Finally, the people of Israel are free! After 210 years of slavery, they crossed the Sea of Reeds—the birth canal from bondage to freedom—and now stand as a free nation. Pharaoh and his soldiers have drowned in the sea, and Moses and Miriam lead the Israelites in songs of praise and gratitude. Yet, shortly after leaving Egypt, they are attacked from behind by a people whom Israel had never wronged. Without apparent cause, they are assaulted by Amalek. From that moment, Amalek becomes the epitome and archetype of the eternal enemy of the Jewish people, rising to destroy us in every generation. In this essay, we will focus on this secondary character in our Parashah.
The Narrative:
Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Pick some troops for us, and go out and do battle with Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Inscribe this in a document as a reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven!” And Moses built an altar and named it Adonai-nissi. He said, “It means, ‘Hand upon the throne of the Lord!’ The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages.” (Exodus 17:8-16)
Imagine the people of Israel, freshly liberated from Egypt. Exhausted after crossing the Sea of Reeds, just beginning to taste freedom, yet still unsettled, without natural water sources, and with little food… and they are attacked without reason by the Amalekites. They face the first threat to their newfound freedom. Why does Amalek attack? Apparently without reason. There was no territorial conflict or threat to strategic points. For this reason, perhaps, in Jewish tradition, Amalek becomes the archetype of the anti-Semite—governments and peoples who attack physically or slander the Jewish people without cause. As we will see, Israel wins this battle, but the final verse makes it clear that, already in the biblical mindset, the idea was established that the struggle against this enemy, against Amalek, would be eternal. In the rabbinic mindset, Amalek represents any enemy throughout Jewish history that rises to attack us, from Haman in Persian times, the Romans (also nicknamed Edom) during the destruction of the Temple, the Crusaders and Christian kingdoms during the Middle Ages with their pogroms and persecutions, the Nazis in the mid-20th century, and, in the public discourse of certain Israeli sectors, even terrorist groups that seek to erase the State of Israel from the map. Let us now trace a bit more about who these Amalekites were and some rabbinic reflections and teachings we derive from this narrative.
Historians and archaeologists cannot tell us much about this people, as there is no extra-biblical record of their existence. Unlike other peoples mentioned in the Bible, such as Ammon, Moab, Hittites, Egyptians, etc., for whom there are historical records, there is nothing for the Amalekites. Why might this be? Some opine that they were one of the many nomadic groups of the time without a written culture, hence leaving no testimonies. Others suggest that it was a variant name for one of the many small peoples living in the region. And some even suggest that it is simply a biblical «invention» as the model of evil par excellence. Humbly, I lean more towards the first hypothesis. If there are no extra-biblical references to them, let us then turn to the Hebrew Bible:
According to Genesis, Amalek is the grandson of Esau through Eliphaz’s concubine, Timna (36:12). This places him in a genealogical tree alongside the people of Israel but also, as happens even in the best families, estranged from those distant cousins. Esau (Edom, red… blood), his grandfather, will also become, along with Amalek, historical archetypes referring to the enemies of the people of Israel due to the tumultuous life and disputes between the brothers Jacob and Esau. On the other hand, the Talmud, in a very interesting expansion on the origins of Amalek and his hatred, states that Timna approached Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to «convert» and become part of the people of Israel but was rejected, and at that moment, her visceral hatred towards Israel began, which she passed on to future generations (B. Sanhedrin 99b). This reflection, of a biblical legend character, is of great subtlety and beauty, suggesting in general terms that many times, hatreds arise from rejection, from closing doors, from not accepting the other. When one loves something and wants to be integrated and is then rejected, they can become the worst enemy of what they loved. As they say, «there is a fine line between love and hate.» And without going into many details, according to the Talmud, the origin of Jesus’s apostasy and the future «hatred» of his followers towards the people of Israel also originated from a misunderstanding with his teacher Joshua ben Perachiah and what he felt as a rejection by his teacher and the non-acceptance of his forgiveness…
But let’s return to Amalek. According to the book of Numbers, they were a people inhabiting the Negev region (13:29), the arid area south of Israel, while the book of Psalms (83:8) places them in the northern region of Tyre. According to the biblical accounts in the Books of Judges and Samuel, the suggestion that Amalek resided in the Negev seems more probable. In the Book of Judges, we repeatedly find references to the Amalekites, alongside other peoples of the southern Negev region, harassing, attacking, and subjugating the tribes of Israel (see Judges 6:3, 7:12, 10:12, for example). They remained constant enemies of the Israelites even in that period. Later, in the Book of 1 Samuel 15, God commands the first king of Israel, Saul, to completely annihilate Amalek now that Israel possesses the power and military capability to do so. However, Saul disobeys and spares their king, contrary to the divine command, for which he is later punished and loses his kingdom (1 Samuel 28:18).
All of this leads to the Book of Deuteronomy stating: «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. Therefore, when your God יהוה grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that your God יהוה is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!» (Deuteronomy 25:17-19).
