‘Blotting out Amalek’ –Are we Jews really supposed to wipe out an entire nation as the Torah commands, and who are they?

ed note–If in the New Testament or the Qu’ran there were a section calling upon Christians and Muslims to ‘blot out’ an entire people–men, women and children–who had attacked them, we would NEVER hear the end of it.

In fact, truth be told, we ALREADY don’t hear the end of it at all, as Jewish interests are constantly screeching about the ‘anti-Shemitism’ found in Christian and Islamic texts and how it has contributed to the undeserved suffering of GAAAAWD’S chosen people throughout the centuries.

But, back to the original point–that there is even a question being raised about the Judaic duty AS COMMANDED IN THE TORAH to exterminate an entire people–men, women, and children–is very instructive in terms of underscoring the mental illness that afflicts these people and the danger this affliction poses to the entire world.

As a little tidbit of interesting and important information, it needs to be understood that according to Judaic ‘scholars’, the Amalekites are understood to be the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob (later re-named ‘Israel’) who was robbed of his rightful possessions after his brother Jacob engaged in the typically Judaic business of chicanery and lying. According to these same Judaic ‘scholars’, the modern-day descendants of Esau are–drum role please–Persia and Rome.

Therefore, the Judaic commandment AS FOUND IN THE TORAH AND NOT THE TALMUD to ‘blot out’ an entire people equates to exterminating the West and Iran. Some ‘scholars’ also include Arabs into this mix whenever it suits their argument for wiping out the Palestinians.

Now, let us just examine for a moment the direction in which our esteemed Hebraic author ultimately takes this Q & A session–That today, ‘blotting out Amalek’ should be done through the process of  imposing Judaic values upon them and thus in giving them ‘light and direction’.

In other words, ‘conversion’, cultural submersion/replacement and ‘assimilation’ with ‘Jewish values’.

This is exactly what has taken place as a result of the last century and the incontestable control (which Jewish interests claim to not possess but do) over the media, academia, and information. As a result of this drip-by-drip/drop-by-drop poisoning of the Gentile mind, at least in the West, ‘Esau’ has now been turned into Jacob (later named Israel) in all but name.

Now, the reason this is important is because of what takes place on a regular basis whenever Gentiles criticize the darkness of Judaic culture and express (or actually manifest) their desire to ‘convert’ the Judahites and to bring them into the light of Gentile thinking, culture, and civilization. The ADL and all other assorted groups mount a coordinated screeching campaign against ‘assimilation’ and condemn it in what has recently been termed a ‘Holocaust’ of sorts, where Jews abandon their Judaism in favor of facing West instead of East.

What it all underscores–whether ‘Amalek’ is ‘blotted out’ literally (as takes place in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, etc) or whether it takes place through control of the media and its transmogrification of Gentile society into a Judaic one, is the truly deranged and demented nature of the Judaic mind that believes it is incumbent upon the follower of Judaism to engage in such business. 

myjewishlearning.com

Question: The Torah says I’m supposed to wipe out the nation of Amalek. Are they still around? How do we know? What, exactly, do I have to do?

Answer: The Torah tells us to remember the nation of Amalek that attacked the Israelites after they left Egypt. Specifically, we are told to ‘blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven’ (Deut 25:19). Traditionally, this was understood — in a morally complicated way — to mean that Jews had an obligation to kill all Amalekites: men, women, and children.

But since no one walks around these days claiming Amalekite as their ethnicity, it’s tough to know who we should be blotting out, or even what that blotting out would entail.

This is an ancient problem. Already by the time the Talmud was being written the rabbis taught that the nations of the world had intermingled to the extent that it was no longer possible to tell who was an Amalekite, and who was not (Berakhot 28a). Thus, the mitzvah of wiping out Amalek was effectively nullified.

Still, many commentators were left to struggle with an initial mitzvah that seemed inhumane and immoral. How could God command Israel to annihilate another nation entirely?

Thirteenth-century Bible commentator Nahmanides explained that the harsh measures meted out to Amalek were justified because Amalek’s attack against Israel was meant as an attack against God. Had the war been simply political, God would not have commanded Israel to blot out the enemy nation completely, but because Amalek was motivated by a desire to prove their superiority to God, they were deserving of such punitive measures.

Nahmanides sees the mitzvah of destroying Amalek as a challenge to Israel. He explained that the mitzvah could only be carried out from a sense of protecting God’s honor, and following God’s commandments, not out of a sense of revenge. And he stipulated that only a person of ‘prodigious merit’ would be able to stand such a remarkable test. (Nahmanides’ Commentary on the Torah, Deut 25:17)

Other commentators have understood Amalek not as a nation or ethnicity, but rather as a mindset or ideology. In the 12th century, Maimonides wrote that the commandment to wipe out Amalek only applied when Amalek refused to make peace with Israel (Hilkhot Melakhim 6:4). This seems to imply that it is not the nationality which is a problem, but rather the war-mongering spirit of Amalekites.

So if we can’t locate any more Amalekites, is there any way to continue to observe the commandments that are concerned with that nation?

Rabbi Alan Odess, a teacher at Alexander Muss Institute for Israel Education, does think of Amalek as the specific nation that attacked the People of Israel, but he believes that, ‘There are characteristics, underlying values, that Amalek exemplified,’ such as attacking the weak and defenseless. Though there have been other societies with similar ideas of targeting the weak (Nazi Germany, for instance), Rabbi Odess doesn’t consider these societies to technically be Amalekites, and so they’re not subject to the commandment that requires us to blot out Amalek. Instead, Rabbi Odess suggests that the most practical application of the mitzvah to blot out Amalek is to ‘build positively, to add light and kindness to the world.’

Rabbi Yehuda Amital, Rosh Yeshiva (head) of Yeshivat Har Etzion and a former member of the Israeli cabinet, has said that the problem with Amalek was that it had an ideology of non-ideology, of complete randomness. This idea comes from Deut 25:18, where it says that Amalek ‘karkha baderekh’ –happened upon the People of Israel. This implies that the attack was random. Whoever Amalek ran into, it attacked, regardless of political ambition. According to Rabbi Amital, Jews can blot out Amalek by living purposefully, with an objective, direction, and values.

Looks like we’ve been let off the hook in terms of getting rid of a nation, but we still have to do those pesky good deeds. Darn!