Q&A: Eradicating Amalek
Eradicating Amalek
Question
Hello Rabbi, I heard in one of your lectures an explanation that impurity is set aside for the community because impurity does not really apply to the community as such (even though all the individuals in it die or are replaced, the community continues to exist). Based on that, can the idea of “the Lord is at war with Amalek from generation to generation” also be explained this way—that there is not necessarily something mystical here, but rather that God directed the war to apply to the collective called Amalek? Have you written about this anywhere?
Thank you very much, and have an easy fast.
Answer
I did not understand what difficulty in the verse you are trying to resolve in this way. And what does mysticism have to do with it here? With or without the thesis about the continuity of the collective, the verse is understood in the same way.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t understand. If you want to explain the rationale, then give a reason, not a formal definition.
And in general there is no need at all to get into mysticism. Amalek is a violent and messed-up culture, one that raises even children into it. That’s all—no mysticism and no special metaphysical qualities.
A cultural matter can change, but we do not derive Jewish law from the reason for a verse. So if Amalek were to change before our eyes, and after a hundred generations become entirely sweet as honey, there would still be a commandment to eradicate its memory from under the heavens. So how can one claim that this is a cultural matter?
Your assumption is incorrect. Maimonides makes it clear that if Amalek accepts upon itself the seven Noahide commandments, the obligation to eradicate it does not apply. Which means that the definition of Amalek really does depend on culture.
If it had changed, I assume they would cancel the obligation to destroy it. There are plenty of arguments like that, regardless of the prohibition on deriving Jewish law from the reason for a verse. If they change, then it is not the Amalek being spoken about.
Right, I really said everything I said under the assumption that Amalek must be eradicated even if the individuals are no longer like the Amalek of old.
I should have explained myself better. People tend to explain that the war against Amalek applies even to women, children, and infants, and also in later generations, because of some essential spiritual quality supposedly embedded in whoever is born into that nation called Amalek. I am suggesting something else, in line with what you said: that the war is against the collective or the nation called Amalek, and not against the individuals themselves.