Rabbi Dr. David Harbater

Parashat Ki Teitzei: From Amalekism to Palestinianism

For an abridged video version
https://youtube.com/shorts/x7y_zSC5_-0?feature=share

At the end of this week’s parasha, Ki Teitzei, the Torah issues one of its most disturbing commands:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you came out of Egypt… how he attacked you on the way and struck down all who were weak at your rear… Therefore… you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; do not forget” (Deuteronomy 25:17–19).

The obvious question is: Why Amalek?

The Jewish people had many enemies. Pharaoh enslaved us and murdered our children. Edom refused Israel passage through its territory, and Moab, fearful of Israel’s approach, sought through Balak and Balaam to thwart them. Yet it is Amalek alone whose memory we are commanded to eradicate. What made Amalek different?

Perhaps the answer lies not simply in the cruelty of Amalek’s attack, but in the nature of the conflict itself. Many of Israel’s other enemies, however brutal, acted within some recognizable political or territorial framework. Edom and Moab feared a large nation approaching their borders. Nations go to war over territory, sovereignty, resources, security, and power.

Amalek was different. Amalek was not defending a city Israel had attacked. Israel was not attempting to conquer Amalekite territory. Indeed, Amalek appears in the Torah as a mobile desert people rather than as a settled kingdom defending defined borders.

Israel had only just emerged from Egypt, exhausted and vulnerable, when Amalek attacked. And whom did they attack? They struck those straggling behind: the weak, the weary, and the defenseless.

There was no territorial dispute to resolve. No border to negotiate. No resource to divide. Amalek attacked Israel because Israel was Israel.

Perhaps this is why the Torah treats Amalek differently. Amalek is not merely another enemy nation. Amalek represents a phenomenon. We might call it “Amalekism.”

Amalekism is what happens when hostility toward the Jewish people ceases to be a means toward some political end and becomes an end in itself. It is no longer: You possess something that I want. It is: Your very existence is intolerable to me.

An echo of this “Amalekism” can be heard today in what Dr. Einat Wilf has termed “Palestinianism.”

Wilf was once a committed supporter of Oslo and of the two-state solution. She accepted the conventional understanding of the conflict: two peoples claimed the same land, and therefore peace required partition. Give Palestinians a state of their own, she believed, and the conflict could finally end.

But over time, the evidence led her to question that assumption. Israel withdrew from territory and repeatedly entertained proposals for Palestinian statehood, yet the conflict did not move toward resolution. Particularly significant for Wilf was the continued insistence on a Palestinian “right of return” for refugees and their descendants not merely to a future Palestinian state, but to Israel itself.

That forced her to ask a basic question: if the goal is Palestinian self-determination, why would the establishment of a Palestinian state not satisfy it? Why insist, even afterward, on a claim that could ultimately undo the Jewish character of Israel?

Wilf gradually concluded that she had misunderstood the heart of the conflict. The central issue, in her analysis, was not simply the absence of Palestinian sovereignty. It was the continued existence of Jewish sovereignty.

Religious and ideological currents, she argues, have helped make opposition to Jewish sovereignty itself a central element of Palestinian national consciousness. Terrorism, therefore, is not the essence of the phenomenon, but only one instrument among many. Political pressure, diplomacy, education, international campaigns, the perpetuation of the refugee question, and military violence are all directed toward the same ultimate purpose: the end of the Jewish state.

This is what Wilf calls “Palestinianism.”

The distinction is crucial. Palestinian nationalism need not be Palestinianism. A Palestinian national movement that seeks independence alongside a permanent Jewish state could, in principle, become a partner for peace. Palestinianism, as Wilf defines it, is something altogether different: the conviction that Palestinian liberation can be achieved only through the negation of Jewish sovereignty.

In that sense, Palestinianism bears a disturbing resemblance to Amalekism.

This comparison is not between Amalek and the Palestinian people. It is between two ideological phenomena. Amalek did not object to a particular Israelite policy. It did not dispute a specific border. Its hostility was directed at Israel itself. So too, Palestinianism, as defined here, is not ultimately a dispute over whether Israel should withdraw from this territory or that one. It is opposition to the very idea that the Jewish people have a right to sovereignty anywhere in their ancestral homeland.

And this brings us back to the Torah’s uncompromising command:
“You shall blot out the memory of Amalek.”