So important is this commandment that Maimonides suggests there are three mitzvot, biblical commandments, related to Amalek and this dual obligation: remembering their senseless attacks while simultaneously obliterating their name forever. The collective memory of the Jewish people holds onto this mandate so strongly that we declare in the Haggadah of Pesach that in every generation, someone will rise up to try to destroy us—an enemy said to come from the seed of Amalek. There is even a special Shabbat in the Jewish calendar called Shabbat Zachor, the «Sabbath of Remembrance,» when this passage is read aloud. Technically speaking, it is the only portion of the Torah that every Jew is obligated to hear each year.
The rabbinic tradition continued the notion of the eternal struggle against Amalek «throughout the generations.» For example, the Talmud suggests that Haman was a descendant of King Agag of Amalek (the very one whom Saul had spared for a time) and that Mordechai, belonging to the tribe of Benjamin (like King Saul), was destined to complete the mission that Saul had left unfinished (b. Megillah 12b). By now, we see that not only in biblical texts but even more so in rabbinic literature and medieval Jewish philosophy, Amalek does not simply represent a specific people but rather the embodiment of evil, the eternal nemesis of the Jewish people, and the quintessential antisemite. There are temporary enemies with whom peace can later be made (biblical examples include Moab, Ammon, or even Egypt). However, others, like Amalek, represent absolute evil, making reconciliation impossible.
During the Middle Ages and the early modern period, in both mystical and Hasidic thought, Amalek began to be understood as a metaphor—not for an external enemy, but for an internal battle within the human heart:
«Rather, every person in Israel needs to erase the evil part that is concealed in one’s heart, that is known by the name Amalek. This is because whenever the seed of Amalek is found in the world, it is found in the human being, since the human is a small world. Therefore, there is a reality to ‘Amalek,’ to the force of evil inside every human being, which arises every time to make a human being sin…» (Kedushat Levi, Drashah Purim 1).
This reading, characteristic of the more esoteric-spiritual streams of Judaism rather than the practical-political, is understandable. However, Amalek represents, in Jewish tradition, the eternal struggle against evil not just in the metaphorical battlefield of the human heart, but in the literal battlefield of the world. And it is to this struggle that we must return.
Can evil be entirely eradicated? Are there peoples or nations with whom peace is truly impossible? Is it not an act of genocide to destroy an entire people, «women and children,» as God commands Israel to do with Amalek? Or is a radical act of violence at a specific moment justified to prevent a greater evil from perpetuating across generations? Is there a nation today that we could consider Amalek?
These are the real political questions that the Torah invites us to ask when discussing Amalek.
To leave some open-ended questions for reflection, given the political-military debate surrounding Amalek as a representation of evil and the claim that only its complete destruction can eliminate such evil, let us share some thoughts that our sages have already explored:
In the 19th century, the Shadal (Samuel David Luzzatto) reflected on the radical and genocidal nature of the command to «wipe out the memory and seed of Amalek»:
«Now it is true that in these times the extermination of an entire nation—men, women, infants, and sucklings—is an act of cruelty that would make the ears of all hearers ring. Yet, in spite of this, even in our days, if a prophet arose whom all men believed to be a messenger of God and commanded a certain nation to rise up against the people of another city notorious for their wicked deeds and destroy them, women and children included, I have no doubt that their hearts would not become corrupt because of this act. Rather, from that day on, they would greatly fear God and take great care not to rouse His wrath against them.» (Sefer Yesodei HaTorah 30:1).
In the 20th century, many great scholars also debated whether Amalek refers to a specific ancient people, now lost in time—making its laws impossible to apply to any modern nation—or whether Amalek is a general commandment that could apply to any nation of equal wickedness:
«The Torah isolated this commandment to Amalek, so it is not within our power to include another nation in [this] commandment, even though they have done more evil than it. It is true that I have seen it brought down in the name of the Gaon, Rabbi Chaim (Soloveitchik), may his memory be blessed, that the commandment of blotting out Amalek is not specifically about the nation of Amalek, but rather that any foreign nation that acts like Amalek has this commandment apply. However, I have found neither root nor branch to his words!» (Rav Yitzchak Nissim, Yein HaTov Part II, Yoreh De’ah, Siman 2).
Conclusion
Recovering the figure of Amalek, a seemingly secondary character in the biblical text, forces us to confront deep ethical and political dilemmas. How do we combat evil when it manifests in societies and nations in our time? What are the limits of this struggle? And what ethical challenges does it pose?
The commandment regarding Amalek does not provide easy answers but instead opens a space for discussion about how we, as a people, should respond to threats—whether they come from external enemies, historical narratives, or even the inner struggles of our own communities. The tension between justice and vengeance, between memory and forgetting, between eradication and reconciliation, remains alive in Jewish thought. And, just as every generation faces new threats, it must also grapple with these timeless questions anew.
