Facing Evil and Cruelty: The Sign of Geulah Hidden in Parshas Zachor for Our Times

00:00 In recent days, we have all witnessed evil revealing itself in its ugliest form. Throughout this latest war, we have seen it—the whole world has seen it right before its eyes: a cruel monster, a monster of evil, evil itself. Things we never dreamed existed among us, or even existed in this world. How can there be such evil, such darkness, such terror, something with no parallel in history? And the question we ask ourselves is: What is happening here? What is the message? What are we supposed to take from it, to learn from it? We know what the Baal Shem Tov taught us: nothing happens by chance. We are meant to learn a lesson in serving Hashem from everything. One of the foundations of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings is that a Jew must take a lesson in serving Hashem from everything he sees or hears. So if, especially in these days, we are seeing evil and darkness on such a scale, a person has to ask himself: What does this mean for me? Why are we being shown this? And the harder question is: How can such evil exist in the world? If Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world in His goodness, with life, kindness, and mercy, how is there room in creation for this kind of evil? This is not merely a philosophical question. It is a moral question, one that touches each of us in our service of Hashem. Look at this Shabbos, Shabbos Parshas Zachor. This Shabbos we will read the passage about Amalek. Every year, on the Shabbos before Purim, we have the mitzvah of blotting out Amalek and the reading of Parshas Zachor. We gather in shul; this is a Torah obligation. Everyone is required to hear the Torah reading. There is a debate about whether we fulfill the obligation once a year or whether we need to

02:25 do it every day. Some have the custom of mentioning the memory of the war with Amalek every day after davening, and a great deal is made of remembering Amalek. Now, as we approach Purim, the festival of Purim celebrates the downfall of Haman, Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, who was descended from Amalek. That is why the Torah tells us, and halachah tells us, that on the Shabbos before Purim we must blot out Amalek. On Purim itself, in addition to Megillas Esther, we also read “Vayavo Amalek,” the account of Amalek. And regarding Amalek, the Torah tells us that there is a mitzvah to remember Amalek and a mitzvah to blot him out: war against Amalek from generation to generation. Here, too, we see it. Amalek represents evil itself. In Parshas Balak, in Bilam’s prophecy, the Torah says of Amalek, “Amalek is the first of nations, but his end shall be utter destruction.” The Torah tells us that Amalek is first among the nations: the beginning, the source and root of evil. “But his end shall be utter destruction”—Amalek’s end is complete annihilation, ibud with an aleph. Amalek will be erased utterly and completely. He cannot be rectified, and that is remarkable. We know that, in general, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the whole world to be rectified. Our Sages discuss the verse we say in Kiddush on Friday night: “The heavens and the earth and all their hosts were completed.” It ends, “which G-d created to do.” Our Sages ask in the Midrash: What does “which G-d created to do” mean? It seems repetitive: “created” and “to do.” So the Sages say that “to do” means “to rectify.” Everything created in this world needs to be rectified. In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu deliberately created our world in an unfinished state, so that things are lacking something and need to be rectified. That task was given to us because Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to make us

04:40 partners in creation. We all know that regarding the Kiddush we make every Friday night, our Sages say that whoever recites “The heavens and the earth were completed” on Friday night becomes a partner with Hakadosh Boruch Hu in creation. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us as partners, and our partnership consists of bringing rectification to creation. Hashem deliberately created the world this way. As the Midrash explains at length, animals find everything they need ready for them. When they need to eat, food is available. They do not need to make themselves clothes. Only a human being needs clothes and has to work hard to turn raw materials into clothing. When he wants to eat, he likewise needs ingredients that he has to work on and prepare until they are fit to eat. Nothing comes ready-made for a human being. Everything requires rectification, and that is part of the purpose of creation: to do and to rectify. So rectification, yes—but here we are told no. Amalek cannot be rectified. Amalek must be broken. Breaking him is his rectification. Amalek must be broken, blotted out. The mitzvah concerning Amalek is to destroy him, to erase him completely. We know the story of King Shaul. The prophet Shmuel tells King Shaul—this is the haftarah of Parshas Zachor—“Go and blot out Amalek entirely. Leave no trace of him,” as the account in Tanach relates. And when Shaul did not do so completely, when he spared the sheep, offering explanations because he wanted to bring them as sacrifices, Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “I have rejected Shaul as king.” Shaul lost his entire kingship only because he did not blot out Amalek completely. And the war against Amalek continues from generation to generation until the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu, as the Midrash tells us. And the question

