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Parshat Tetzaveh
1998
A big Rebbe Talks about A Small World
"A human being is a small world" (Midrash Tanchuma, "Pekudei 3) This famous midrash shows how each human organ has a counter part in the natural world. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev in his modern Hasidic classic, Kedushat Levi, extends the analogy. In his drash on Purim, the Berditchever says that even Amaleq, the nemesis of the Jewish people, is an integral part of the human psyche.
The mitzvah of Parshat Zachor is to eradicate the memory of Amalek and since Amalek no longer exists from without, we must attack the Amalek from within. It is through one's connection to all that is good and holy that one thwarts the designs of the internal Amalek. For, the Berditchever says, when does the Amalek from within ascend? The Torah tells us,
"how he encountered you on the way and attacked-your-tail?all the beaten-down-ones at your rear? while you (were) weary and faint, and (thus) he did not stand-in-awe of God." (Deuteronomy 25:18)
Since Amalek is within, the Berditchever sees that it is fatigue, being weary and faint which creates the inability to "stand-in-awe before God".
A relationship with God takes energy, it requires ongoing vitality and commitment. It is the weary of spirit who are the most vulnerable to the evil voices of self-destruction. For in Hasidut God is synonymous with the concept of an "ongoing life force". An enemy of God, is the enemy of the Source and the Sustainer of all living things. It is weariness, the Berditchever says, which invites the echoes of nihilism and self-destruction into our being. This is Amalek--the enemy of the living-- everflow, the life force. The enemy of God. It is our job, this week especially, to affirm with vitality our choice for life, eradicating anything that would sap the essence of that which sustains and renews us at all times.
Prepared by Rabbi Avi Weinstein, Director, Hillel's Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning.
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