This shabbat we read the extra portion of Parashat Zachor, the commandment to remember what Amalek did and to erase their memory (Deuteronomy 25:17-19).
The Hasidic commentator Sefat Emet, noting that the word zachor, meaning “remember,” is also used for shabbat, makes the following connection between shabbat and Amalek: Zekhirat shabbat hu atzmo mehiyat Amalek ki shabbat hu shalom. “The remembrance of Shabbat is in and of itself the erasure of Amalek because shabbat is shalom, peace” (Exodus, Parashat Zachor, 5649). The remembrance of shabbat is in and of itself the erasure of Amalek. It is the power of shabbat that does the work.
We struggle with how to defeat what often feel like insurmountable forces of darkness in the world, Amalek-like forces that sow hatred and cruelty, chaos, doubt and confusion. What is our role in fighting them? The Sefat Emet’s answer is simple yet profound: the defeat of Amalek is carried out through the active remembrance of the peace of shabbat, by living into the values of shabbat in the world. This defeat is not achieved through a direct attack on Amalek, but instead through an energetic devotion to the alternative, a powerful assertion of something else in the world that is stronger – peace, shalom, shabbat. It is along the lines of the famous quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” Fighting cannot drive out Amalek. Only the peace of shabbat can do that.
By The Sheer Force of the Light
Maybe feeling into the physical truth of this concept for a moment. If you are sitting in a dark room, you cannot combat the darkness by making it darker, by closing the shades even tighter. You have to shine some light, even a little bit, bringing a wholly different energy into the room, and then the darkness dissipates and retreats on its own by the sheer force of the light’s power. It is the same with the light of shabbat. There is a kabbalistic tradition that as shabbat arrives on Friday afternoon, the husks of judgment and anger and negativity run away and hide in crevices before the radiant divine light of shabbat. In the presence of Shabbat, they disappear of their own accord. We think we have to fight with the forces of darkness in the world, but that just exhausts us and ends up empowering the other side through our engagement. The invitation is to let go of the fight, to drop the rope in our tug of war and to turn our energy and attention instead towards the positive pursuit of strengthening the forces of light, of peace, of shabbat, of God.
Pausing here to feel into the power of shabbat light and peace in you to dispel the encroaching darkness and fear. It is as if everything is wild and out of control inside and outside, like a classroom with no teacher, and then you remember shabbat in you, you remember that place of perfect divine stillness, you touch its power, and the light sparkles and radiates outward so that all becomes settled inside you, the bullying and harshness and self hatred soften – they turn in wonder toward the light, thinking “what is this amazing substance” – and the frightened and hurt little ones are soothed and comforted. Maybe before you were arm wrestling with the inner critic, but now the presence of the light has an effect on him, too, restoring him to goodness and clarity. No need to fight, just letting the divine power of shabbat do its magic.
Mordecai As A Shabbat Force
Mordecai in the megillah acts as such a shabbat light in his world, bringing forth an energy that is very different from the one he is surrounded by. All around him in Achashverosh’s kingdom, people are drunk and angry, reckless and random. Everything is urgent and everyone is frantically running about, like chickens with their heads cut off. They are always dehufim, stressed out and hurried (Esther 3:15). There are actually people in that society whose job it is to run, ratzim they are called, running in great haste to deliver the king’s edicts, edicts that change so frequently that no one knows what hit them; as the megillah says, the city of Shushan is navochah, confused and lost (3:15).
In a world where all run about harried and confused, one man stands alone in his calm demeanor. Mordecai. Mordecai represents shabbat calm and is in fact associated with the word shalom, used in the megillah twice about him, once in relation to his concern for Esther (2:11) and once at the end, when he is described as dover shalom, speaking peace (10:3).
Sitting in the King’s Gate
Indeed we could say that what Mordecai does is to speak shabbat peace into the frenetic climate of Shushan. He does not join the rising panic, but stays in his seat, centered. He is said to be yoshev (2:21), to sit at the gate of the king. While everyone else scurries about, he sits and waits, watches and listens, staying calm through it all, only acting when the moment is right He is also described as doing things bekhol yom vayom, every single day (2:11 and 3:4). In a topsy turvy world where the king changes his mind on a dime, Mordecai is reliable and steady, staying the course, riding the up and down waves serene as an experienced surfer, grounded and anchored in his faith like a well planted tree.
Walking About
One of the things he does every day is to be mithalekh, to walk about in front of the court to check on Esther (2:11). That word mithalekh, to walk about, is not like ratz, to run, and it is not even exactly like halakh, to walk either. There is no destination to mithalekh. It is a slow contemplative walk, like a philosopher deep in thought, perhaps with his hands behind his back, or maybe like someone walking leisurely along the shore. Indeed, the first time this word is used in the Torah it refers to God walking about the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8). To walk in this slow thoughtful way is to adopt a divine pace, a shabbat pace, to resist the urgency and freneticism around us by bringing into the world the eternal calm of shabbat.