06:41 is the same question we asked earlier: What exactly is Amalek about? What does Amalek represent? Evil itself. What does Amalek mean? Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu bring Amalek into the world and give us this challenge? What does Amalek represent in our lives? As we said, everything teaches us how a Jew should serve Hashem. Everything the Torah tells us is more than history. The Torah’s stories are true stories, with an eternal message. In Chassidus, Amalek holds a very important place: explaining what this kelipah is, this evil called Amalek, and how it differs from all the other nations. The Torah tells us that all the other nations can be rectified; something can still be done with them. On the contrary, the whole purpose of entering the Land was to take the land of Canaan and turn it into the Land of Israel, to conquer the seven nations and transform them. We are even told this regarding the days of Moshiach. In one of the prophecies of Geulah, the prophet Zechariah says, “Then I will turn the nations to a pure language, so that they may all serve Him together.” The time will come when all the nations of the world will change and turn to serving Hakadosh Boruch Hu together. In other words, the aim is not to break, destroy, nullify, or erase them. The opposite: the aim is to transform them. That is the goal—to rectify. We say this in Aleinu, in the passage beginning “And therefore we hope”: “to rectify the world under the sovereignty of Shin-Dalet-Yud.” Our goal is to rectify the world, so that all people will call upon Your name. And then there is the well-known Rambam at the end of Hilchos Melachim. Speaking about the era of Moshiach and Moshiach’s role, the Rambam says that a king from the House of David will arise, devoted to Torah and mitzvos like David his ancestor, and will fight the wars of Hashem and prevail. The Rambam continues: “And he will rectify the entire world to serve Hashem.” He quotes the verse

08:56 As we mentioned just now, “Then I will transform the nations to speak a clear language.” So the question arises: If so, what is Amalek? What does it mean that one of the nations is described as “Amalek is the first of the nations, but his end is utter destruction”? On the one hand, he is the first of all the nations, but there is no way to rectify him. All the other nations can be rectified; Amalek cannot. “His end is utter destruction.” What does that tell us? Today we’ll learn about Amalek and the root of Amalek, so we can understand what it means within the soul, what it means within a person. From there, we’ll also understand how these things are reflected in the world, and that will shed a little light on the time we’re living through. It’s a time when, alongside all the darkness and all the difficulty, there is a spark within that very darkness—a light that gives us hope and confidence. And precisely from what has been happening in recent days, we can know that we are now at the end, at the end of the exile, at the end of the darkness. From this very period, we will emerge and reach the great light, the light of the Geulah, of “it was turned around.” What Megillas Esther tells us, we will also read and see in these days. So when we speak about Amalek, we know: “the first of the nations.” Amalek’s history began when the Jewish people left Egypt. The Torah tells us that at the splitting of the sea, “The chiefs of Edom were alarmed; the mighty men of Moav were seized with trembling; all the inhabitants of Canaan melted away. Terror and dread fell upon them; by the greatness of Your arm, they were as still as stone.” The Exodus from Egypt, the great miracles that happened, and the splitting of the sea took place in a way that the whole world saw. Today, it’s easy to say that the whole world saw it. Today, something happens on one side of the world, and within a second it reaches the whole world at astonishing speed. How could

