“Momentum of the Moment,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

March 7, 2025 | 7 Adar 5785

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. You can listen to it as a podcast here.

This week, we are supposed to remember.

The Shabbat right before Purim which begins this coming Thursday night — which will also be a wild PurimpaZOOla — receives the name Shabbat Zachor.

But, what are we supposed to remember?

The rabbis (not of Temple Israel but from long ago) assigned the verses from Deuteronomy 25:17-19 that summarized a traumatic event:

Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt —
how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.
Therefore, when the Eternal your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Eternal your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

The story begins with the command, “Remember!” The people, exhausted and drained from slavery, had to deal with an attack from Amalek who went for the most vulnerable of the group. They were the ones who had trouble keeping up with the others. He didn’t care, so the memory of that brutal behavior remains in the conscious memory of the Exodus narrative. And yet, the instruction is also to blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. The section ends with the command, “Do not forget!”

Which is it? Remember what he did or blot out the memory?

Certainly, the moment of the surprise attack is seared into our historical memory. Unfortunately, it is a story repeated over the centuries and even in our own lifetimes on October 7, 2023. We must remember and not forget.

With this double instruction, part of the Purim story also informs our understanding. It appears in the book of Esther. Mordecai has discovered that Haman (boo) planned to murder the Jews because Mordecai defied Haman’s (boo) order to bow in submission. Mordecai sent a message to Esther, the queen, to save her people with these words:

Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis. (14:13-14)

If there is anything we remember from the Purim story (besides the joyful silliness that ensues), remember this and do not forget:

Throughout history, there has been and may still be those who seek to destroy us, but we are not powerless. Esther’s response to Mordecai instructs us on the influence of our voice not to remain silent. We do have agency even in the face of despair and threat. Who knows, the text asks, whether any of us or all of us have been placed here for such a moment to respond.

So, let us enter this Shabbat and then move into Purim with the momentum of the moment with strength and courage to face the past and the present, and have it inspire us into the future.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Purim! שבת שלום וחג שמח פורים

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions. Share with me what you think here. Your email goes directly to me!

Rabbi Elaine Zecher

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