The rabbis of the Talmud established a method of reading the Torah that is embodied in the 13 Rules of Rabbi Ishmael (known as the Yud-Gimel Middot) found at the beginning of the ancient midrashic collection, the Sifra. Those hermeneutical rules provided guidelines for transforming the text of Torah into a living and applicable document. Subsequent rabbis went further, providing for how to derive halakhot, specific laws, from the Torah’s timeless legislation as well.
One of the rules they articulated pertains to punishment for a violation: in order for a violation of Torah law to result in punishment, it must be stated twice, once in its positive form (“You shall do X”) and once in its negative ( “You shall not do the opposite of X”). An example of this biblical practice is mandating that meat be slaughtered only in Jerusalem, according to the laws of shehitah (kosher slaughtering) and another verse prohibiting the consumption of treifah and nevelah (improperly slaughtered meat). The idea, it seems, is that if something is significant, it should be both mandated in an imperative and its opposite should be explicitly prohibited too.
That unique stance of Jewish law finds its equivalent in today’s Torah portion as well. In the realm of establishing a just society, Parashat Ki Tetze offers a list of rules necessary to respect human dignity: how to treat prisoners of war, rights within marriage, care of animals, sexual oppression, refuge for slaves, taking interest in business loans, kidnaping, relations with the poor, and honest weights. In each of these instances, the Torah details important components of any positive effort to establish a just society. We are mandated to show compassion, responsibility, and sensitivity—positive virtues by anyone’s standards.
But after providing all these heart warming rules, affirming our common kinship with our fellow human beings, insisting that we identify even with the powerless and the down-and-out, the Torah appends a strikingly different rule:
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt — how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when Adonai your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that Adonai your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!
Ostensibly, this passage is a call to nurse a grudge. Because of the heinous barbarism that the tribe of Amalek inflicted on our sick, our old, and our weakest along the journey in the wilderness, we are to keep their memory alive until we are in a position of power. Once we have entered the land of Israel, once it is securely in our hands, then we are to “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”
On first blush, this passage sounds grotesque and primitive. How can a book as lofty as the Torah mandate revenge? Why would someone as forgiving as God demand that we keep alive this ancient story of having been wronged, and that we should utilize memory in the service of vengeance. Isn’t that a bloodthirsty and vicious kind of morality? Isn’t that precisely what gives the Hebrew Bible a bad name, and makes so many (Jews and non-Jews alike) think of the Torah’s portrayal of God as jealous, unforgiving, rigid, and violent?
In truth, part of our discomfort is, I think, appropriate: our first response to any call for bloodshed should be negative. Life, all life, is so precious that we must takes great care to ensure that the passions of the moment don’t lead us to do something that we later realize to be excessive, irreversible, and immoral. But beyond our laudable discomfort with all violence, I am convinced that a part of our squeamishness has to do with an unwillingness to oppose evil strenuously.
You see, to resist evil means more than simply to advocate the good. There are people in the word who are willing to resort to violence and force to impose evil on others. There are those who believe that the strong have a right to dominate the weak, to take what they desire. To limit our response to platitudinous condemnations and hand-wringing is simply a moral abdication. The unwillingness to use force in the battle against evil is nothing less than a passive partnership with that very evil. God knows (and knew) that it took many deaths to liberate the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Pharaoh wasn’t moved by Moses’ stirring oratory, however much we may be. Today’s Pharaohs aren’t much moved by speeches either—a mighty hand and an outstretched arm still have a role in the service of justice.
In fact, all those positive deeds we can do in the pursuit of righteousness mean nothing if we aren’t willing to fight for it. Without the commitment to remember Amalek, the obligation to seek peace is simply an invitation to ruthless domination. Both commandments — the positive and the negative — are part and parcel of the overriding mitzvah of loving God.
As the psalmist says, “those who love Adonai hate evil.” Eternal vigilance is, indeed, the price of liberty.
Shabbat Shalom!