TETZAVEH 1996

We almost always read the Torah portion Tetzaveh right before Purim.  It seems strange that we should read this Torah portion right before Purim.  In fact, the Shabbos before Purim is called Shabbos Zochar, the Shabbos we take out two Torahs, and the second Torah we read from, the Book of Devorim, from the Torah portion Ki Saetzae, and we read, "Remember what Amalek did to you on the road when you left Egypt."  Then the sentence seems to contradict what we have just said.  It says, "You should wipe out the memory of Amalek from the under the heavens you shall not forget".  First we are told that we should remember what Amalek did to us, and then we say we should wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens.  Notice it does not say here that we should hate Amalek.  We are not commanded to hate Amalek.  What we are commanded to do it remember Amalek, remember he attacked the weak and the helpless, remember how his whole ideology was based upon the fact that what the strong want the strong can take.  It was a Nazi-type philosophy which, unfortunately, continues to this very day.  We all know that the people Amalek no longer exist and have not existed for thousands of years.

What the Torah is telling us here, though, is that the Amalek-type of philosophy still exists, that each of us can become an Amalek.  That is why it says, "Remember what Amalek did to you."  We have to be very careful that we, ourselves, do not become Amalekites, that we, ourselves, do not become people who will embrace a philosophy which means that we will desert the poor and take advantage of the helpless and not be caring about the concerns of the aged, etc.  When it says here, "You should wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens, you should not forget" what that word means not only that you should wipe out but it means that what we should do is that we should do the other meanings of the word Machado It has four other meanings.  It means also to protest, to dilute, to touch, to write a check, and it means to be an expert.  The way that we extirpate these qualities from our own minds and our own hearts is to make sure that we realize that we have to be concerned about others, that we have to protest indignities, that we have to end injustices, that we have to touch people at simchas and be with them, that we have to dilute their sorrow, that we have to write checks for just causes, that we have to be experts in moral issues.  The rabbis teach us that we are not born good.  It is a Jewish heresy to think that all men are good.  People are not good.  It is also Jewish heresy to believe that all men are born bad.  We are not all born bad, as other religions would tell us.  Man is born neutral.  Man will take the path of least resistance.  We have to train ourselves in order to be good.

We read about Amalek right before Purim.  Purim teaches us about Haman, who wanted to kill the Jewish people just like Hitler did in our day.  It seems that the people at the time of Haman were more righteous than the people of our generation because although Haman tried to kill the Jewish people, he killed very few people, while Hitler killed a third of our people.  We know that there are anti-Semites in the world.  Most people are not anti-Semites.  Even those who went along with Hitler, most of the Germans were not anti-Semites.  There were like Achaverosh.  They really did not care one way or another.  As long as their needs were taken care of they did not care what happened to the Jews.  Germany was in a bad position after the first world war.  She had a high rate of inflation and unemployment, and Hitler came and promised the German people things.  He won a majority with his nationalistic allies in the Bundestag.  Therefore, he was able to implement his policies.  Everything he did he did in a legal fashion.  The only thing that was perhaps illegal was when he tried to get a two-thirds majority by disqualifying the communists, but he had a majority.  He had 330 seats out of a Bundestag which 644 votes.  He had a majority.  He did not have to resort to extra legal procedures in order to impress his will upon the German people, but most Germans were not anti-Semites.  Most Germans wanted to have a good job and take care of their family, and when Hitler gave them a good job, gave them back their prestige they were happy.  They did not care what happened to the Jews because most people have not trained themselves to be morally sensitive to the issues around them.

That, of course, is what we learn about the King Achaverosh, that Achaverosh, too, was such a type of person.  He really wanted to do what he wanted to do.  When Haman came and offered to divest himself of all his responsibilities and proved to be a loyal, clever minister and he gave him what he needed.  If Haman needed to kill the Jews, let him kill the Jews because it was good for him.  The rabbis say that Achaverosh was really a paranoiac similar to Hitler and Stalin.  What Achaverosh did was usurp the throne.  He was really not the rightful heir to the throne.  He married Vashti and by marrying Vashti he obtained the throne and that is what the whole story of Vashti is really about.  When he came to depose Vashti it was then that Haman gave him the advice that he had to send out the letter throughout all the kingdom telling that the wives should obey their husbands or else face the fate of Vashti because when he came in he deposed the old order and the new order in those days what they would do after they deposed the old order is that all those officers would marry the wives of the former officers and, therefore, Achaverosh thought there would be a revolt, but Haman gave him good advice about how to deal with this.  Achaverosh was always worried about revolts.  That is why when Mordechai reported and saved the king's life we have a flavor of what Achaverosh felt his situation was in Persia.  When Haman offered to give the king 30 million shekels (10 talents of silver) to kill the Jewish people, Achaverosh did not mind because that was in his best interest, as the German people did not mind because that was in their best interests.  After all, the German cabinet was not composed of stupid people.  The German cabinet was composed of PhD's.  Everyone had a Ph.D.  except for one, and all of them were certified geniuses except for one, but this did not prevent them from joining forces with Hitler to extirpate our people.  Achaverosh, too, did not really care what happened to the Jewish people as long as his needs were taken care of.  Then G‑d intervened and G‑d intervened in a very subtle way.  The name of G‑d is not mentioned in the Megillah at all.  He intervened by one night having the king not be able to sleep.  When the king could not sleep he took his record books of state and he found that Mordechai was not rewarded for his action and at just that moment Haman was coming to the king for permission to hang Mordechai even before the date that he had set to kill all the Jews.  The king invited Haman to his quarters to ask him what reward he should give Mordechai only he did not say Mordechai.  He asked him, "Tell me, what should be done to a man who the king wants to honor'?" Haman thought, "Who could that man be except me?" Then Haman made his fatal mistake.  He said, "You should take the king's crown and put it on his head and ride him on the king's horse in the king's robe and take him through the streets saying, 'This is what should be done to the man the king wants to honor'."  This was his fatal mistake because he planted in the mind of Achaverosh the fact that Haman wanted his crown.  Esther had to wait for the proper time in order to make a request of Achaverosh.  Mordechai wanted her to go right away but she said, "No, fast for three days.  Afterwards I am invited to a party."  She was then invited to another party.  The reason for this was that Esther knew well much better than Mordechai how to time certain things.  In fact, the rabbis say the women usually know much better how to time things than men know how to time things.  It was because the king could not sleep, a small, little thing like that that the Jewish people were saved.

