זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָיִם… “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you were leaving Egypt…” (Devarim / Deuteronomy 25:17)

Every year, on the Shabbat before Purim, we stand and listen. Not casually. Not as background noise. We stand because remembering Amalek is not a story about the past; it is a moral demand placed upon the present.

This year, post–October 7th, the words feel less like liturgy and more like testimony.

The Torah commands two seemingly contradictory acts in the span of three verses: “Remember” and “Blot out.” Memory and erasure. Preservation and destruction. How do we hold both at once?

After October 7th, we understand that paradox viscerally.

What Did Amalek Actually Do?

אֲשֶׁר קָרְךָ בַּדֶּרֶךְ… וַיְזַנֵּב בְּךָ כָּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִים אַחֲרֶיךָ… וְלֹא יָרֵא אֱלֹהִים. “He happened upon you on the way… he attacked the stragglers at your rear… and he did not fear God.” (Deut. 25:18)

Rashi famously explains “asher karcha” not merely as “happened upon you,” but as “lashon mikreh”—chance, coldness. Amalek represents the ideology that cools moral fervor. When Israel left Egypt aflame with destiny, Amalek poured ice water on transcendence. He attacked not out of strategic necessity, but to demonstrate that redemption can be mocked.

Nachmanides (Ramban) sharpens the point: Amalek’s crime was gratuitous aggression. There was no territorial dispute, no provocation. Israel was weary, vulnerable. Amalek attacked precisely because they could. Ramban calls it an assault on God’s providence itself—an attempt to erase the meaning of redemption from history.

Sforno adds that Amalek’s targeting of the weak reveals their moral essence. They preyed upon the exhausted, the elderly, the lagging. This was not battle; it was predation.

If you read those commentaries after October 7th, they no longer feel theoretical.

October 7th was not simply another episode in a tragic conflict. It was a day marked by deliberate brutality: the targeting of civilians, the murder of children, the burning of families alive, the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of terror, humiliation, and domination.

We must speak both explicitly and implicitly.

Implicitly, we recognize crimes against humanity when we see........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)