Zachor: Remembering Amalek
This week in the synagogue, we read H Haftorah Zakor.
Now, Zakor is a Hebrew word that you need to familiarize yourself with because it means, remember, Zakor comes from the root Zakar and the infinitive L'ZCOR– it means, "to remember." And in both Judaism and in the Jewish world, the word Zakor is center stage.
Why? Because the Torah teaches us to never forget— to remember.
The first big event that Hashem says, remember Zakor, I brought you out of Egypt with a [00:01:00] strong arm with a mighty hand.
You'll see this phrase I brought you out of Egypt over and over and over again. Not only within the Torah, the first five books, but you will see this phrase throughout the entirety of the Tanakh. Never forget vZakor. Do not forget, remember vZakor L'Zkor to remember.
So, Hashem first tells us to remember that I brought you out of Egypt.
Then he tells us to remember Amalek, what a Amalek did to you when I brought you out of Egypt, because Amalik attacked those that were strangling those that were weak. Those at the backside of the camp, per se, while Israel was moving through the desert. Amalik attacked the children. The widows, the infirmed, the feeble, all those that could not defend themselves.
And for this reason, Hashem took particular notice and said, remember what Amalek did to you.
He also says, you will fight a Amalek from generation to generation. In addition to that, He says, "I'm the one who's going to defeat Amalek."
That brings us to Haftorah, Zakor. We read this every year right before Purim, because it is the account of the story of Purim.
When we think of Purim we think of the book of Esther. We think of the destruction of Haman. We think of Mordecai, not bowing to Haman. However, the story of Perham begins in the book of Samuel—Samuel, chapter 15 versus one through 34.
This is the story where God tells Samuel, Shmuel is the Hebrew name. God tells Shmuel to tell King Shaul, King Saul that he is to go and destroy the Amalekites every single amalekite.
He's not to leave one person nor one animal that belongs to the Amalekites. Saul rises to the occasion, 30,000 men go to wipeout Amalek, and everyone gets wiped out except one person, and that was the king, king, Agag . And then Saul says, now that I have the king, I'm gonna bring the best of the sheep, the best of the goats, the best of the cattle.
I'm gonna bring that all back and I'm going to offer that as a sacrifice to Hashem. And, when he does that, Samuel gets a message from Hashem and says, oh, my Saul has messed. In a big way. He didn't do what I told him to do. And so Samuel goes to visit Saul and Saul petition Samuel.
He says, listen, I did everything Hashem said, except, I brought back the king and I brought back the best of the sheep to offer a sacrifice. So Samuel says to Saul, he says, listen, I'm gonna seek K. She's voice. I wanna hear what he has to say. I'll come back to you.
And God comes to Shmuel, and he says, listen, because of what Saul did, he acted presumptuously, he disobeyed my voice. I am gonna remove him as king, and I'm going to raise up another.
This was a defining moment for Saul because Saul believed that his decisions on what was right and wrong were higher than God's, that he could compromise the voice and the word of Hashem.
So Shmuel returns and he gives this very disturbing news to Saul.
And Saul, even though he accepts the news, he still wants to be honored and make a sacrifice.
So, the story ends with Samuel giving the consequence to Saul and then killing King Agag.
However, that isn't the end of the story. Because Shaul kept King Agag alive. There was a woman who was impregnated by King of Agag, and therefore there was an Amalekite in every generation leading up to the book of Esther.
And in the book of Esther, this Amalekite Haman, was a [00:06:00] descendant of King Agag — he appears and he rises up against the Jews to have them slaughtered just like Amalek did back in the day when Hashem brought the Israelites out of Egypt.
Now, Amalek is in the story, and Esther, who was an orphan, she was chosen to replace Queen Vashti and is now living in the castle.
Mordecai gets the news that Haman has sent forth a decree into all of the provinces of Persia, and that all the Jews are going to be destroyed.