Purim teaches us many things.  It teaches us that there is evil in the world.  We should not forget Amalek.  We should remember Amalek this week when we are dedicating the Holocaust Museum in Houston.  It is dedicated to remember.  We are not supposed to hate; we are supposed to remember.  Remember, these things can happen.  We Jews many times adopt a Pollyanna attitude.  We do not think that our enemies are serious, that all men are good.  It is true that men can do repentance but they do not have good thoughts all the time.  Many men are evil and do evil things and even though the vast majority of people are not evil, they will do what is best for them.  They are not really educated in moral issues and they do not really care about moral issues.  This is what we should always remember.  Remember there is evil in the world, and remember that we, ourselves, can become evil, that many people even if they are highly educated can become evil.  We should remember that G‑d will help us, though.  We should never give up hope.  The way we counter this evil is by working together to solve society's ills, to make sure that there is not high inflation and unemployment, these temptations which will cause unthinking people to follow unscrupulous leaders.  This is the lesson that we have to learn.  We have to know that there is always hope.  After all, the only person who could have thwarted Haman's plans was Achaverosh.  Haman was the second most powerful person in the world because Achaverosh ruled over the know civilized world, and the only person who get to Achaverosh was Esther and she did.

Why is it that we read the Torah portion Tetzaveh before Purim?  Why does it happen so many times that it is the Torah portion that we read on Shabbos Zochar?  Because at the very end of this Torah portion we learn about the little golden altar that we in the Tabernacle.  It is out of place here.  It belongs in the Torah portion where we learned about all the other pieces of furniture that were in the Tabernacle.  In this Torah portion we learn about the Kohen Godol, about his vestments.  We learn about how he is inducted into service and about the Urim and Turim.  We learn all about these fancy clothes and how they were put on, but the rabbis say that that does not count for anything unless you have that little golden altar, which stands for the inner man because you can have all these other things in culture and even things of seemingly religion but they can still lead you to a moral deadend.  You can still end up to be a monster.  The greatest Bible commentary that was written in German in the last 100 years was written by a man who supported the Nazis.  The greatest German philosopher in the 1920's and 1930's supported Nazis.  We have to remember that we can all become evil unless we have the qualities of the little golden incense altar.  What does incense stand for, the rabbis ask?  The word for incense here was Ketoras.  It stands for Kedusha.  We have to make ourselves holy.  We have to stay away from hate.  We have to be positive in what we do.  We have to take positive actions, and that is the second letter, Tahara.  To be pure what do we have to do?  They say wipe out the memory of Amalek.  Make sure that Amalek does not come to the fore.  We do that again by protesting injustices, by writing checks for good causes, by diluting the sorrow of people, by understanding their problems, by touching them and being with them at their simchas, by learning more rituals and making the people aware of them.  Then we also have to have Rachmones, the Raysh in the word Ketoras.  We have to sympathize with people, and we also have to have hope, Tikvah, that we can overcome.  We should never succumb to depression and to hopelessness.  If we will do these things then we can rest assured that we can prevent these terrible things from happening, that we can make sure that Amalek does not have any victories.  We have to remember that we are capable of becoming Amalekites.  We have to remember that the nations of the world are capable.  It is a continual battle.  Even in the United States it would be possible so, therefore, we have to work hard and we have to make sure that the victory that Esther won in Persia is a victory that we all will win in every generation because in every generation we have to fight those people who hate and those people who are only interested in their own betterment and are not interested in whether or not the consequences of supporting people who hate means that other people are going to be killed and hurt.

I am reminded of a true story that happened a few years ago when I went to a class and talked to some eighth and ninth and tenth graders about Purim.  As you all know, Esther is not Esther's Hebrew name.  That is her Persian name.  Her Hebrew name is Hadassah.  I asked the class what Esther's Hebrew name was.  Nobody knew.  I said, "Okay, I'll give you a clue.  It is the name of an organization to which almost all of your mothers belong to and most of them even attend this organization twice a month."  One little girl raised her hand and said she knew.  It was Weight Watchers.  Of course, we all know that it is important to take care of our physical health but it is also important to take care of our spiritual health.  Let us make sure that we are always positive people, that we remember that hatred can turn us inside out and make us into terrible people, make us almost into monsters, that we should always remember that nations and leaders and individuals and even ourselves can become haters.  Hating does not help anything.  Instead we have to rise from above hating and we have to do positive things.  We have to separate ourselves from hating and do positive things.  If we do positive things like protesting injustice, writing checks for charity, helping and empathizing with people in their grief and celebrating with them in their happiness and understanding more issue, then we can rest assured that the memory of Amalek, that piece of Amalek that all of us can become, will never rise to the fore and that truly by so doing we will ensure that the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.