A conflict over borders can be negotiated. A conflict over resources can be compromised. Even competing national aspirations can, at least in principle, be reconciled.

But an ideology whose ultimate objective is the elimination of the other people’s sovereignty cannot simply be accommodated, because every concession can become merely another stage toward that larger goal. Such an ideology must be defeated—intellectually, politically, culturally and, when it expresses itself through violence, militarily.

Only when Palestinian nationalism ceases to define its success through the negation of Jewish sovereignty can Israelis and Palestinians truly begin to negotiate—not over whether Israel will exist, but over how two peoples can live alongside one another in peace.

Shabbat Shalom.

For more insights on the parasha and current events in Israel, visit
https://davidharbater.com/parasha-current-events/

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Martin Luther King Jr.

Shoftim: The King Is Not Above His People

The Torah permits Israel to appoint a king, but what follows is striking.

It does not begin by describing the king’s powers. It describes his limitations. He may not accumulate too many horses. He may not accumulate too many wives. He may not accumulate excessive silver and gold. And then the Torah explains the deeper purpose behind these restrictions:

לְבִלְתִּי רוּם לְבָבוֹ מֵאֶחָיו — “So that his heart not become exalted above his brethren” (Deuteronomy 17:20).

This may be one of the Torah’s most profound insights into political leadership. The danger of power is not only that a leader may become corrupt. It is that he may gradually come to believe that he is fundamentally more important than the people he governs.

The king possesses authority that ordinary citizens do not. He commands armies, controls resources, and is surrounded by advisers, officials, and symbols of prestige. It is therefore easy for him to forget that beneath the office and ceremony he remains מֵאֶחָיו — one of his brothers.

The Torah is deeply suspicious of anything that might encourage him to forget that. Too many horses, too many wives, and too much wealth create distance between ruler and ruled. They reinforce the illusion that the king belongs to a higher class of human beings.
But the Torah does not merely restrict what the king may possess. It gives him something that he must possess: a Sefer Torah.

וְהָיְתָה עִמּוֹ וְקָרָא בוֹ כָּל יְמֵי חַיָּיו — “It shall remain with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life.”

Why must the king keep the Torah with him constantly?

Because the Torah teaches him something that power can easily cause him to forget: he, too, is subject to a higher authority. The king may rule over his brothers, but he does not rule over the Torah. He does not create the ultimate standard of right and wrong. He does not determine the moral limits of his own power. Like every other Jew, he stands beneath the authority of God and His law.

That may be the deepest meaning of מֵאֶחָיו. The king is still “one of his brothers” because both king and citizen ultimately stand before the same sovereign. His office gives him greater authority, but not a different Torah. His position gives him greater responsibility, but not exemption from judgment. The Sefer Torah that accompanies him is therefore not merely a source of religious inspiration. It is a constant reminder that even the most powerful person in the nation is not the highest authority.

This lesson is especially relevant in Israel today as we continue to wrestle with the consequences of October 7.

More than two and a half years after the attack, one of the most painful unresolved questions is how responsibility for the failures that preceded that day should be investigated. The government has continued to resist establishing the traditional independent state commission of inquiry and has advocated a different framework.

The political and legal details are complicated. But the Torah’s principle is clear. No leader should come to believe that his position places him above scrutiny or allows him to define the limits of his own accountability.

That does not mean that every accusation is justified or every criticism fair. Leadership often requires difficult decisions under extraordinary circumstances. But precisely because leaders wield extraordinary power, they must remember that they, too, are subject to standards beyond themselves.

Israel desperately needs strong leadership. We live in a dangerous region and face enemies who openly seek our destruction. But Shoftim teaches that strong leadership is not leadership without limits.

True leadership requires the humility to remember that power does not make a person morally superior and that authority does not make a person sovereign.

The Torah therefore places a Sefer Torah beside the king and whispers to him every day:
לְבִלְתִּי רוּם לְבָבוֹ מֵאֶחָיו.

Do not allow your heart to rise above your brothers. You may rule them. But you are still one of them. And above you, as above them,
stands the Torah.

