KLM Parshat Zachor by Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome back to klm the awareness movement cavanaugh mitzvahs where we're trying to show the incredible broad depth and richness in so many of our activities that we were familiar with but we don't know how much they sparkle so here the next one we're in the khodesh adar and we have coming this shabbos parshas zahur a torah passage we're supposed to remember what amalek did to us right and we learned that this is actually a torah commandment well it's a mach lokis but most hold that to hear this torah passage's atari commandment so i want to talk about this mitzvah and there we can grow a great deal from this mitzvah and the truth of merit is not really only an annual commandment the rambam and i think it's the smog say that really every day you should remember what amalek did to us right so some say it's actually a constant commandment to remember that about the tribe of mamalik we're going to discuss more about what he did do in a second but this mitzvah is something you should be doing every day first of all verbally to read about it to say it out loud and mentally to not forget what amalek did okay this is a big mitzvah let's understand more about it and how to do it so first of all the the passage i'm just gonna go over the passage it says okay so the commandment the torah passage says remember what amalek which was a tribe that attacked us the derek that says this uh the sea had split the jews had had the most incredible miracles the world shook from the splitting of the sea they're leaving egypt a malic attacks right he encountered you on the path it said he cut off all the weak people our the midrash says he they actually castrated uh the jews and threw their bris mila's in the air horrible act right and it says uh you know we were tired and thirsty on the journey and that amalek did not fear god right and then it tells us that when we get into eretz israel when we settle in israel hashem will help get rid of our enemies and we we in akash bro have a mitzvah to erase amalek okay to race to race them and we're told don't forget okay that's the passage that's the famous passage okay here's a question all right this instruction to remember how terrible they are and what the enemy did to us i don't think this is the normal thing for us jews to do this is not normally what hashem asks of us okay because we take all the difficulties that happen to us personally we say that there's no retribution even that happens to the non-jews that isn't for our sake to do chuba so we're really usually focusing remember what you did to get yourself in this boat yet here we're seemingly being told remember how terrible they attacked you when you were leaving and they did these horrible things why are we so focusing on them you know the huffa time has a fantastic metaphor that seems to be exactly against this he says you have a uh a man he owns a dog right so he has a stick and the dog the snarling dog so the dog was not uh acting properly so the man takes the stick and he's like going like this towards the dog so the dog's like her trying to snap at the stick right so he's just a dog he doesn't realize that it's the master that's uh wielding the stick right so amalek is a stick they did this and they did that who wielded the stick right you know in other words hashem always sends us not always he usually sends us blessing and good and all these things but when we need a wake-up call he sends us trouble right so why are we focused on what a malick did to us right why why are we dwelling on how bad they are so this is i think important question and i have two answers for you okay and i think it'll help us really appreciate the mitzvah one reason we're told to and by the way the mitzvah is to harbor hatred hatred towards them and of course we want their annihilation really really just hateful so i would like to suggest to you the reason is it's not what amalek did to us it's what he did to the glory of akadeshwar you know the hashem created the world for everyone all humanity to see what a beautiful place he made so they'll come close to him and when you see justice and goodness and kindness that's the purpose of the world when you see the glory of hashem amalek just ruined it amalek ruined it so badly rashi explains you have a person uh you have a scalding hot bath right and uh no one would go into the bath now if somebody goes into that bath they're gonna get scalded it'll be terrible but it cools the bath down a little right there was such a fear of god a reverence and an intense respect for god because how he took care of the jewish people and he split the sea and the egyptians are gone etc and then amali comes and attacks the jews and oh well i guess they're not so invincible i guess hashem's not protecting the et cetera you hear that was a terrible loss a desecration of hashem of his honor which everybody suffers for so okay so i would say the first reason we are supposed to dwell on what they did and how horrible it was in fact the villain says it in in the in the prophet in the prophecy because they were the first to do that they're going to be also going to be the first to be destroyed in the world to come right so number one is we if we it's a matter of us feeling love for hashem you know if you love someone and they are treated with disrespect and and people are um you know they don't feel the same that really should if you love a person you should care about their honor right so number one is one reason we have a mitzvah and this is even a daily basis to realize you know it was really terrible he ruined the ability of the world to recognize that hashem is completely involved in all the divine providence number one okay so that's one idea behind the mitzvah is we should say that was terrible it ruined the recognition of hashem in the world okay there's another thing is i told you that normally we look at difficulties as a wake-up call and we don't dwell on the enemy we dwell