In an age when every day feels like a week, and every week seems like a month, I am looking back to what seems like a far-off distant memory when we dressed in costumes and celebrated the joyous holiday of Purim. I recall the Shabbat prior to our carnivals and megillah readings when we read the story of Amalek, the Jewish people’s arch enemy, who attacked the ancient Israelites from behind, killing the stragglers.
Amalek and his followers killed the weak and infirm who struggled to keep up during our people’s wandering in the wilderness. He is forever marked as evil. Throughout the generations we saw in our many enemies the image of Amalek, reimagining him first as Haman, and then we envisaged his descendants as the Romans, the Crusaders and in modern times the Nazis. We saw in him the evil antisemites who attacked and killed us again and again.
We have perpetually sought to blot out his name and his memory. And yet he reappears in every generation.
I never imagined, until now and at this very moment, that our age-old enemy could be microscopic...
Amalek and his followers killed the weak and infirm who struggled to keep up during our people’s wandering in the wilderness. He is forever marked as evil. Throughout the generations we saw in our many enemies the image of Amalek, reimagining him first as Haman, and then we envisaged his descendants as the Romans, the Crusaders and in modern times the Nazis. We saw in him the evil antisemites who attacked and killed us again and again.
We have perpetually sought to blot out his name and his memory. And yet he reappears in every generation.
I never imagined, until now and at this very moment, that our age-old enemy could be microscopic...
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