne...then, at that time, God will be at war with Amalek."

 

d. "Remember" vs. "I have remembered"

 

The parasha opens with the words, "Remember [zakhor] what Amalek did to you," while the haftora begins with "So says the Lord of hosts, I have remembered [pakadeti] what Amalek did to Israel." The word "pakadeti" here means the same as "remembrance," as translated by the Targum Yonatan. This teaches us that corresponding to the command to Bnei Yisrael to remember, the Holy One also remembers Amalek's evil. For the evil that Amalek did to Israel lay not only in a one-time event against the nation, but rather was meant as an attack, as it were, against the rule of God, and as a result "God is at war with Amalek" (end of parashat Beshalach). God's rule cannot be fully recognized until the memory of Amalek is erased. And Rashi accordingly quotes Chazal in his commentary on the end of parashat Beshalach as follows:

 

"For God has sworn by His throne  - God has raised His hand to swear by His throne that he will be at war and hostility with Amalek forever...God has sworn that His name will not be complete, nor His throne complete, until the name of Amalek is entirely erased, and when his name is erased then God will be complete and His throne will be complete."