Rabbi Weissman – Primer on Amalek Part 3

 

In this week's Torah class I presented selections from the Rambam on the laws of judges. Among the many topics we packed into less than an hour are the qualifications for judges, the requirement for judges and rabbis to draw independent conclusions, blind adherence to "experts" or lack thereof, and much more. This is all elementary Jewish law (not opinion, but law).  

Of course, that hasn't stopped the Erev Rav from distorting the truth and misleading the Jewish people to destruction. We have no excuse not to learn and be informed, and I'm trying to make it easy for people. The recording is available here.

I don't expect the following article to be the most widely read thing I ever write, but it's definitely one of the most important things I've ever written.

A Primer on Amalek – Part 3 (first part)

It is a great failure of our society that a Jew can attend the “best” yeshivos from an early age, yet never learn that we faced Amalek a second time in the desert. They might be able to repeat a complex discourse on five different ways of reading a line of Gemara, or split hairs on hypothetical minutiae, but when it comes to the fundamentals of the Torah and our history they can offer only blank stares and fumbling responses to those who might question them. Our education system – if it can be called that – creates argumentative yet cowardly scholars who devote their studies to the Torah equivalent of calculus without ever having learned arithmetic.

As our second encounter with Amalek occurs in Parshas Chukas, which generally occurs during summer vacation, there is virtually no chance it would be part of any school curriculum. For someone to “discover” it, he must decide to study Chumash on his own, and by the time a Jew is old enough to do that, chances are he won't want to “waste his time” on Tanach when he can split another Talmudic hair and impress those around him.

Even if one paid attention to the Torah reading, he would still miss it, for Amalek's name doesn't appear in the text. One would have to look at least as far as Rashi to discover there is more here than meets the eye, and what Talmudic scholar with an ounce of dignity would be caught studying Chumash and Rashi?

I begin with this digression because our collective disconnection from the fundamentals, even as Talmudic scholars and intellectuals abound, is devastating on many levels. The information I am about to share with you should not be a chiddush. It should not be something I had to learn on my own well into adulthood and gradually put together. We should have all learned this by fifth grade, and the presentation that follows should be merely a review.

I don't know how much control Amalek and the Erev Rav have over our children's education, but the greatest gift we could give our enemies is to marginalize and trivialize the fundamentals. We're easy prey.

End of rant. Let's turn to Bamidbar 21.

The forty years in the desert were nearing their end, but our travails were far from over. Aharon HaKohen, who had lovingly shepherded the Jews in Egypt and in the desert, had died, throwing the nation into turmoil. The clouds of glory that surrounded the Jews in his merit temporarily dissipated while they mourned.

The “Canaanites” happened to be lurking nearby. They noticed that the Jews were suddenly exposed, and took this as an invitation to attack them, even managing to take a captive. Although the Jews regrouped and took vengeance on their attackers, the battle took a deeper toll on many of the people, who were already in a fragile state.

Despite being so close to their destination, despair set in. Many Jews lost their faith – the constant miracles all around them lost their effect, as inevitably they do – and they decided they had enough. An undercurrent of rebellion that had flared up at various times reached a new peak. Several families joined together, appointed a leader, and broke away from the nation. They were returning to Egypt to be slaves.

They retraced their steps for seven journeys, throwing away the yoke of Torah for the yoke of the gentile taskmaster – a bargain many continued to strike ever since. The greatest yetzer hara of the Jew – including Orthodox Jews – is to be approved by the goyim, to emulate them (even if only in subtle ways), to be dependent upon them, and to be subservient to them in a land other than their own. This is the precise opposite of the very reason for the Jewish people to exist, and thus the greatest threat to our existence throughout history, present times included.

However, the dream of these rebels in the desert to abandon Jewish destiny for a hell they had become used to was not to be. The tribe of Levi chased after them and overtook them at Moseira, where a civil war ensued. The Levites killed seven families of renegades and lost four of their own in the battle – but they succeeded in ending the rebellion. When it was finally over the survivors mourned Aharon's death again, for it had precipitated this tragic spiral, and returned to the nation (see Rashi on Bamidbar 21:4 and 26:13).

The Torah only hints at this civil war, most likely out of sensitivity fo

r the fact that this rebellion was caused more by grief and emotional turmoil than wickedness.

But there is another hint in the Torah with even greater implications. The “Canaanites” who had attacked the Jews, which broke the spirits of many of the people and set a rebellion in motion, were actually Amalek. As Rashi on Bamidbar 21:1 explains, it was Amalek who dwelled in the Eretz HaNegev mentioned there, and Amalek was always on standby, a whip of punishment ready to attack the Jews at all times.

The Jews had lost faith and sunk into despair after Aharon died. Nothing charges Amalek's batteries like loss of faith. As we saw in our first encounter with them, whenever Moshe lowered his hands and the Jews lost some of their divine connection, Amalek got the upper hand. When Moshe's hands were raised and the Jews looked to heaven, they got the upper hand, and ultimately defeated Amalek.

The same pattern repeated itself here. After their initial setback, the Jews regrouped, turned to Hashem, and proceeded to decimate their attackers.

But why does the Torah refer to Amalek here as Canaanites?

Rashi explains that Amalek approached the Jews dressed as Amalek, but speaking in the language of the Canaanites. This was intended to confuse the Jews so they would ask Hashem to save them from the Canaanites, and render their prayers ineffective. The Jews were indeed confused, but finally prayed simply for Hashem to deliver “these people” in their hands, whoever they were, without being too specific.