on the message right that that hashem is in fact we're supposed to call out hashem and there's trouble and recognize it comes from our deeds so the midrash actually says that's what's going on in parsha zakhor all right but uh it gives a metaphor of a king who has a son a prince prince princess right and the king makes a offense and he he makes it clear he says that um do not he fenced off an area he says do not break through this fence and if you do he set a dog or like a guard dog by the fence and the dog if someone would come to break the fence the dog will attack and ah the king's own son breaks through the fence and the dog attacks the sun right so what's uh so the king says why because it's this king's son the king loves his son right so he's not saying you remember you you hutzba remember how you broke through my fence and you disregarded me he doesn't do that he says you remember how that dog bit you remember when you remember when the dog bit you and then and the kid says yeah why did he bite me because i broke the fence i broke through the fence right so this it was it's like a sensitive parenting right so um the partial of alex what hashem did what amalek did is this sensitive divine parent who says i'm not going to remind you of the following see when a malek attack we had become weak in torah study we weren't what a privilege to learn tara from the divine being right we had we we had weakened ourselves right and that's a very very negative thing and also we were tested you know in the mid bar sometimes even though we're experiencing all this divine care and protection we would sometimes when trouble with it we say where's god where is it where's hashem so that was breaking some fences right you know were the were the princes and princesses of hashem and he set up some rules he said don't weaken and torah torah is your life right don't become lacks in torah and and you should know i'm always here for you i love you right they didn't do that and then they got bit by a malik amalek bit them right attack them so instead of saying do you remember back then when you became really relaxed and weak in torah and when you question where where am i hashem doesn't do this because just like we care about his honor he cares about our honor so he just reminds you remember when amalek attacked you when you were leaving graffiti him place of laxity do you remember that remember when a malek attacked you now what's the kid supposed to say why did he attack me ah i weakened in my faith in hashem and i i was a little bit lazy i didn't learn tara as much as i could that's the message so really it is it's talking about him but it's really a reminder to us right so the second uh message that we should take from parshaz where you can do this on a daily basis and especially on shabbos when you hear the torah portion is that to realize you know amalek attacked us because we weren't strong enough in our resolve to learn torah and recognize hashem's presence so let's strengthen right okay one more a little set of lessons uh from this parsha that uh and and i think that'll equip us to do a lot okay so it um the commentaries explain that it says [Music] that the language of he the languages he happened upon us now the language of happened or happen stance is uh sounds like it wasn't by design right amalek tried to make us feel that things were just happening denies divine presence and says everything's just chance right so the thing is this that's the quality he tries to cast doubt about hashem's providence right so there's lessons we can do personal growth by realizing nothing is chance right and and when we strengthen our recognition that everything is divine present providence the good and the god forbid unpleasant right so we're strengthening our sins against their their evil force the other thing we said is they cooled us down right they jumped into the hot bath and cooled this down so but by the way these lessons come from a great hasidic rabbi who's in the world that come right down to gilas israel so he says one thing fight against chance malik was all about chance recognize providence second he cooled us down we're not going to cool down right enthusiasm right smile with passion right so that's how you fight amalek right he tried to cool the world down where were i'm going to be on fire right so that's another lesson and finally it says the midrash says that he they castrated the jews why because he was after the bris mila the circumcision the bris mila was our the way in which hashem helped protect us from going at straying after lust and being lustful and and and chasing after things we shouldn't chase after right so how are we going to fight back against the malik he tried to weaken our carefulness with being uh without with not straying after indulgence and and and things like that so let's strengthen that right let's just look in appropriate ways for the appropriate reasons and when we do that we're really fighting amalek in our character development okay so i just want to summarize we have this mitzvah that you can do every day you can recite this passage right and why are we focusing on them because they desecrated hashem's honor they made the world not recognize hashem the way they could so yes we should hate them for that okay that's number two number one number two are we focusing on what they did to us really it's a it's a loving little reminder from our abba you know remember what they did to you because you didn't have enough strength and you're learning torah and you're recognizing hashem right so remember it's a reminder to us to be stronger and finally we have the character development that we can have we should recognize divine providence and fight against the perception that things there's such a thing as chance we can go against being cooled down beyond fire with our voters hashem and we can be careful with our eyes and guard the brists that we have with the kadashboku okay 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