Why Does Amalek Never Go Away?

Inthis morning’s Breakfast & Class,

we confront one of the Torah’s most difficult questions: Why does Amalek never go away?

Why does the Torah command us not simply to remember what Amalek did, but לֹא תִּשְׁכָּח — never to forget?

And why, after thousands of years, does the hatred represented by Amalek

continue to reappear in different countries, different generations, and under

entirely different disguises?

Drawing on the insights of Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, and Rabbi

Adin Steinsaltz z”l, we explore three

remarkable approaches to Amalek: the danger of misplaced compassion, the

difference between hatred that has a reason and hatred that has none, and the

deeper idea that Amalek’s battle is ultimately not only against the Jewish

people, but against what the Jewish people represent. And as antisemitism once