If we forget the power Amalek wields, we’re doomed to suffer from this scourge forever. If we forget to be united, our disagreements and divisiveness will only bring Amalek upon us again. What is it, exactly, that we’re supposed to remember?
It’s time to read Parshas Zachor once again. This Shabbos in every Jewish community everyone is required by halachah to hear a formal reading of the Torah passage describing Amalek’s offensive and to “remember it.” We must listen intently not missing a single word and the reader must pronounce every syllable correctly. In many kehillos the custom is to read the final pasuk twice because there are two opinions on the correct vocalization of one letter and we want to make sure we’re fulfilling the mitzvah by all accounts.
Yes we know all about it. We’re supposed to remember forever what Amalek did to us on the way when we left Egypt and that we must obliterate this enemy’s name from the face of the earth.
But perhaps there is something we’re forgetting. We forget that aside from the special Torah reading on Shabbos Zachor we are supposed to do something to wipe out the memory of Amalek. We forget why he attacked us at Refidim in the first place and why he continues to wage war against us to this very day in various guises.
In every generation Amalek has the power to act against us. The soul of Amalek empowers such things as the global media campaign that was launched to mold public opinion in preparation for the Durban II conference in Geneva in 2009 which like its predecessor served as an international forum for anti-Semitic propaganda the likes of which we haven’t seen since Hitler’s days. And now the media have been enlisted to spread the word about Israel Apartheid Week which is scheduled to go from one university to the next throughout the Western world.
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