Parshas Zachor
The war of Amalek against the Jewish people, we find, takes place in general in four periods: a) as soon as the Jews went out of Egypt; b) in the last years that the Jews were in the desert, before they entered Eretz Yisrael (only then Amalek disguised himself as a Canaanite)25; c) in the first years of their being in Eretz Yisrael, after the appointment of King Shaul and before the building of the Beis HaMikdash (for this is the order of the three things they were commanded upon entering the Land: appointing a king, the war against Amalek, and building the Beis HaMikdash); d) "בדרא דמלכא משיחא" ("in the generation of King Moshiach").
The history of the Jewish people, from the time the Jews became a nation upon going out of Egypt to receive the Torah, divides into two periods: a) when the Jews were in the desert and had nothing to do with the physicality of this world, and their needs — which divide into food, clothing and shelter — they received from the manna, the well of Miriam, and the Clouds of Glory; b) when the Jews entered the land of the seven nations in order to make it into Eretz Yisrael. This period also includes the time of exile, when the Jews are in the lands of the nations in order to prepare there the "עתידה ארץ ישראל שתתפשט בכל הארצות" ("Eretz Yisrael is destined to spread out over all the lands") — to make of them a dwelling for Him, blessed be He.
Of the four times of the wars of Amalek mentioned above, the first two were at the beginning and the end of the first period, and the other two — at the beginning and the end of the second period.
From the fact that we see that of the two wars of the first period, the first was with an open Amalek and the second — with a disguised one (as a Canaanite), this is a proof that also of the two wars of the second period, the first war, in the days of Shaul, was with an open Amalek, and the second war, in the generation of King Moshiach — our generation, the generation to whom Moshiach is coming, speedily in our days — is with a concealed Amalek.
7. Concerning the war of Amalek at the beginning of the first period, it is written "אשר קרך" ("who happened upon you"). The Midrash26 interprets "karcha" as a term of coldness. He did not kill, G‑d forbid; he only cooled them off.
When the Jews were going to the Giving of the Torah and wanted to call out "נעשה" ("we will do") before "נשמע" ("we will hear") — that whether they would understand or not understand, they would fulfill whatever they would hear — Amalek comes along and cools them off.
He does not argue, G‑d forbid, that one should not go to receive the Torah; after all, he too is a grandson of Avraham and Yitzchak. He only argues: What is this excitement, that you leap out of your bounds and cry out "we will do" before "we will hear," taking upon yourself to act before you know what it is all about? You are, after all, a person of intellect — and the proof is that you are about to be given a Torah which is "חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני כל העמים" ("your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of all the nations"). It does not befit a person of intellect to go out of his bounds and leap beyond measure and limitation, beyond his reason and understanding — and certainly not to cry out "we will do," that he will do everything he will hear, whether he will understand it or whether he will not understand it. Amalek, too, is a grandson of Avraham and Yitzchak, and he agrees to the study of Torah, but not to the conduct of "יעקב איש תם יושב אהלים" ("Yaakov, a simple man, a dweller of tents"). He argues: "a dweller of tents" — learning Torah — agreed; but "a simple man" — not to ask beforehand what it is all about and what will be demanded of him, but rather "we will do" before "we will hear" — to this he does not agree. He holds by the way of Eisav, "איש יודע ציד" ("a man who knows hunting"): he understands; he calculates how much he can grasp and take on; he assesses his powers with his intellect — how much he will learn and how much he will fulfill. He goes with the order of "we will hear" and then "we will do": first to hear and understand — only then will one be able to assess whether one can do it or not.
On the contrary, he argues: since the Torah is truth, and it is, after all, a matter of wisdom, what difference does it make whether one puts "we will do" before "we will hear" or the reverse? Either way, even if he puts "we will hear" before "we will do," he will also surely come to "we will do," for it is, after all, compelled by reason.
Against this the Torah warned, so that one should know that through the approach of "who happened upon you" — coldness — there afterwards comes about the second interpretation of "karcha": from the term "keri" (impurity)27. Its meaning is that from the innermost vitality that was given for "פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשוה" ("Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it") — to take in the entire world and make of it a dwelling for Him, blessed be He — from that very vitality comes about the strengthening of the powers of the kelipos, may the Merciful One save us28. And this begins from the first interpretation of "who happened upon you" — coldness. From "a man who knows hunting" one comes to "איש שדה" ("a man of the field"), out and away from the tents — the tents of Shem and Ever, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.
One must conduct oneself in the way of "Yaakov, a simple man," for then one goes on the right path, as the Gemara* says on the verse "תומת ישרים תנחם" ("The simplicity of the upright shall guide them") — if one goes with simplicity, then "it shall guide them": one goes on the straight path. But those who do not hold by the approach of "עמא פזיזא" ("the impetuous nation") argue that Torah is a matter of intellect, and especially when it concerns a very lofty and deep intellect, one must not jump out of one's skin; one must approach it in an orderly way — "we will hear" and then "we will do." In the end, "וסלף בוגדים ישדם" ("and the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them"): from this comes about the second interpretation of "karcha," as mentioned above.
8. This was the war of Amalek at the beginning of the first period. At the end of that period, in the last years of the generation of the desert, before the Jews entered Eretz Yisrael, Amalek again came to wage war against the Jews. But here he only carried out a ruse, a trick: he dressed himself in the garments of a Canaanite, so that people should not recognize that this was the same one who had waged war at the beginning of the forty years.
In the second war he did not come as a son of Avraham and Yitzchak, but as a Canaanite, a gentile. In matters of Torah and Yiddishkeit he does not interfere at all. "While you learn and want to conduct yourself as a Jew," he argues, "I do not interfere — do what you wish. I demand only one thing: in the matters that belong to the land of Canaan, in these learn from me, subject yourself to a Canaanite."