11:00 it be that 3,300 years ago, something happened in some corner of the Red Sea near Egypt, out at sea, in the desert, and the whole world heard about it? But Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t need all the technological means for things to become known throughout the world. The Midrash describes how the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the miracles and wonders, reached all the nations in the surrounding area and beyond—throughout the world. And everyone was filled with terror and dread: awe of G-d, recognition of the greatness of the Jewish people, respect for the Jewish people. Everyone saw how Hakadosh Boruch Hu redeemed the Jewish people from Egypt—“Israel is My firstborn son.” That was the peak. Who was the first to come and cool that sense of wonder, to cool that enthusiasm? Amalek. “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you left Egypt.” No one had anything against Amalek; no one fought him. The Jewish people weren’t heading toward him. The Jewish people hadn’t even thought of conquering Amalek. That was not part of the plan. We needed to go to Eretz Yisroel, the land of Canaan—the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites. All the nations we know from the verses; Amalek isn’t among them. Who’s coming after you? Why are you getting involved at all? You’re not part of this story. Who’s talking to you? But Amalek rose up at precisely that moment, and his aim was to cool things down. Nothing else. He saw enthusiasm; he saw a sense of wonder; he saw all the nations of the world standing in awe of the Jewish people, yielding before the G-dly light and G-dly power—“Terror and dread fell upon them; by the greatness of Your arm, they were as still as stone.” And that was precisely what bothered Amalek. He had no other aim. This is called the root of evil, “the first of the nations.” Because when we speak about evil—if we speak about it within the soul, as we said, we need to translate these things into our own lives, into daily life—there are many kinds of evil.

12:56 All of us have a mixture of good and evil. We have good character traits and bad ones. We all have parts of ourselves that we need to correct. Whether it’s anger, jealousy, hatred, competitiveness, desires, or all sorts of things that each of us has, there are bad traits and behaviors we need to correct. But in everything, we can see that there is no good without evil and no evil without good. Every trait, every behavior, has a good point within it. We need to transform it. Take someone who has a lot of enthusiasm for material things, a lot of enthusiasm for the pleasures of this world. Enthusiasm itself is not a bad thing. Enthusiasm itself needs to be directed toward holiness. Enthusiasm for food, enthusiasm for material things—is that not right? The point isn’t that you should have no enthusiasm. You don’t need to become a person who is unenthusiastic most of the time. On the contrary, enthusiasm is a wonderful thing; just channel it to the right place. And we can look at every single thing in the same way. A person has the trait of gevurah. Gevurah involves a certain firmness, which can sometimes even turn into anger. He gets angry at someone else. Anger is a very bad trait, but the root of anger is not the anger itself; it’s the fact that the person is particular about things. You can use that attentiveness for good things: to be as careful with a minor law as with a major one in the Shulchan Aruch, to observe the laws of the Torah meticulously—G-d forbid that it should turn into anger at another person or anything like that. In every trait, you can find some point of light, some point of good, and channel it, transform it, take it to the right place. But when we speak about coldness, there is no corner of good in it.

15:00 Coldness is death. The sole aim of coldness is to bring a person into a state of negation, a state of inaction, a state of passivity. And there is no life in passivity. This is Amalek, “who happened upon you on the way.” That coldness is Amalek. What’s more, our Sages speak of an even deeper evil in Amalek: “One who knows his Master and deliberately intends to rebel against Him.” With Amalek, the key is that deliberate intent—the rebellion itself. He has no other aim. If you asked Amalek, “What do you want here? What do you stand to gain?” As we said, this isn’t about territory or anything personal. Rather, there is one thing and one thing only: deliberately intending to rebel against Him. There is no remedy for that. It is evil personified, and it is called “the first of the nations.” Because the bad character traits as a whole, as we said, are what the conquest of Eretz Yisroel represents: turning the land of Canaan into Eretz Yisroel, turning bad traits into good ones. The traits themselves can be corrected; they can be worked with in the service of Hashem. Every day, through prayer and study, a Jew contemplates the greatness of Hashem. He contemplates creation. He reflects on “How manifold are Your works” and “How great are Your works,” and comes to recognize that this world has a Master. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world. The world does not run on its own, and this leads him to refine his character traits, to work on them and behave better. But this evil force, whose entire essence is nothing but evil without any other aim—the root of evil, this coldness, this rebelliousness, this insistence on doing the opposite—is the worst thing of all. Chassidus teaches that the word Amalek has the same numerical value as the word safek, “doubt”: 240. Doubts. Amalek is entirely about doubts. He comes with a doubt. If we look at our own lives, it’s remarkable.