Shabbat Shalom

For more insights on the parasha and current events in Israel, visit:
https://davidharbater.com/parasha-current-events/

“The only people capable of threatening the future of the Jewish people are the Jewish people.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Re’eh: The Danger of Becoming Separate Tribes

This week’s parasha contains a prohibition whose significance, according to Chazal, reaches far beyond its original context:
בָּנִים אַתֶּם לַה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ"”, “You are children of the Lord your God; (lo titgodedu) you shall not cut yourselves” (Deuteronomy 14:1).

According to the straightforward meaning of the verse, the Torah forbids cutting or lacerating the body as an expression of mourning. Such practices were common in the ancient world, but the Torah insists that even in moments of grief, human beings must not surrender to despair or mutilate the body that God has given them.

The Sages, however, hear an additional meaning in the words ״לֹא תִתְגּוֹדְדוּ״ — לֹא תֵּעָשׂוּ אֲגוּדּוֹת אֲגוּדּוֹת, “Do not divide yourselves into separate factions” (Yevamot 13b-14a).

The Talmud does not understand this to mean that every Jew must think or behave identically. It discusses communities that follow different halakhic practices and distinguishes legitimate diversity from division that tears apart a single communal framework.

Indeed, the Talmud preserves profound disagreements between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai. Yet despite those disputes, the two schools continued to marry into one another. They disagreed about the Torah without ceasing to regard one another as part of the same people.

Thus, לא תתגודדו does not prohibit disagreement. It does not demand intellectual conformity, political silence or obedience to those in power. Protest and criticism may sometimes be essential expressions of moral responsibility.

The prohibition is against allowing disagreement to become tribal separation.

It warns us against creating rival camps, each with its own exclusive truth, its own institutions, its own definition of patriotism and its own claim to represent the authentic Jewish people. It warns us of the moment when political opponents cease to be fellow citizens with whom we disagree and become enemies whose legitimacy we deny.

This warning speaks with painful urgency to Israel today.

Israeli society is divided over questions of enormous consequence: responsibility for the failures of October 7, the conduct of the war, the establishment and composition of a national commission of inquiry, the authority of the Supreme Court, the independence of the attorney general, the role of the media and, above all, the unequal burden of military and national service.

These disagreements are real and serious. They cannot simply be concealed beneath empty appeals for unity. Unity does not require suppressing moral argument or pretending that injustice does not exist.

But the danger facing Israel is no longer merely that Israelis disagree. Increasingly, different sectors of society appear to be living according to different understandings of obligation, authority, citizenship and responsibility.

A democracy can survive bitter arguments over the proper limits of judicial power. It cannot easily survive when the government and the courts no longer recognize a common framework of authority. A society can survive deep political rivalry. It cannot survive when loyalty to a party, coalition or political leader is presented as identical with loyalty to the State of Israel itself.

At that point, we are no longer merely debating the direction of one state. We are beginning to construct separate Israels.
That is precisely the danger of אגודות אגודות.

The opening words of the verse are therefore essential:
בָּנִים אַתֶּם לַה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם — לֹא תִתְגֹּדְדוּ
“You are children of the Lord your God—therefore, do not divide yourselves into factions.”

Why must we not tear ourselves apart? Because, as children of the one God, we are siblings. Siblings may disagree bitterly. They may possess radically different values, personalities and visions of the future. But they cannot erase their shared parentage. Before we are right or left, coalition or opposition, religious, secular or Haredi, we are members of one people, sharing one country and one national fate.

The verse may therefore be understood on several levels: Do not cut the body. Do not cut the community. And do not cut fellow Jews out of your circle of moral concern.

This responsibility falls especially heavily upon leaders. Political leaders often benefit from division. Fear, resentment and anger mobilize supporters more effectively than restraint, complexity and moderation. A leader may strengthen his camp by convincing its members that the opposing camp is dangerous, illegitimate or traitorous.

But a Jewish leader must ask more than, “How can I defeat my opponents?” A Jewish leader must ask, “What will remain of the people after I win?”

A political victory that leaves the nation fractured is not a victory. A coalition that survives while the covenant holding the people together collapses has not saved the country. It has preserved power at the expense of the people.

Israel does not need everyone to think alike. It needs us to remember that disagreement must take place within a larger covenant of shared responsibility. We may fight passionately over Israel’s future, but we must not destroy the bonds that make a shared future possible.

That is the challenge of לא תתגודדו: not to eliminate disagreement, but to prevent disagreement from becoming disintegration; not to erase our differences, but to ensure that those differences do not erase our shared peoplehood.

