Parshas Tetzaveh
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
It’s really hard to come up with an original Torah insight these days, as the Torah that we were given at Mount Sinai over 3300 years ago has been studied and explored in depth by some of the greatest minds in history, so that most good insights that we can come up with today were likely thought of already by someone before us.
That said, perhaps “Makom hinichu li avosai l'hisgader bah - my ancestors have left me room to make my mark" (see Talmud Chulin 7a), as I do believe that the following insight is indeed my own [and, if indeed, you have heard this insight before, please let me know!]:
In the Book of Esther (which will be read twice publicly on Purim in synagogues all around the world, this year on Monday evening March 9th and again on Tuesday morning March 10th), we find Mordechai ‘convincing’ Queen Esther to go in front of her husband King Achashveirosh unannounced, and to plead on behalf of her people to save them from Haman’s wicked decree to annihilate the entire Jewish nation:
“Then Mordechai said to reply to Esther, ‘Do not imagine that you will be able to escape in the King’s palace any more than the rest of the Jews. For if you persist in keeping silent at a time like this, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from some other place, while you and your father’s house will perish …’†(Esther 4:13-14).
It is interesting to note that revach, the Hebrew word for “relief†used in the text, literally means “[wide open] spaceâ€.
A little further on in the narrative, as Queen Esther begs King Achashveirosh to save the Jewish people, she identifies Prime Minister Haman (from the nation of Amalek) as the one behind the evil decree to kill all the Jews, and calls him an “adversary†and an “enemyâ€:
“Thereupon, King Ahasuerus exclaimed and said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is it? Where is the one who dared to do this?’ And Esther said, ‘An adversary and an enemy! This wicked Haman!’†(ibid. 7:5-6).
Here, too, the translation is not literal, as the Hebrew word for “adversary†used in the text, tzar, literally means “[narrow] spaceâ€. [As in the famous song: “Kol ha’olam kulo, gesher ‘tzar’ me’od …The whole world is a very narrow bridgeâ€]
It is hard to understand the choice of Hebrew words used here in the text. [Ed. Note: The text of the Book of Esther was written by Mordechai and Esther after the miraculous salvation of Purim.] I mean, there are other Hebrew words that one could have used to denote relief and deliverance…. but revach, [wide open] space? And who ever heard of referring to a wicked person as tzar, narrow? Evil, yes, but “narrow�
To answer this difficulty we need to better understand the nation of Amalek, the sworn enemy of the Jewish people, and why the Torah considers it to be the greatest threat to G-d and all of us. Why was Amalek different from all the other nations?
Rabbi Zev Leff, in his wonderful book The Festivals of Life, explains that until Amalek, all the nations were either believers in G-d, like the Jewish people and some of the nations of the world, or idolaters who believed that the various powers of the world functioned independently and had to be served as gods. Amalek was the first to introduce atheism as a philosophy – believing in nothing, that the world was not created by any intelligent power but was rather the result of the blind forces of nature alone.
In this respect, Amalek is the antithesis of the Jewish people. We strive to influence the world to abandon their idolatry and believe in the one G-d. Amalek strives to influence the world to abandon their idolatry and become non-believers, atheists.
Our mission as Jews here on earth is to grow spiritually and become closer (and bring others closer) to G-d through the study of His Torah, the performance of His commandments, and the refinement of our character traits. The nation of Amalek scoffs at the Jews and their mission – and will do whatever it can to stop spiritual growth from happening.
However, Amalek is more than just a nation. On a micro level, it is a negative force in this world (and sometimes inside us!) that is the polar opposite of what G-d asks us to be. Amalek represents cynicism and anti-growth. And the Torah and Judaism is all about growth and taking our spirituality and connection to G-d to new levels.
Amalek seeks to confine us in a tzar [narrow] space, so that we stagnate and miss out on the fulfillment of our mission as Jews. He is that evil voice inside us that says, “Don’t go out of your box! Don’t try to change yourself for the better! There’s no point in working on your character traits or adding more mitzvah observance! Stay this year the same as you were last year!â€
The opposite of tzar is revach – wide open space. It means getting out of our narrow, confined limitations and trying to change for the better, as opposed to merely repeating whatever we did last year. It is that good voice inside us that pushes us to†get out of our box†and our comfort zone. Indeed, Mordechai and Esther’s wide-open space is the antidote to Amalek and Haman’s narrowness.
One of the 613 commandments in the Torah is the mitzvah to remember the evil nation of Amalek. We fulfill this Biblical commandment by reading from the Torah publicly once a year the passage in Deuteronomy 25:17-19 which talks about the evil that the nation of Amalek represents, as well as our obligation to wipe out their memory. [Ed. Note: This year we read this special passage called Parshas Zachor on Saturday morning March 7th.]
Now even if today we can no longer identify exactly who these people are, the mitzvah to remember Amalek is still quite relevant, as it also refers to the “narrowness†of Amalek inside of us!
Let’s hope and pray that we will all soon merit to see the end of Amalek – both without and within – with the coming of the Messiah. Amen!
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=606