He came to the Jew and argued: Since you are now completing your education with the training of the generation of the desert, and you must prepare to enter the land of Canaan — to occupy yourself with all thirty-nine labors, "עובדין דחול" ("mundane activities") — you must learn the matters and the ways of the land of Canaan, so that you will be able to have a foothold in the land.
If you will not learn the ways of the land of Canaan and subject yourself to them, you cannot expect that when you come to the land of Canaan you will be able to live through it there, to go through the world and remain a Jew — that is, to have enough for expenses, to keep Shabbos and Yom Tov, to give tzedakah, to give the children an education according to Torah, and so on — how will you be able to manage this?
And this is what the Midrash30 says on the verse "וישב ממנו שבי" ("and he took some of them captive"): that the Canaanite king of Arad took back from the Jews a Canaanite maidservant. The Canaanite does not take from the Jews something which in essence is theirs; he takes back no more than a captive — something which the Jews themselves had taken captive from the world. In the study of Torah and the fulfillment of the mitzvos he does not interfere; he only wants that when one goes out of the four cubits of Torah and comes into the world, one should conduct oneself like a Canaanite — to differentiate.
The Torah revealed that within the arguments of the Canaanite king of Arad, Amalek is hidden. For a gentile has no hold at all on a Jew: a Jew is entirely holiness, and a gentile is entirely the opposite — there can be no union of two opposites. But when a Canaanite comes to wage war while an Amalek is clothed within him — who, after all, descends from Avraham and Yitzchak — then various arguments grow out, with the results of the arguments of Amalek: "ויזנב בך כל הנחשלים אחריך" ("and he struck at all the weaklings at your rear").
When the Canaanite king of Arad comes along and says that one should learn the ways of the land of Canaan, for precisely through this will one be able to enter it, one must know that not only is this no way to make the land of Canaan into Eretz Yisrael, "ארץ אשר עיני הוי׳ אלקיך בה" ("a land upon which the eyes of the L‑rd your G‑d are"), but on the contrary: this is something that wages war against the Jews and against Eretz Yisrael. Within it is clothed the very same Amalek who did not want to let the Jews receive the Torah, and cooled them off from all matters of holiness.
Even more did the Torah reveal: not only is there clothed within the Canaanite king of Arad an Amalek who interferes with the Giving of the Torah and interferes with the spirituality of the Jews, but even more, there is clothed within it something that interferes with and wages war against the Jewish body — as was revealed in the days of Purim, the true inner intent of all these arguments: "להשמיד להרוג ולאבד" ("to destroy, to kill and to annihilate"), G‑d forbid, all the Jews — the body as well.
One must know that the way to enter Eretz Yisrael is not to go in the path of the Canaanite king of Arad, but on the contrary: "ויחרם אתהם" ("and he utterly destroyed them").
9. As was said earlier, also at the end of the second period, before we are to enter Eretz Yisrael — "a land upon which the eyes of the L‑rd your G‑d are, מרשית השנה ועד אחרית שנה (from the beginning of the year until the end of the year)" — which is our generation, we must first be victorious in the war of the Canaanite king of Arad.
What is his war? He comes along to a Jew and say[s] … [OCR unclear: text missing here] … remain whole, in the plain sense, in his 248 limbs and 365 sinews.
For the fact that the Torah is called "תורת חיים" ("a Torah of life"), and of the mitzvos it is written "וחי בהם" ("and he shall live by them"), does not refer only to after a hundred and twenty years in the World to Come; it is meant also in the plain sense: if one wants a Jew to be alive physically, in his body, in this physical world, the only way to this is the study of Torah, a Torah of life, which gives him eternal life in this physical world, and the fulfillment of the mitzvos — "and he shall live by them" — that he be a living Jew in all his 248 limbs (corresponding to the 248 positive commandments) and 365 sinews (corresponding to the 365 prohibitions).
And then he fulfills "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it": he makes of the entire world a dwelling for Him, blessed be He, and "Eretz Yisrael is destined to spread out over all the lands" — so that wherever one will turn, one will see that "the eyes of the L‑rd your G‑d are upon it," not only on Yom Kippur at Ne'ilah, on Shabbos and Yom Tov, or at the time of davening and learning, but "from the beginning of the year until the end of the year."
(From the sichos of Purim 5716)
Notes
23) Shir HaShirim 8:6. Yalkut there. For an explanation of the connection between the love of the G‑dly soul and the fire above, see the maamar "Basi LeGani" 5712, ch. 3 (Sefer HaMaamarim Basi LeGani, vol. 1, p. 40; Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, vol. 1, pp. 22–23). [Referenced on the previous page.]
24) Berachos 54a. [Referenced on the previous page.]
25) Bamidbar Rabbah 19:20. Tanchuma, Parshas Chukas, cited in Tosafos, Rosh HaShanah 3a, s.v. "Vayishma HaKenaani."
26) Tanchuma, Parshas Teitzei. See also Likkutei Sichos vol. 2, end of p. 387 ff.
27) Tanchuma there.
28) Tanya, ch. 6.
*) Shabbos 88, beginning of side b. See also Likkutei Sichos vol. 2, p. [OCR unclear].
30) Yalkut Shimoni, remez 764. Rashi's commentary on the Torah.
Key Lesson
The Amalek of our generation comes disguised as a "Canaanite," leaving Torah study alone but insisting that in worldly affairs a Jew must follow the world's ways in order to survive. This Sicha teaches that this cool, calculating approach is itself Amalek and threatens even the Jew's physical existence; true life, spiritual and physical, comes only through Torah and mitzvos with simple, wholehearted commitment, making the entire world a dwelling for G‑d.