Here’s another piece from Reb Zalman’s Yishmru Da’at work, from the section on Purim.  Blessings to you and yours, Gabbai Seth Fishman, BLOG Editor

“Blot out the memory of Amalek” (Deut: 25:19),
meaning that from the memory of Amalek [having hurt you], you must be purified from all unclean pain, [i.e., pain plus lost confidence, or pain plus self-blame, or pain plus irrational fear, etc.], so that you can stay in touch with your real situation at present.  [Being more in touch] will, in turn, enable you to understand choices for further action in your struggles with the enemy.  And if there has been no introspection and examination  regarding the enemy, you must purify from complex, past pain.  It may have come from an enemy other [than your present one], or it may have come from conditions of other times or places which may not be directly connected to the present [attacks].  Since our having been attacked [means] we were in proximity with oppressors, blot out their names, and we should regard them as the Inquisition that came to remove us from society and to extinguish our spirit, (as in the example of Hanukkah), or the oppressors who came to annihilate our bodies, (as Haman on Purim).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 6:06 am and is filed under Post-Triumphalism, Calendar, Deep Ecumenism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.