Sunday, March 9, 2008

Amalek and Mivtzoyim

This week is Shabbos Parshas Zechor, commemorating the vicious attack on the Jewish people by the hordes of Amalekites. This reminds me of an interesting conversation that I had with a couple of guys on Mivtzoyim once. It started out all nice and shtuff, but it soon turned into an argument over the validity of our holy Torah itself. They started talking about the various theories regarding authorship of the bible, and I told them that it was all the word of G-d. They said, "How could you say that? Don't you know that the Torah has some terrible stuff in it, like the commandment to wipe out all of Amalek? Obviously that doesn't come from a kind and merciful G-d. It must be that the Torah has multiple authors." I responded that this was of course ludicrous. They said, "What do you mean? The portion commanding Jews to exterminate Amalek is in Deutronomy! Everyone knows that Deutronomy is bogus." It's a good thing I learned my Bar-Mitzvah Parsha, because I was able to tell them that virtually the same command is found in Exodus. They didn't believe me, but I showed it to them. Then they asked, "Oh, so would you really kill all the Amalekites?" I said that of course I would, after all G-d commanded me too. They started to curse me out for being so evil, so I said, quite calmly, "Wait, who's screaming right now? It's not me." That shut them up, and thery called a taxi and fled.
Cute story, eh?
The point is that we have an obligation to wipe out our enemies. It's a pity the Israeli government is made up of a bunch of pansies and Chareidim, because any normal country would have wiped out its enemies a long time ago, instead of allowing them to randomly kill their citizens. The really sick thing is that some of the Chareidim are saying that Merkaz Harav deserved to have eight of its students die, because they're Zionist. Isn't that sickening? What do you do with people like that? Even if you don't agree with someone's politics, is that reason to hate? Just because I don't happen to like what my next-door neighbor's politics doesn't mean that I don't like him personally; how much more so when we're talking about our fellow Jews, people who died for the sanctification of G-d's name? I just don't get it.

2 comments:

e said...

The hareidi nutcases don't have a problem with the victims' politics. In their warped minds, Zionism is a cardinal sin against G-d, not just politics. According to the Satmars, Zionism is kefirah in Hashgacha pratis, and has the din of yeihoreig v'al yavor.

le7 said...

Oy this was a year ago already?