According to a 2018 survey conducted by the Claims Conference, forty-five percent of Americans cannot name a single ghetto or concentration camp that was utilized by the Nazis during World War II. Disturbingly, forty-one percent of young Americans believe that only two million Jews (or fewer) perished in the Holocaust. Despite the catchphrase “Never Forget!” prominent in Holocaust remembrance efforts, it seems that details of the Holocaust are slowly fading from America’s collective memory.
One would expect Jews to be extremely distressed by this phenomenon. We should be passionate about ensuring the remembrance of the evils of Nazism and the destruction of European Jewry it brought about. And yet, we possess a strange custom that seems to directly contradict the efforts of Holocaust remembrance. Whenever we refer to the perpetrators of the Holocaust—Hitler, Eichmann, Mengele, etc.—we are quick to recite the phrase “yimakh shemo vezichro,” meaning “his name and remembrance should be erased.” It sounds catchy and is extremely effective at expressing our disdain for these evildoers. But is that what we really want—that their names be erased forever? Don’t we want the opposite, for their names to endlessly live on in infamy? “Never Forget," right?
This question perfectly captures the counterintuitive nature of the mitzvah of zekhirat Amalek. HaKadosh Baruch Hu doubly commands us to remember (zakhor) and not forget (lo tishkakh) Amalek’s attack on Bnei Yisrael as we left Egypt (Devarim 25:17-19). At the same time, God also demands that we wipe out any remembrance of Amalek entirely. Why should we have a mitzvah to remember a nation whose memory we are commanded to utterly eradicate? To strengthen this question, various commentators explain that the commandment to remember Amalek will exist even after this nation has already been destroyed (see Rambam, Melakhim 5:4-5 and Minkhat Hinukh, mitzvah 603). In fact, the Minkhat Hinukh (604) argues that the commandment to destroy Amalek can no longer be fulfilled, given that the army of Sanheriv erased the national identities of many ancient nations by scattering them across the Assyrian empire. Yet still, every year we deliberately remember the Amalekim by prominently reading about them from a sefer Torah in front of a minyan (see Rosh to Berakhot 7:20 and Terumat Hadeshen 108, who explain that it is a biblical obligation to hear the verses discussing Amalek be leined from a sefer Torah).
We have to reassess what it means to remember Amalek. Perhaps Hashem doesn’t only want us to remember the historical details of our battle with this ancient nation; He wants us to remember the crux of their philosophy and the need to eradicate it. The essence of Amalek is subtly captured by the Torah’s description of our first encounter with them: “asher karekha baderekh,” “that they happened upon you on the way.” The language of “keri” is used in the Torah to connote casual randomness (see Vayikra 26:21 with Rashi), an attitude taken when one does not believe that God is involved with, or cares about, what goes on in this world. When the Jews left Mitzrayim, they were an invincible nation that clearly possessed the favor of an all-powerful God who was invested in the events that take place in this world. In attacking Bnei Yisrael, the Amalekim were trying to deny the clarity of God’s presence which had been revealed by the miraculous exodus from Egypt. The Amalekite insists that even the greatest of open miracles are happenstance and meaningless; God is not present to protect the Jewish nation, and no one should fear waging all-out war on them. In a certain sense, other enemies that we have possessed over the centuries—the Nazis serving as a prominent example—attempted to send a similar message: you are not the Chosen People of God, because God doesn’t care about you or anything that goes on in this world.
You may now be wondering if the Nazis were really driven by an Amalek philosophy, or if they were simply visceral Jew haters. Consider the execution of the prominent Nazi named Julius Streicher, who was hanged on October 16, 1946 during the Nuremburg Trials. Famously, as he ascended the gallows, he faced the onlooking crowd and defiantly yelled “Purimfest, 1946!” He was one of ten Nazis to be executed on that day (which coincidentally matches the number of Haman’s sons who were executed in the Purim story). Streicher was well aware that the Nazi effort to eradicate the Jews was a continuation of the biblical Haman’s efforts. He knew that his ancient hatred of Judaism ran deeper than animalistic bigotry; it was a defiant attempt to destroy the biblical paradigm of Purim, a purposeful denial of the Jewish people’s special relationship with the Divine.
The commandment to remember Amalek is intended to constantly remind us that, in fact, God does care, and He does have a special, beloved relationship with His Chosen Nation. By mentioning Amalek every year in Parshat Zakhor, we remind ourselves that the philosophy of Amalek must be eradicated from among us. As the Netziv explains (Ha’amek Davar, Devarim 25:19), the goal of this mitzvah is to strengthen our understanding that HaKadosh Barukh Hu is always there for us, providing for us behind the guise of the natural order of this universe. We emphatically reject the philosophy of Amalek, the attitude of happenstance, and embrace the Master of the Universe’s deep love for each and every Jew, a love which transcends rational reasoning (see Yirmiyahu 31:19 and Sefat Emet, Purim 5661 s.v. isa bimedrash). Ultimately, our Father will never allow us to fall prey to the schemes of Amalek, whether in ancient Persia or 20th-century Europe. Every effort to destroy us will only be followed by miraculous redemption, where God’s firm hold over the world is made clear.
So yes, we will remember the names of Haman, prominent Nazis, and every other vestige of Amalek, if only to utterly annihilate everything that they stand for. God is there and will always lovingly protect us: teshuatam hayita lanesakh, the redemption of the Jewish people will be forever.
