This week’s Haftarah, 1 Samuel 15, confronts us with one of Torah’s most morally fraught commands: the war against Amalek. King Saul is instructed to eradicate Amalek entirely — and when he fails to carry it out as commanded, he loses the throne. The text is stark, uncomfortable, and clear.
Enter Purim.
In the Megillah, Haman is called “the Agagite,” a descendant of Agag, king of Amalek. Our tradition links these stories deliberately. Amalek becomes not only an ancient tribe that attacked Israel on the way out of Egypt, but a recurring archetype — the force that preys upon the weak, that attacks the stragglers, that delights in cruelty.
We must defend ourselves against these kinds of actors. Judaism is not pacifism in the face of violence. Amalek targeted the most vulnerable; we, as Jews, are commanded to protect them.
And yet — the category of Amalek is dangerous.
When we label entire peoples as irredeemably evil, we risk becoming precisely what we are told to eradicate, doing precisely what Amalek did: collapsing individuals into caricatures; holding groups accountable for the actions of individuals. In every generation, there are those who reveal themselves through genocidal hatred. But, per Godwin’s Law, when everyone becomes Amalek, the term loses moral clarity and becomes a weapon instead of a warning.
In a famous story from the Talmud, Beruriah, wife of Rabbi Meir, taught that we should not pray for the elimination of the wrongdoer; rather, we should pray for them to turn back from their hateful paths to ways of peace and prosperity.
May we have the courage to defend the vulnerable — and the faith to believe that even those who stand in the way of good can yet turn toward peace.