Those who live by the sword: the ideology of Amalek

The shocking news coming out of Ukraine in recent days has prompted me to bring forward a post that I had been planning for parashat Zachor, when we recall the need to stamp out any memory of Amalek and their ideology. How does the commandment to wipe out the memory of Amalek present itself in the current era?

Judaism Reclaimed approaches the subject mindful of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s teaching in Kol Dodi Dofek, that the Torah’s treatment of Amalek refers not only to those biologically descended from the nation which attacked the Jews in the desert. It also encompasses an ideology of evil. While the command to destroy individuals from that nation has not been practically applicable for most of Jewish history, there remains a powerful principle to confront and “blot out” the evil ideology that Amalek represented.

In terms of defining what Amalek’s beliefs consisted off, we turn to the comments of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch:

“Amalek alone did not fear God. Amalek alone was heir to that spirit that chooses the sword as its lot, seeks renown in laurels of blood, and strives to realise the ambition of “Let us make for ourselves a name” with which Nimrod began world history. This ambition is realised by destroying the welfare of nations and the happiness of men.

This seeking renown by the force of arms is the first and last enemy of human happiness and Divine Kingship on earth…Amalek’s glory-seeking sword knows no rest as long as one free man’s heart keeps beating and pays no homage to it; as long as one modest abode and happy home remains standing whose residents do not tremble before its might.”

Judaism Reclaimed discusses a more recent example of how this Amalekite ideology has presented itself in more recent times.

Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf drew heavily upon Nietzsche’s theory of a ‘master race’ (ubermensch) whose rightful ‘heroic’ status was being compromised by the ‘slave morality’ of those who idealise acts of kindness and mercy towards others (identified as Jews and those influenced by ‘Jewish morality’). Hitler built further upon Nietzsche’s principle, identifying Germans as a frustrated Aryan master race which, possessed with master morality, would dominate the world. It was, he claimed, the Jews’ perpetuation of the slave morality to serve the weak (spread via the church, democracy and western civilization) that compromised the master race’s entitlement to dominate humanity.

The politicisation of this appropriation of Nietzsche’s philosophy earmarked the Jews as the primary enemy of Nazi Germany, and as a target for elimination in a warped attempt to influence Darwinian natural selection. Hitler’s political theory of the entitlement of the powerful to dominate the weak strongly resembles the ideology attributed by Rav Hirsch to Amalek and why Amalek is deemed an eternal ideological opponent of the Jews.

These are important ideas to keep in mind as we monitor current world events and contemplate the commandment to blot of the memory of Amalek that we read in a couple of weeks.

First posted to Facebook 27 February 2022, here.