In this week’s  parasha, Parashat Beshalach, we read about the amazing Exodus- when the Israelites left Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea which was an extraordinary  miracle for Am Israel-the Jewish nation. We also learn  how all the Egyptian army drowned in the sea. The Israelites had escaped the seemingly inexorable danger of the chariots of the Egyptian army, the military high-tech of its day. Miraculously the sea divided, the Israelites crossed, the Egyptians, their chariot wheels caught in the mud, were unable to advance or retreat and were caught by the returning tide. 

The very last Psukim in our parasha tell us about the incident that happened with the nation of Amalek. The nation of Amalek came and attacked the Israelites in the desert. A battle occurred there and with great miracles Amalek was defeated despite the Israelites not being capable of fighting or having an army. 

After the war, G-d says to Moshe “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely erase the name of Amalek and their memory from under heaven.” I always find it difficult to understand why we are being so harsh on the Amalekites, and being commanded to always remember what they have done to us and to destroy their name from the world. Yet when it comes to the Egyptians,  who were so cruel to us and made us slaves for more than 200 years, we have no commandment to hate and destroy them. Why the difference? 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offers an explanation. He says that we, the people in the West, have forgotten about the concept of an enemy. We created a certain kind of society, a specific way of thinking and a characteristic type of personality. The concept is “the rational actor”, the person who judges and acts based on consequences and rewards and chooses the best option in each situation. Such a person believes that for every problem there is a solution, for every conflict a resolution. The way to achieve it is to sit down, negotiate, and do on balance what is best for all.

In such a world there are no enemies, merely conflicts of interest. An enemy is simply “a friend we haven’t done enough for yet.” In the real world, however, an enemy is “someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the enemy always hates us for a reason, it is his reason, not ours.” He sees a different world from ours, and in that world we are the enemy. 

This explains the difference between the Egyptians and the Amalekites. The Egyptians oppressed the Israelites because, in Pharaoh’s words, “The Israelites are becoming too numerous and strong for us” Their hate, in other words, came from fear. It was not irrational. The Amalekites, however, were not being threatened by the Israelites. They attacked a people who were “weary and worn out,” specifically those who were “lagging behind.” In short: the Egyptians feared the Israelites because they were strong. The Amalekites attacked the Israelites because they were weak.

In today’s terminology, the Egyptians were rational actors, the Amalekites were not. With rational actors there can be negotiated peace. People engaged in conflict eventually realise that they are not only destroying their enemies: they are destroying themselves. There comes a point at which rational actors understand that the pursuit of self-interest has become self-destructive, and they learn to co-operate.

Emil Fackenheim, a post-Holocaust theologian, noted that towards the end of the Second World War the Germans diverted trains carrying supplies to their own army, in order to transport Jews to the extermination camps. So driven were they by hatred that they were prepared to put their own victory at risk in order to carry out the systematic murder of the Jews of Europe. 

Evil never dies and like liberty it demands constant vigilance. We are commanded to remember, not for the sake of the past but for the sake of the future, and not for revenge but the opposite: a world free of revenge and other forms of violence. Peace is possible, implies Moses, even with an Egypt that enslaved and tried to destroy us. But peace is not possible with those who attack people they see as weak and who deny their own people the freedom for which they claim to be fighting. Sometimes there may be no alternative but to fight evil and defeat it. This may be the only path to peace.

Understanding this difference reminds us to remain observant and careful against those who threaten our existence, recognizing that not all conflicts can be settled through back-and-forth conversation to agree on something or clear and sensible thinking.  

Shabbat Shalom

Ido, Grade 10