As the verse says, we are the children of God.

Shabbat Shalom.

For more insights on the parasha and current events in Israel, visit:
https://davidharbater.com/parasha-current-events/

The Foundations of Jewish Education: Parashat Eikev

For an abridged video version:
https://youtube.com/shorts/GL2Kik4-KBY?feature=share

The first two paragraphs of the Shema appear in consecutive Torah portions. Last week, in Parashat Va’etchanan, we read: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
This week, in Parashat Eikev, we read the second paragraph, beginning: “And it shall come to pass, if you faithfully obey My commandments…”

The Sages explain that these two passages represent two successive stages of religious commitment. The first is קבלת עול מלכות שמים, accepting the sovereignty of Heaven. The second is קבלת עול מצוות, accepting the obligation of the commandments.

The order is essential. Before we can commit ourselves to God’s commandments, we must first recognize God, believe in God and love God. The first paragraph establishes the relationship; the second translates that relationship into a life of obligation and action. Faith and love provide the foundation upon which the mitzvot are built.

But there is another progression between the two paragraphs—one that often goes unnoticed—and it concerns the education of our children.

In the first paragraph of the Shema, parents are commanded: “You shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them—ודברת בם—when you sit in your home, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you rise.”

The emphasis is on the parents. We are to speak about Torah constantly. Torah is not meant to be confined to the synagogue, the classroom or the Shabbat table. It is to become part of the ordinary language of the home: while sitting, travelling, beginning the day and ending it.

Children are educated, first and foremost, by listening to what their parents speak about and by observing what matters to them. When parents live, breathe and speak Torah—when mitzvot are performed with commitment rather than resentment, when Shabbat is experienced as a source of joy rather than restriction, and when Jewish values shape the family’s conversations and decisions—the children absorb far more than information. They encounter a living example of love, loyalty and dedication.

But in the second paragraph, the Torah subtly changes its formulation: “ולמדתם אותם את בניכם לדבר בם”—“You shall teach them to your children, to speak of them.”

The verse does not merely command us to speak to our children. It commands us to teach our children so that they themselves will speak.

The goal of Jewish education is not achieved merely when children hear words of Torah from their parents. It is achieved when Torah becomes part of their own language—when they begin to ask Jewish questions, express Jewish ideas, interpret their experiences through Jewish categories and speak about Torah and mitzvot in their own voices.

These are two necessary stages of Jewish education.

The first is modelling. Parents must demonstrate that Judaism is real, meaningful and central to their lives. Children quickly recognize the difference between a Judaism that is merely preached and one that is genuinely lived. We cannot expect them to love what we treat as a burden, to value what we rarely discuss or to make central what we ourselves regard as peripheral.

But modelling alone is not enough. The second stage requires us to help children make Judaism their own.

We must use our creativity and energy to connect Torah to their lives, questions and concerns. We must help them see how Torah speaks to friendship, love, morality, identity, technology, suffering, responsibility, justice, Israel, and the search for meaning. We must create opportunities for them not only to listen but to respond; not only to receive answers but to formulate questions; not only to repeat our words but to discover words of their own.

This task is particularly challenging in the world in which we live. Our children are surrounded by powerful competing cultures. They are exposed to endless voices, images, identities and systems of meaning, all competing for their attention and loyalty. The language of social media, entertainment and popular culture can easily become more natural to them than the language of Torah.

For that very reason, we cannot absolve ourselves of responsibility, nor can we assume that schools will do the work for us. Schools can teach texts, skills and knowledge. They can inspire and guide. But Jewish education begins in the home, where children first learn what their parents truly love, what they regard as sacred and what gives their lives meaning.

The Torah therefore presents us with a demanding educational vision. First, ודברת בם: we must speak words of Torah ourselves. We must model a committed, joyful and meaningful Jewish life. Then, ולמדתם אותם את בניכם לדבר בם: we must teach our children until they, too, can speak those words—naturally, personally and passionately.

The ultimate measure of Jewish education is not simply whether our children can repeat what we have taught them. It is whether Torah has become part of the way they understand themselves and the world; whether it serves as a frame of reference for their choices, their values and their aspirations; and whether, when they leave our homes and find their own voices, they still choose to speak of it.

Shabbat Shalom.

