There is something jarring here, that I have missed in years past. Does not the positive commandment to blot out the memory of Amalek (if we read this literally) directly contradict the negative act of not forgetting? Strangely, we are being told to forget and to remember simultaneously.
Parhsat Zachor as a Model Response to Ancient and Contemporary Trauma
Moses L. Pava • Special to FailedMessiah.com
In synagogues around the world this Shabbat, Jewish communities will fulfill the ancient obligation to publicly read Parshat Zachor, the last three verses of the 25th chapter of Deuteronomy.
I admit that in past years, I have had personal difficulties with this mitzvah. Loosely translated, the first two verses read “Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way, after you left Egypt. How he met you on the way and he smote the straggler at the rear, when you were faint and weary, and he did not fear God.”
Remembering Amalek on an annual basis, forever dwelling on an unchangeable history, is psychologically enfeebling and ethically dubious, or so I have thought. Might it not lead to a deep resentment of one’s contemporary enemies (guilt by association) which might periodically explode into a cathartic display of uncontrolled revenge and violence?
To me, from my modern and comfortably liberal perspective, this is not just an academic question, but it is a live concern. Nevertheless, it is precisely these verses in the Torah which make us the most uncomfortable that we probably should continue to linger with for a few extra moments.
Amalek stands for radical evil, from the Biblical and Rabbinic point of view. And, it is the perennial and traumatic intrusions of Amalek (and his present-day followers and lookalikes) into Jewish history and contemporary life that is so difficult for us liberals to bear.
Yet, we must admit that there is a deep truth, grounded in Parshat Zachor, to live by the motto, “Never Again.” This is a clear and no-nonsense philosophy. Those who hold this belief are the self-described realists. And, they know how to react to each new act of terrorism. As I write this, we are just beginning to mourn for the Fogels, a Jewish family of five in the Israeli town of Itamar, the youngest of whom was a baby less than a year old, brutally slaughtered by a Palestinian terrorist.
“Never again,” however, I have come to see in these ancient verses this year, is only half of Parshat Zachor’s instructions. The last of the three verses reads, “When God will give you rest from all of your enemies around you, in the land He will give you for an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven. You shall not forget.”
There is something jarring here, that I have missed in years past. Does not the positive commandment to blot out the memory of Amalek (if we read this literally) directly contradict the negative act of not forgetting? Strangely, we are being told to forget and to remember simultaneously.
It is precisely this contradiction or paradox, however, which is the key to a new understanding here. A healing response to trauma (be it at the national level or the level of the individual) demands both a special kind of forgetting and a special kind of remembering.
To recover from trauma, one must begin to put one’s life back together. This means we must learn how to bracket off the horrors of past experiences and to move on. We must begin to face the future and start to rebuild anew.
At the same time, it is just as true, that there is a deep human need (and even a desire) to revisit the trauma, time and time again. It is true that history is fixed and unchanging, but our memories and understandings of history are constantly in flux. Each time we return to the scene of the crime, or to familiar Biblical verses, we return in a slightly altered form, and that can make all the difference in the world.
Forgetting and remembering are not opposites, but rather they are dynamic and mutually defining activities. To learn and to grow we must learn how to purposely forget, and this is a self-conscious activity that we have to work at in order to move forward. But, authentic forgetting of the sort I am advocating, is not a simple-minded, naïve, self-imposed blindness to reality. Rather, it is a forgetting which contains a hearty dose of remembering.
Similarly, as we remember Amalek this Shabbat, in preparation for the joyous holiday of Purim, we ought to think more deeply about the meaning of memory. Is it simply rehearsing a list of events, dates, and names? Or, is there an alternative form of remembering, an authentic and positive remembering, which is aware of the active nature of remembering and the human choices it always involves? If authentic forgetting always contains a hearty dose of remembering, it is even more true that authentic remembering always contains a selective and intelligent forgetting.
To me, the difference between simple and authentic forgetting and remembering is the difference between continuing to hold onto the hope for that promised day “when God will give you rest from all of your enemies around you, in the land” and the despair that comes from allowing the trauma of Amalek (both ancient and contemporary) to permanently define your identity.
Moses Pava is the Alvin Einbender Professor of Business Ethics at Yeshiva University. His most recent book is Jewish Ethics as Dialogue: Using Spiritual Language to Re-imagine a Better World.