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Orchard of Delights
Today, given the vicissitudes of history no extant people can be
labeled the descendants of Amalek, but the Rabbis teach that any
person or nation who actively seeks to wipe out the Jewish people is
a manifestation of Amalek. Tragically, in the last hundred years we
have seen many different faces of Amalek: Hitler and the Nazi killing
machine, Saddam Hussein, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbbalah, and
the recent attempt by Iran to develop nuclear weapons. The latter
all share the same overwhelming desire: to exterminate Jews and
eliminate the State of Israel.
In the passage about Amalek’s attack on the Jewish people, the
Torah reminds us to “remember what Amalek did to you on the way
when you were leaving Egypt … and he struck those of you who were
hindmost, all the weak who were at the rear when you were faint
and exhausted” (Exodus 25:17). Amalek struck not the vanguard of
the people, but the stragglers, the weary and weak. Approximately
250 years ago a slow but steady trickle of Jews began returning to
the Jewish homeland. From the students of the Ba’al Shem Tov and
the Vilna Gaon in the late 1700s, to the first and second aliyot in the
late 1800s and early 1900s the movement gathered steam. By the
time the Second World War arrived, the ingathering of the exiles had
become a phenomenon of historical proportions. After nearly two
thousand years of exile the Jewish people were coming home, leaving
their “Egyptian” exiles behind. It was then that Hitler and the Nazi
regime struck at those straggling in the rear, those who were “faint
and exhausted” from the long and bitter exile. Although both Amalek
and Hitler exacted a terrible toll, both were ultimately defeated.
Ki Teitzei ends with the ringing declaration that the Jewish people
must not forget to completely wipe out the memory of Amalek from
under the heavens. The sad and bitter reality in this world is that
while there are some enemies the Jewish people can make peace
with, there are other enemies who must be decisively defeated, for
they know no compromise in their goal of wiping out the Jewish
people. This lesson speaks to the Jewish people today as clearly as
it did then, and due to the scourge of Islamic terrorism around the
world, it is a lesson the world will unfortunately have to confront
sooner or later as well.
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Shoftim
included in this rich blend are laws detailing how non-Jews living in
the Land should be treated.
The inviolable union of religious and civil law is abundantly
evident in the instruction given to the king:
It shall be that when he sits on the throne of his kingdom,
he shall write for himself two copies of this Torah in a
book, from before the cohanim, the levi’im. It shall be
with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life,
so that he will learn to fear God, his God, to observe all the
words of this Torah and these decrees, to perform them, so
that his heart does not become haughty over his brethren
and it does not turn from the commandment right or left,
so that he will prolong years over his kingdom, he and his
sons among Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)
As the verses stress, the king, the ultimate source of power and
authority in any kingdom, was totally subservient to the Torah,
which he was committed to upholding. In fact, the Torah was his
sole source of legitimacy. The Torah’s ultimate authority comes from
God and in this sense Torah law and political theory is qualitatively
different from any man-made system of law and government. Torah
contains a unique blend of theocracy and democracy, capitalism
and socialism, universal rights and specific obligations. Due to the
Torah’s holistic nature, it defies any simple categorization in modern
terms. Despite the divergence between contemporary democracy and
the unique, hybrid model of government expounded by the Torah,
we can convincingly argue that not only do many of the pillars of
democracy find their antecedents in the Torah itself but that many
aspects of modern democratic societies owe their existence to the
Torah’s influence.
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