For more insights on the parasha and Jewish life, visit https://davidharbater.com/parasha-current-events/

"If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past."
Baruch Spinoza

Shabbat Nachamu: Two Forms of Comfort and Consolation

The opening words of this week’s haftarah are among the most comforting in the Bible:

“Comfort, oh comfort My people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and declare to her that her term of service is over, that her iniquity is expiated”(Isaiah 40:1–2).

After the three weeks of mourning that culminate in Tisha B’Av, we read Isaiah’s prophecy announcing a dramatic reversal of fortune.
Tisha B’Av commemorates the devastation of Jerusalem; Isaiah announces that Jerusalem will be comforted. Tisha B’Av recalls exile; Isaiah describes a highway through the wilderness along which God and the exiles will return. Tisha B’Av awakens the fear that God has abandoned His people; Isaiah declares that God is returning as both sovereign and shepherd.

Yet we read these words on Parashat Vaetchanan, which presents us with a strikingly different story.

Moses recalls how he pleaded with God:
“Let me cross over, please, and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon” (Deuteronomy 3:25).

This was not a casual request. Entering the Land had been the goal toward which Moses had labored for forty years. He had confronted Pharaoh, led the people through the sea, received the Torah at Sinai, endured their rebellions, defended them after the sin of the Golden Calf, and guided them through the wilderness. Now, with the Promised Land before him, he begged to complete the journey.

But God refused:
“Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter” (Deuteronomy 3:26).

Unlike the people in Isaiah’s prophecy, Moses’ punishment is not reversed. His plea is denied, and his deepest longing remains unfulfilled. Moreover, there is no indication that this ceased to trouble him.

How, then, are we to read Vaetchanan, in which Moses’ fortunes are not reversed and he is not granted the comfort he seeks, on Shabbat Nachamu, whose message appears to be precisely the reversal of Israel’s fortunes and the consolation that follows?

Perhaps the juxtaposition teaches us that there are two different forms of comfort.

Sometimes comfort comes because our circumstances change. The danger passes, the exile ends, the captive returns, the illness recedes, or the ruined home is rebuilt. This is the comfort promised by Isaiah: suffering gives way to redemption.

But sometimes circumstances do not change. A loss cannot be undone. The dead cannot be restored to life. Years of fear, displacement, and sacrifice cannot simply be erased. In such cases, consolation may come not through the reversal of the past, but through the actions we undertake to build a better future even while the pain remains.

Moses exemplifies this second form of neḥamah.

God does not grant his request, yet Moses does not allow his disappointment to consume his remaining days. Immediately after denying his plea, God commands him to strengthen and encourage Joshua, “for he shall cross over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the Land” (Deuteronomy 3:28).

Moses will not enter, but he will prepare Joshua to lead those who will.

Indeed, the entire Book of Deuteronomy may be understood as Moses’ response to the knowledge that Israel’s future will unfold without him. He reviews the people’s history, teaches them the commandments, warns them against future dangers, renews the covenant, and prepares the next generation to build the society that he himself will never see.

His pain remains, but it is transformed into responsibility.

This is an essential message for Israel today.

We naturally pray for the first kind of consolation: that suffering will end, security will be restored, displaced families will return home, wounded soldiers will recover, and shattered lives will somehow be made whole again.

But not everything can be reversed. The communities devastated on October 7 may be rebuilt, but those who were murdered will not return. Homes can be reconstructed, but memories of terror cannot simply be erased. Families may return to the north and south, but they will not return as the same people who left.

Nevertheless, rebuilding has begun. Through the government’s Tekuma program, together with the efforts of the communities themselves and numerous civic and charitable organizations, homes, schools, farms, and public buildings are gradually being restored throughout the Gaza border region. The process has been uneven and, at times, painfully slow. Yet every act of reconstruction declares that destruction will not have the final word.

Every rebuilt house, replanted field, reopened classroom, and restored community is an act of neḥamah—not because it eliminates the pain, but because it refuses to allow the pain to define the future.

Moses teaches us that consolation is not always something that happens to us. Sometimes it is something we create.

True comfort begins when pain is transformed into purpose, loss into responsibility, and memory into the determination to build a future worthy of those who did not live to see it.

Shabbat Shalom.

For more insights on Torah and current events in Israel, visit https://davidharbater.com/parasha-current-events/