17:24 What is doubt? It doesn’t tell you, “Don’t do it.” There’s a yetzer hara that says, “Don’t do it. Don’t do a mitzvah. Behave badly.” Nobody listens to that. A person doesn’t want to be bad; a person wants to be good. Amalek’s cunning is coldness. How does Amalek bring about coldness? Through doubt. The numerical value of “safek,” doubt, is the same as “Amalek.” It doesn’t say, “Don’t do the mitzvah.” It doesn’t say, “Don’t learn Torah.” It says, “Who says it’s right? Of course you should—but maybe, who says you have to do it now? Who says you have to do it with such enthusiasm? Who says?” That “who says” is only doubt, but that doubt cools you off. Yes, it’s a good and solid thing, but who says now? Who says this is it? Who says this is the way? Who says it has to be exactly this way? Who says that what you’re doing is what needs to be done? We all know this doubt. It finds its way into all kinds of places. Sometimes a person has an idea, a desire, an aspiration, a decision, a good resolution, and he’s ready and everything. Then, at some point: “Wait, but who says this is the thing? Maybe something else? Fine, it’s good, yes, but who says? Maybe we need to think it over again.” And then we’re stuck. That doubt is Amalek coming in. Its purpose is to cool things off, and it is the root of evil. It is the symbol of evil. Of this it says, “Amalek is the first of the nations, but his end is utter destruction.” This aspect of Amalek, this part of evil—evil for evil’s sake, that point of rebelliousness for the sake of rebelliousness—is the kelipah of Amalek. There is no way to rectify it, and of this it says, “His end is utter destruction.” This is something Hakadosh Boruch Hu will not tolerate, and when it reaches that point, destruction and the end come

19:22 for Amalek. If we look at the Purim story, we see Haman. Haman’s whole essence was that he could not bear the fact that Mordechai would not bow or prostrate himself. In the Purim story, this point comes through so powerfully, so wonderfully. Here stands a Jew, and this Jew decides to be a Jew with absolute firmness. “There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai, son of Yair, son of Shimi, son of Kish, a Benjaminite.” A Jewish man. What does “a Jewish man” mean? The Gemara says: A Jew is one who acknowledges Hakadosh Boruch Hu and rejects idolatry. A Jew who decides with absolute firmness: I believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, acknowledge Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and reject idolatry. Haman comes and wants people to bow to him. I don’t care. He does not budge. “Mordechai would not bow or prostrate himself.” The pride of Yaakov, standing firm—that was what broke and destroyed Haman. Haman could not bear a Jew who had the firmness of the pride of Yaakov. That was what he tried to bring down; that was what he tried to weaken. And that is precisely the whole Purim story: when there is a Jewish man, when—how do we fight Haman? Haman is a descendant of Amalek. Haman is the symbol of evil. He wanted to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews. If we translate that into spiritual terms, Mordechai—sorry, Haman—wanted to destroy, kill, and annihilate Jewishness, the Jew, the power of acknowledgment, the power of self-nullification, the power of faith. “Modeh ani” means that a Jew has acknowledgment, self-nullification, faith, a connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—a connection that does not depend on any conditions or explanations. A deep and wonderful connection. Haman could not bear that Jew. He wanted to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, and he got that from his grandfather, Amalek. The whole goal is to cool things off, to extinguish the Jewish spark, the inner connection

21:31 between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu—to cool it off. Mordechai understood exactly what the kelipah of Amalek was, who Haman was, and therefore Mordechai would not bow or prostrate himself. And not only he: “Gather all the Jews.” He then inspired the entire Jewish people to reveal this power to stand firm, to refuse to bow or prostrate themselves. That was what broke and destroyed Haman and finished him off completely, and that brought about the reversal. So when we return to our first question and ask, “Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu create this evil? Why is there Amalek? Why does such evil exist?”—here comes the wonderful explanation. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe gives us a parable: A king has an only son, whom he loves dearly. An immense love. This is the king’s only son. He invests everything in him, all his strength. The best teachers. He gives him everything, bestows everything upon him, and his only son is the heir to the throne. A stage comes when the king truly wants to reveal the wonderful strengths hidden within the prince. So there is a certain stage that involves a test. He wants to test his strengths, not because he wants to trap him, G-d forbid. On the contrary: he truly believes the prince has the strength. And when the prince withstands the test, when he stands firm, and despite all the difficulty understands the message and does not fall into the trap of this test, it is precisely then that the prince’s wonderful strengths will be revealed. Then the prince will reach the place the king truly believes and knows he can reach. It will bring him to the most wonderful place, and so the king places a test in his path. He brings him, as Tanya explains, people who sin and try to entice him to sin,

