SHABBAT ZACHOR

Maftir:  Deuteronomy 25:17-19

Haftarah:  I Samuel 15:1-34

                The campaign against the nation of Amalek leaves a strange taste in the mouths of some modern readers of this Haftarah.  The Malbim, however, indicates five points contained in the commandment of “Remember” demonstrating why the Amalekites were worthy of such extraordinary retribution.  “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you left Egypt; how he encountered you on the road, attacking you from behind, all those who were feeble, when you were tired and weak; and he did not fear Gd. “

                The Amalekites violated five different standards of military action.

                They attacked us “on the way.” The Amalekites could not have been attempting to capture territory from us, as they came upon our ancestors as they were traveling through wilderness.

              “…as you left Egypt.”  This was not a pre-emptive strike on an army massing for an invasion, but the slaughter of slaves escaping from bondage.

                “…He encountered you on the road.”  The Amalekites were not seeking us out for retribution for some grievance; this was a random encounter.

                “They attacked you from behind, all those who were feeble, when you were tired and weak.”  A conqueror, or a ruler seeking to increase his prestige, does not waste time mowing down unarmed civilians.

                “And he did not fear Gd.”  The Amalekites did not believe they were acting for some higher purpose.

A THEORY ABOUT RELIGIOUS DISLOYALTY

Sidrah:  Leviticus 1:1-5:26

Haftarah: Isaiah 43:21-44:23

            We know how dear the Beit ha-Mikdash was to the Jewish people.  How, then, after little more than a century, would they fall into the kind of snare described in our Haftarah:  cutting down a tree, burning half the wood as fuel, and then using the other half to make an image to be worshipped as a god?

            The kings of Judah and Israel may not have completely banished or destroyed the Canaanite communities condemned by the Torah, but would such Canaanite remnants have friendly relations with Jews, whom they might well have seen as foreign invaders?  Would worshippers of Hashem really want to take on the customs of people who viewed them with hostility?  On the other hand, we may have absorbed alien worship from the descendants of Esau who intermarried with us; after all they were our relatives.  Some of the previous inhabitants may have adopted a solution to the conquest of the Land of Israel similar to that of natives of the Western Hemisphere who were subjugated by Christian armies. Just as some inhabitants of the Americas incorporate their ancestral beliefs and practices into the Christian religion, some idolaters may well have mixed their old beliefs into their worship of Hashem. In addition, Israel, and subsequently the Northern and Southern kingdoms, had trade agreements with neighboring kingdoms. Kings of Israel took foreign wives as a condition of peace treaties.  Commerce can lead to acculturation, especially if business associates share a border.

            And the Canaanite religions may have had an attraction we no longer know about.  When I was in college I knew Jewish students who actually had “Chanukah bushes” and laughed when I called such objects a mere excuse for owning a Christian symbol.  The idols of our neighbors may have represented concepts with tremendous emotional appeal; they may have been associated with agriculture, or may have been aesthetically beautiful.  The growing popularity of “Messianic Judaism” in the State of Israel demonstrates the ability of alien beliefs to take root and flourish even in the very homeland of the Torah.

THE HEADACHES OF FUNDRAISING

Maftir:  Exodus 30:11-16

Haftarah:  II Kings 12:1-17

            This week we read a special Haftarah which reminds us of the Torah’s commandment for every Jewish male adult to donate a half-shekel which was used in previous years for purchasing the public sacrifices offered in the Beit ha-Mikdash.  The narrative’s background begins a number of years earlier when Queen Izevel (in English, Jezebel) of the Northern Kingdom erected a temple to the Canaanite god Baal.  Even after Elijah defeated four hundred fifty prophets of that false god, the temple remained standing until Hashem told the prophet Elisha to anoint a new king named Yehu, who killed King Ahab and Izevel, and tore down the idolatrous temple. 

            Furthermore, the king of Judah, Ahatzyahu, had been subverted by his mother Atalyah (sometimes spelled, “Atalyahu”) to worship the Canaanite god as well.  When Yehu assassinated Ahatzyahu, Atalyah murdered every male descendant of the royal line that she could find, in order to retain the throne for herself.  But the king’s daughter sheltered the infant Yehoash (or Yoash) along with a nursemaid until his seventh year, when a loyal kohen proclaimed him king and launched a coup that resulted in the death of Atalyah, to the delight of the populace.

            King Yehoash ordered the kohanim to utilize donations other than those for personal sacrifices for the purpose of restoring the Beit ha-Mikdash to its former status.  The Malbim seeks to reconcile the account contained in our Haftarah with that in Chronicles, which states that the king sent the kohanim out from Jerusalem to raise funds for the restoration of the Beit ha-Mikdash.  This second account leads the Malbim to conclude that Atalyah’s corrupting influence was pervasive enough to cause people in Jerusalem to loot the Beit ha-Mikdash for the pagan temple; consequently the kohanim could not afford to offer the daily sacrifices.

            Rabbi David Kimchi relates that the kohanim were waiting until they had collected sufficient funds to undertake all the work necessary to restore the Beit ha-Mikdash to begin the labor; this caused the king to suspect, unjustly, that the kohanim were either lax in their collection efforts or keeping the money for themselves.  Because of this the king ordered that henceforth whenever people brought donations to the Beit ha-Mikdash, the kohanim should immediately reserve the money for repairs.  The kohanim consented; in fact, Rabbi Levi ben Gershon states that the kohanim felt they should never have been assigned the duty of “building fund committee.” (1)

(1)     Rabbi Levi ben Gershon is also known by the abbreviation RaLBag, and as Rabbi Levi Gersonides.  He wrote commentaries on several books of the Tanakh and on parts of the Gemara.  He also wrote a book known as Sefer Milchamot Hashem, or The Book of the Wars of Hashem, dealing with the apparent conflict between free will and Hashem’s foreknowledge, along with the subject of astronomy as known to the Muslims of the fourteenth century.