Re-Orienting To How We Do Things
We think our running is divine, that God wants us to do more and more, but in the end, maybe we are missing the ikar, the main point, that what God most wants from us is to bring into the world the energy of shabbat, to walk like God in the garden, out for an afternoon stroll at the breezy time of day, slow enough to enjoy the sights and smells, to connect to who and what is here right now. We think there is something specific we have to do, but perhaps more important than the what is the how, the how of slowing down, the how of inner calm, of riding the waves with trust, of remembering and returning to our internal shabbat place, the seat of divine peace that lives in us always. What would it be like to orient to this shabbat peace as our goal, not to achieve anything in particular, to get anything done, but to live a life infused by shabbat peace, no matter what we are doing? And to trust that it is this remembering of shabbat, this speaking of peace into the rushing swirl around us, to trust that this energy brings healing to our broken Amalek world.
The shabbat value of rest is not just a nice thing or even a healthy thing. It has power. It is redemptive, an antidote, an act of resistance to Amalek culture. Each moment that we choose peace is a sacred bringing of God into the world. There is a rabbinic tradition that Queen Vashti forced her Jewish maidservants to work on shabbat (Megillah 12b). It is an ancient battle to preserve shabbat in the world. I think, too, of the words over the Auschwitz gate, arbeit macht frei, “work makes you free.” To fight Amalek is to assert that no, it is sacred rest that makes you free, that brings salvation, not work.
Remembering
It isn’t easy to become a speaker of shabbat peace in the world, to live from that place. It’s as counter cultural today as it was in Mordecai’s time. We forget again and again, we are turned away again and again, but then we remember and return. That’s the zachor command of shabbat and perhaps also why this special shabbat is called Shabbat Zachor – it is not so much a remembering of Amalek as a remembering of shabbat itself, the shabbat power that can dispel Amalek, continually remembering that power inside us.
Practice
Perhaps taking a few moments to practice this remembering and return, bringing the antidote of shabbat peace into the world right now through our own bodies.
First seeing all the running that is happening around you, as in Shushan, all the news and anxiety and panic, the yelling and shouting and urgency, imagining it as people running around in circles, wildly gesticulating, confused and unmoored.
Not fighting that wildness. Noticing the urge to get rid of it and sensing how that is part of the syndrome itself, part of the aggression, part of the urgency. It’s ok to be running and anxious and frenetic. We are not here to combat that, to beat it down. That would just be fighting fire with fire. We are here to offer an alternative energy, to remember shabbat, to strengthen that other place in us instead, to empower that side of things, to bring God into a Megillah seemingly devoid of God.
So now turning toward Mordecai, seeing him walking about slowly and then also seeing him sitting in front of the king’s gate. Letting both of those images enter your body and slow you down. Even in a crisis, especially in a crisis, we can stay in our seat, embodying Mordecai’s calm and trust. Not leaning forward, anxious for the next thing, but sitting back in your seat, relaxed. Feet on the ground, hands resting on your lap, totally still. Let your breathing slow down, your jaws relax, your temples and shoulders unwind, all your muscles unclench. Feel yourself in your seat, grounded right here, nowhere to run to, nothing urgent to get done. Resting into this shabbat place.
And if parts are nervous about that, if they say – we can’t do that, we have to be on alert – let them be here, too, just as they are, in all their hyper vigilance, not fighting with them. It’s ok. Everything is ok. Accepting them, loving them and offering them a taste of shabbat inside you. Let them taste that divine calm, that place in you that is always still, like the bottom of a lake, even in a storm when the waters at the top are rough, the waters at the bottom are always still, seating yourself down there in the depths, relaxing back into that place in you, where God dwells, and holding the little ones who are still scared on your lap as you sit in that place, letting them be part of this circle, part of this experience.
Staying here for a while. Staying in your seat at the king’s gate, at the gate to the King of Kings – in God’s house, that’s where we sit and reside, that is our home, staying there through it all, tethered and sheltered in the storm, staying close to God in the gate, always connected, never leaving. Veshavti beveit hashem le’orekh yamim. I will sit/dwell in God’s house for many long years (Psalm 23:6). .
Acting From That Shabbat Place
And as we close and begin to move back out into the workaday world, remembering that we can take shabbat with us wherever we go, whatever we are doing. Sometimes we will be called on to act fiercely in the world, as Mrodecai and Esther were, but internally, we can still always remain seated before the gate of the king so that our actions stem from that place. Physically, we often injure ourselves when our movements don’t arise from our core, and the same is true spiritually. We can learn to initiate actions from that inner center of shabbat peace, so that they are arising out of the deep divine stillness in our core. Maybe sensing that possibility, the rising up of shabbat peace into the world of action, sensing that rising up and the power that it offers you, the power of radiating shabbat light with every step you take. Like Mordecai, becoming a speaker of shabbat peace in a world wracked by Amalek.
Photo by magda-ehlers at Pexels
