{"id":51531,"date":"2019-03-18T08:54:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T06:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=51531"},"modified":"2022-10-11T11:32:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T08:32:07","slug":"remembering-not-to-forget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/remembering-not-to-forget\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Not To Forget"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s chapter ends with a blaze of rhetoric and the famously troubling exhortation to genocide. As with so many other commands in Judaism, it is tied to history and memory-<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you went forth from Egypt, <\/span>how he met you by the way, and smote the hindmost of you, all that were enfeebled in thy rear, when you were faint and weary; and he feared not God.<\/span><\/p>\n

The exclamation point is the famously paradoxical \u201cremember, do not forget\u201d imperative to wipe out Amalek from the face of the earth. Many of us are made uncomfortable by this passage, and the text itself seems to be uneasy, protesting too much, itching for a fight. It describes Amalek\u2019s behavior with vivid specificity, as if to make our blood boil millennia later. \u00a0One might say this is the counter-Haggadah narrative, remembering in order to kill rather than to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the most striking part of this section is the knottily doubled urging to simultaneously recall and forget, to inscribe and obliterate. Seen from one angle, the repeated imperative telegraphs emphasis. No matter the face of your mind or the predilections of your memory, the inscription against Amalek needs to be written in permanent ink. <\/span><\/p>\n

Understood from a different direction, there is something twitchy and nagging about the words, as if the text knew that this dictate would be a difficult one to incorporate into a Jewish ethos to which it is orthogonal at best. The memory of the outrage would fade, and we would forget who Amalek was, if not what they did. The name would become a generic marker for an evil that would become all too familiar. Perhaps this is how ethics gets built; a memory of wrong, a commitment to never forget it, and the drive to ensure that those who prey on the weak have no future. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"What To Do About Amalek-III","main_caption":"Remembering Not to Forget","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Ensure that those who prey on the weak have no future","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":51527,"id":51527,"title":"gen-question-mark","filename":"gen-question-mark.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/to-fight-amalek-without-becoming-amalek\/gen-question-mark\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"gen-question-mark","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":51522,"date":"2019-03-18 06:49:31","modified":"2022-10-11 12:02:03","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":366,"height":440,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark-250x300.jpg","medium-width":250,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","medium_large-width":366,"medium_large-height":440,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","large-width":366,"large-height":440,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","1536x1536-width":366,"1536x1536-height":440,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","2048x2048-width":366,"2048x2048-height":440,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark.jpg","post_full_size-width":366,"post_full_size-height":440,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/gen-question-mark-349x420.jpg","home_baner-width":349,"home_baner-height":420}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108494,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51531\/revisions\/108494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}