Parashat Zachor and Purim: The Attack of the Randomness View

This Shabbat we read Parashat Zachor, the command to remember the Amalekite attack on the Israelites in the desert. Who is this Amalek who comes to attack us when we are ayef ve’yage’a, tired and worn out? Well – who visits you at night after a long day, when you are tired – when you have worked hard for a long time and see only more work ahead of you and no progress in sight?

Who visits us when we are tired? That Amalek feeling—the feeling that all is pointless, that the world has no order and no purpose. The Torah says of Amalek asher karkha baderekh, “who happened upon you on the journey.” Karkha, from the same root as mikreh, “happenstance,” has the implication of randomness. The Amalek feeling attacks our sense of purpose in the world, our sense that the world is basically good, that the world has an order and a Ruler and a plan, that our lives have some meaning and some purpose, that we are part of some divine order of things. No, no, says the Amalke feeling – it is all just random. You live and you die, and it doesn’t matter how you act in between – there is no order and no meaning.

Haman, Purim’s Amalek representative, carries the same message with his lots, the purim for which the holiday was named. Casting lots symbolizes an attitude toward life that sees all as random.

The gift of Torah and faith is the power to fight this dark, empty purposeless feeling. Commenting on the first word of last week’s parsha, Vayikra, Rashi makes a distinction between the call to Moshe, vayikra (with an alef), and the call to Balaam (in Numbers), vayikar (without an alef). The first comes from the root to call, while the second comes from the same root as the Amalekite happenstance, mikreh. The call to Moshe is done in the language of love, lashon hibah, says Rashi, while the call to Balaam is done in the language of randomness, lashon arai.

It comes down to a choice: On the one side is the reality we see when we are tired --the Amalekite way, that all is random, without purpose. And on the other side is the call of love. Can we hear that call, begin to feel that yes, we are loved, and yes, we are “called” by some force larger than ourselves to some purpose on this earth?

Mordecai, even in his darkest moments, is sure there is a plan – “salvation will come from somewhere else” – he says to Esther – but it will surely come. And he is also sure that there is meaning to our lives and a role and a purpose to fulfill, should we choose to hear the calling: “Who knows if it was for just such a moment that you have attained to this royal station, Esther?” It isn’t random --- it has meaning. The only question is whether we can hear, in our lives, the call of love that Esther and Moshe heard.