He tries to get the attention of Queen Esther. She sends him back clothing changes and stop feigning madness at the gates of the king.
And, he sends her back a note and he says, listen, if you don't act, if you don't do something, you and your house are going to be destroyed. God will raise up another deliverer, but you and your house will be destroyed.
Now, this is very important because who is the house of Queen Esther? It is the house of Saul. Her father was of the lineage of King Saul.
So what we have here is what's called a tikun, " an opportunity to rectify the past."
In this house now is a queen who is from the lineage of Saul, and a man who is from the lineage of a Amalek.
Now Esther has an opportunity, an unprecedented opportunity to destroy the house of Amalek.
And Mordecai warns her "if you don't take this opportunity, the house of Saul will be wiped out and his name will be remembered no more. That will be the end of [00:08:00] any memory of the house of Saul.
Esther understands what's at stake here,. So she does what she knows to do, especially being raised under Mordecai's tutelage.
Now, Mordecai was not just a man or a prophet that was sitting at a gate. He was the head of the Sanhedrin. Mordecai was a very important soul, and he was a leader of leaders among the Jews in Shushan and all the provinces of Persia. So, Esther acts, she invites Haman once, and then a second time to the banquet with the king.
The king sees the heart of Haman, how wicked it is. He then sends Haman to the gallows. Now, there's a lot going on in between this story, but what I wanna get to right now is the end of the story. It says that many of Shushan of Persia, it says Many came over to the Jewish. Now, whether they became Jews or not we don't know, but they came to the Jewish side because they saw, all of the events and the hand of God operating, through Mordecai.
Mordecai gets promoted to second in command next to the king. He replaces Hamman and, and Queen Esther. She actually gives birth to a son who becomes one of the most famous men in Jewish history, and that is King Darius.
So we see a lot of amazing things happen. It's then when they make a decree that Purim will be celebrated every single year by giving gifts to the poor, and by celebrating the victory over Haman.
This is the holiday of Perham, still being celebrated 2,500 years later. Very, very exciting.
Celebrated with food called Hamantaschen. Everybody dresses up in disguise.The Megillah, or the Book of Esther, is read in the evening of Purim and then on the day in the synagogue.
You can go and hear it here in Israel everywhere it's in the streets, it's in your synagogue,
it's mandatory. You hear the, the reading, and in the reading you are conquering Amalek and you are praising the victory of Mordecai and Esther .
So that's the basic background behind Purim and why we celebrate Purim.
And, most importantly why God says for us to remember, don't forget the past for a couple of reasons. One, God always puts opportunity in our lives to rectify or do a Tikun for something that went awry in our lives and many times in the generations that came before us.
So, we want to always remember the past, learn as much as we can about the past so we can be in a position to be used by Hashem, whether it's in our family or on a national level, a local level to do some type of rectification, some type of Tikun
Also remember that Amalek is , an enemy that can appear in every generation, especially to fight against Israel and the Jews. This is why we pray for the peace of Yerushalim.
And, we see when rebellion arises, because it says regarding King Saul and the sacrifice of animals that he brought the best of the herds of the Amalekites Hashem says, I'm not looking for sacrifice.
I'm looking for obedience. I'm looking for you to do what I asked you to do. You're a leader. And then he says, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness. is as rebellion. So we find here that God is looking at this in a different perspective. We might say, well, he did such a great thing.
However, Hashem first said, wipe out the enemy, don't let it linger. And we find that Amalek manifests itself. in rebellion in stubbornness. And when you see protests that protest against governments and righteousness, when you see these things arise, this is a rebellion, it's anarchy, and it's usually fighting against G-D..
It is fighting against the principles and the precepts of moral law. And when you see protests against moral law against the Torah, against the religious, against the righteous, always know that what's operating behind that is the spirit of Amalek. And you need to pray for God to remove it and shut it down and destroy it just like he did in the days of Esther.
So hag sameach Purim! I hope you enjoyed this message. It's Hadas signing out.