23:45 to draw him into the trap of evil and sin, and the prince stands firm. He understands the message, he understands the test, and precisely amid all that darkness, he stands with absolute firmness. And then you see—wow!—how precious he is, how extraordinary, how strong. Who is this prince? Then all the evil is nullified and transformed, and becomes absolutely nothing. And this is, in fact, one of the explanations of this—the power in the story of wiping out Amalek that the Torah tells us. The Jewish people understood the message and stood strong. It began with the story of Moshe Rabbeinu telling Yehoshua bin Nun, at the time of the first war with Amalek. Moshe Rabbeinu says to Yehoshua, “Choose men for us.” We need our people, Moshe’s people, people of mesirus nefesh, people who have Moshe Rabbeinu’s strength: the power of self-nullification, the power of self-sacrifice, the power of faith. “Choose men for us”—Moshe’s people, so that we have this strength—“go out and fight Amalek.” Break the kelipah of Amalek. And afterward, the same thing happened in Haman’s time: Mordechai would not bow or prostrate himself. This power that is revealed in Jews precisely in moments of darkness, to stand with mesirus nefesh against all this evil—then that evil is broken and disappears, utterly destroyed, with no trace of it left. And this is also the story of our own time. We see that recently, precisely amid all this darkness and the stories coming to light in recent days, we are all hearing and witnessing wonderful, awe-inspiring stories of revealed mesirus nefesh and simple, wholehearted faith. Jews who, perhaps until a short time ago, did not themselves know they had this faith. They did not necessarily observe Torah and mitzvos in their daily lives, but the moment they stood face-to-face with the devil, face-to-face with evil, with

25:57 In the darkness, faced with that diabolical monster, the strength, the faith, the Jewish strength, the self-sacrifice were revealed. “Mordechai would neither kneel nor bow,” and that is precisely what brought about the great miracle of Purim. That is what shattered all the darkness and all the evil. That is what we saw in the story of Purim, and, as in those days at this time, we will see it in our own days too. When the darkness reaches the height of its power—that is what happened with Haman. King Achashverosh elevated Haman. The Megillah tells us, and the Midrashim in particular tell us, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu let Haman hold his head higher and higher, rise up, and become more and more arrogant. When he reached the height of his arrogance, which was also his lowest point, when evil was seen in its full form, it was precisely then that he fell from the greatest height to the lowest point. You can see it in the story of the Megillah. Haman’s arrogance keeps growing and growing until he says, “Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?” He reaches his peak. Queen Esther invites him to a feast—and once is not enough, so she invites him a second time. Chassidus explains that Esther noticed Haman had not yet reached the peak of his evil, the peak of his arrogance. After the first feast, when he already felt the full extent of his greatness and wealth, as he later told his wife Zeresh—it was precisely then that the great downfall of Purim came. They hanged him. The remarkable thing is that now, when this evil has reached its peak, when it has sunk to unprecedented depths, we know that this is precisely where its downfall begins. And now we will see it with our own eyes, just as we saw in the miracle of Purim: it was precisely when Haman reached the height of his arrogance that his greatest downfall came. We will see the same thing with our own eyes.

27:54 As in those days, at this time, during this holiday—in this year, in the month of Adar that we have entered—may we, with Hashem’s help, see the miracle of Purim in the year 5785. May we merit to see the complete Geulah, to see the complete victory of the Jews: “The Jews had light and joy and gladness and honor.” So may it be for us. “It was reversed,” and the Jews gained power over those who hated them. Holiness will prevail; goodness will prevail—eternal goodness, true goodness. That is what will reign. “And the fear of the Jews fell upon them.” As Chassidus explains, the fear that Jews themselves have is the fear of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, yiras Shamayim. So may awe and fear fall upon them too, upon all the nations of the world—a fear of G-d. May it happen in a way that we can all truly see the great joy of the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Amen, may it be His will.