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Shabbat Zachor

Vayikra

Leviticus 1:1-5:26, Deuteronomy 25:17-9

I Samuel 15:2-34

Oddly enough, being a parent has put a bit of a damper on Purim for me.

I always loved Purim: the costumes, the revelry, the gleefulness, and, of course, the comfort of the good guys coming out on top. Recently, in fact, costume-shopping has become particularly fun in our family, since we discovered a costume bank that donates all its proceeds to a community charity.

Now, the fun of costume-shopping and the joy of tzedakah-work are rolled into one.

Still, something was spoiled for me five years ago when my daughter, a Jewishly sophisticated 5-year-old, was chattering to me about Purim and she slipped and confused the name of Ahasuerus, the wicked king of the Purim story, with that of Antiochus, the wicked king of the Chanukah story. In that moment, I understood how filled our liturgical cycle is with stories of victimization: A wicked king rises against us, we turn to God for help (God at least is present in the Pesach and Chanukah stories, while strikingly absent from the Purim Megillah), and, against all odds, we triumph.

It was a deeply disturbing moment of realization. I found myself asking, along with many parents and community leaders of this generation, to what extent I wanted my child to grow up with stories of victimization as a key dimension of her sense of herself as a Jew. Since that day, Purim is just a bit less funny for me, and I find myself drawn to ambivalent views of this holiday.

This year I found a particularly stunning way to read the story of Amalek, appended as the special Maftir reading for Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat immediately preceding Purim. "Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt — how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. . . Blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!" (Deuteronomy 25:17-9).

I discovered a number of commentators focus on the fact that the commandment is given in the singular form — Zachor or "Remember," while the Torah could have used the plural, zichru. One might say that this simply means the commandment is addressed to the Jewish community as a single collective. But for at least one interpreter, the use of the singular form serves to teach a lesson about the safety of the collective: Amalek had no power over those who stayed close to the community. Amalek only had the power to attack those who lagged behind, who found themselves walking singly, separated from the protection of the group.

Another commentator takes this line of thinking a step further, suggesting that the vicious attack on the "stragglers" was only possible because the community was "famished and weary." Had the community been doing its job, it would have cared for its most vulnerable, gathered them in and protected them from harm. Thus, in a stunning departure from the plain meaning of the text, the commandment to remember Amalek is read as a reminder to those within the protective circle of the Jewish community to not forget their responsibility for those who stand painfully on its periphery.

Suddenly the command is not only a mitzvah to remember the ways we have all suffered at the hands of those who have risen up against our people. It is also a mitzvah to extend the loving circle of Jewish life around all those who would find haven with us (Itturei Torah, vol. 6, Page 149).

Those of us who are blessed to know the Jewish community as a place of caring and nourishment are duty-bound to do all that we can to make our communal home open to outsiders as well as insiders, to those who lag behind, to those who have grown weary, to those who haven't had the strength to catch up.

So, this Purim, let us frolic. Let us remember the real dangers we have survived, let us celebrate our victory and our vitality, let us costume and cavort and delight. But let us also extend a hand to one straggler at a time, to those who need the loving arms of community wrapped around them as much as we do. It's one of the mitzvot of Purim.