Torah portion

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SPIRIT

TORAH PORTION

Assessing Our Lives

One of the most bewildering commandments in the entire Torah shows up at the end of this week’s parshah. Ki Teitzei opens by describing some of the complex Jewish laws regarding warfare. From the earliest days of our Jewish people, even the most disturbing aspects of life, such as slavery, capital punishment, or (dare I say it) disobedient children, were expected to be pursued in an ethical manner. Precisely in situations like these, God demands actions befitting a holy people.

This leads to the problem of Amalek. Amalek was one of Esau’s grandsons — part of the family of Abraham, but on the outside after Jacob seized the blessing to continue the line of our patriarchs. In Jewish custom, the name Amalek is spoken with disdain, evoking a similar (if less emotional) reaction to hearing Haman or Hitler. It is this very parshah in which the name Amalek is enshrined as a pariah for all time: “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Exodus 25:19)

The immediate reason given for this harsh commandment is that soon after escaping from slavery in Egypt, it was the Amalekites who first attacked our people in the wilderness. Even the manner of the attacks was reprehensible — lying in wait and picking off the stragglers. Rather than engaging in ethical warfare, Amalek targeted the slowest and weakest. Rabbinic literature described Amalek as “like a leech eager for blood,” and “like a fly looking for sores to feed on.” No matter how insidious Amalek may be, the commandment itself seems problematic. Are we supposed to blot out the name Amalek, as if it didn’t exist? Or are we supposed to remember it? Perhaps we are to remember to forget his name?

Rabbi Mark Reflecting on this passage

Miller within the context of 2021, it makes more sense to me.

Parshat Part of the human condi-

Ki Teitzei: tion is figuring out how Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19; Isaiah 54:1-10. to handle the aftermath of difficult moments. Putting it behind us could be considered repressing something important. But dwelling on it could be considered neurotic. In the wake of a pandemic, what will be the most effective way for any of us to learn and grow from the experiences we have had, from all we’ve lost? This parshah arrives just as we are walking through Elul, a full month dedicated to preparing for the High Holidays. We are meant to show up to Rosh Hashanah with an open, honest assessment of ourselves. What has hurt us? What has limited us? What has agitated us? What has disappointed us? And then Yom Kippur provides us a chance to enter 5782 with a clean slate. Not a brand new slate, but a clean one. The path is somewhere between remembering and forgetting — a place that is, as our Torah portion reminds us, confusing and mystifying. But ultimately accessible. Rabbi Mark Miller is senior rabbi at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township.