Purim Dvar Torah From Dr. Prager

In the very end of parashat Ki Tetzeh which we read this past Shabbat, Shabbat Zachor, we read of the savage attack of Amalek on the Jewish people in the desert, “How he fell upon you on the way and massacred your stragglers, all those who trailed after you when you were tired and exhausted, and he did not fear God.” Most m’farshim understand “ולא ירא אלקים” – “He did not fear God” –to refer to Amalek. But if you look at the pasuk and the way it reads, we could easily come up with a different interpretation: “He did not fear God” could also mean that B’nai Yisrael did not have any fear of God. Indeed, there are midrashim which do suggest that not only were B’nai Yisrael tired and exhausted but many of them were also losing faith in HaShem.

While there are still Jew haters throughout the world and while we face a vicious enemy within Eretz Yisrael who wants to destroy the Jewish people, most Jews today face an Amalek far more dangerous than those armed with guns and suicide belts. The modern-day Amalek does not surround us, it is WITHIN us. So many Jews today are totally apathetic and couldn’t care less about living as Jews; others say they would like to observe more mitzvoth but, for all kinds of reasons, find it too hard to live a life of Torah; and for so many other Jews – they have abandoned their faith in the God of Israel. It is hard enough to fight back when you are weak and physically broken, but when you have lost your WILL to stand up for who you are and what matters most in this world, then the forces of Amalek will be victorious.

With the downfall of Haman and his followers toward the very end of the Megillah, in Chapter 8, we read “ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר” – “And the Jews had light and joy, and cheer and honor.” The triumph of the Jewish people over their enemies was certainly a major source of their joy, but there was far more than their physical survival that at stake here. In Chapter 9 we read: “קימו וקבלו היהודים” – “The Jews established and accepted upon themselves (the mitzvoth)…” We know from the opening of the Megillah how assimilated and apathetic the Jews of Persia were at that time; they had no “honor” and no joy in living as Jews. It took the physical threat of Amalek to shake them out of their Jewish “tiredness” and “exhaustion” and to make them realize what they had given up. Their victory over the physical Haman (Amalek) also brought a triumph over the inner Hama (Amalek) which threatened the very future of the Jewish people.

This Purim, may each of us vow not only to stand up to the anti-Semites whom we may encounter in the outside world, but vow as well to stand up and overcome the Amalek that threatens to destroy us from within. Only when we strengthen ourselves as a Goy Kadosh – a Holy Nation – will we be able to truly experience “light and joy, cheer and honor.”

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