S ometimes Amalek can be found lurking in the most unlikely places. Chazal (Chullin 139b) even spotted Haman in Gan Eden peeking out as it were from behind the Eitz HaDaas.
Amalek seems to make an appearance of yet another sort between the lines of a Talmudic tale at the very end of Maseches Nedarim (90b). A married woman was sequestered with another man when the husband arrived home unexpectedly. The man scampered up a ladder to a balcony high above the dining room and from that vantage point observed the husband getting ready to eat from a dish that unbeknownst to him contained snake venom. The onlooker thereupon jumped from his hiding place shouting “Stop! Don’t eat!” at the startled husband.
The Gemara cites Rava’s opinion that the wife was permitted to remain with her husband. Rava reasons that had actual infidelity occurred the interloper would surely have allowed the husband to eat and perish so as to eliminate his “competition.”
The Gemara finds this rationale so compelling that it wonders how absent Rava’s statement one might have thought otherwise. It answers that one might have expected even an actual sinner to spare the husband’s life so as to preserve the wife’s status as a married and thus forbidden woman in keeping with the teaching of that wise guide to human nature called Mishlei that “stolen waters are sweet.”
