At first, the mitzvot involving Amalek may be confusing. The torah certainly does not support or encourage genocide. If this is true, why is there a strict obligation to remember what Amalek did and to completely wipe them out? Even if they did attack us, it seems very harsh. Through my research, I have learned a lot about the reason and need for both Remembering Amalek and Destroying Amalek.
There are two Mitzvot regarding Zachor Amalek. One is a positive commandment that says we must always remember Amalek. The other is a negative commandment that says there is a prohibition against forgetting Amalek. These two commandments, although they sound the same, call for very different ways of performing the category of Zechor Amalek. The Sefer Hachinuch suggests that we must remember the matter once a year, or once in two or three years, being the positive commandment, and if a person never mentioned it at least once in their lifetime, then they have sinned, being the negative commandment. The Chatam Sofer says that in order to make sure a person constantly remembers, they must set a time to recall the story of Amalek at least once a year, because they might forget after a whole cycle of holidays and stories. The Rambam suggests that the reason we have both commandments is a fence to make sure our hatred does not weaken to any degree. If our hatred slowly fades, it will eventually disappear.
If we are not supposed to hold a grudge against our fellow human, then why are we obligated to now? And if we are not allowed to murder a fellow man, then why are we obligated to now? There are a few answers to this question that helped me relate to a Mitzvah that seems very difficult to perform. One answer is that it is not necessarily to destroy the nation of Amalek. Amalek wanted to destroy us and attack us for no reason. The obligation is not to destroy the physical nation of Amalek, but the pure evil they represent. The Mitzva is to destroy whatever inside of us that attacks goodness and truth.
This answer is satisfying for someone who is living now and cannot identify who is apart of the nation of Amalek, but why would Hashem ever make a commandment for complete genocide. Rabbi Menachem Leibtag gives an answer that gives us a deeper understanding of the reason for this mitzvah. In the Torah, it says that Moshe went with with the stronger men to get water for the people near Har Sinai. This means that people that were in Refidim, where Amalek attacked the Jews, were the weakest of Bnei Yisroel. They attacked the women and children. This means that Amalek was not upholding to the standard ethics of war that everyone upholded to. Therefore, we need to defeat what is purely unethical and immoral.
Taking into account both of these answers, the Mitzvot having to do with Amalek are to never forget the pure acts of evil and to completely extinguish anyone and anything that represents pure evil. Because the story of Amalek was so long ago, to find a deeper connection to this mitzvah I compared it to the Shoah, which is more recent. When it comes to the Holocaust, we always say “Never Forget”. What good comes from remembering the details of the Holocaust and the evil of the Nazi’s forever? History repeats itself. It is important to remember the evil and intolerance of the Holocaust, because the next time we see any intolerance or pure evil, we can immediately defeat it. This is how we perform the Mitzvah of Amalek. We “Never Forget” the story and pure evilness of Amalek and when we see the history repeating itself, we defeat it right away. This does not necessarily mean when we see anti-semitism or one nation attacking another. It could also mean defeating our yetzer hora when we are struggling to do good or stopping a situation of bullying you see at school. Although the mitzvot of Amalek at first seem terrible and gruesome, it is something so crucial in keeping peace and is completely relevant today.
