Life is about tension as it relates to balance: as something gets pulled there is a reactionary force on the other side trying to strike a balance. I wrote a couple weeks ago about how we welcome the month of Adar into our lives with happiness and celebration: “מי שנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה”—Mi she-nichnas Adar marbim b’simcha (whoever welcomes Adar is filled with joy). Purim, one of the happiest dates on our calendar, begins immediately after Shabbat. Yet the events of the past week remind us of our mortality and the forces that act against us as Jews and as human beings.
Adding to the already dismal world news of nature’s continuing wrath upon Japan, this week we were all paralyzed to hear of the despicable acts not of nature, but of man. The murder of the Fogel family in Itamar, Israel is an unspeakable and barbaric horror. The cowardice of murderers to take the lives of innocent people defies words. The fact that the murders included the slitting of the throats of children is a brutality that is impossible for me to comprehend. It does not matter where the family lived, whether inside or outside the Green Line. It does not matter how religious they were, what their ideological background was, or their political affiliation. They were murdered because they were Jewish.
This week we read an extra Torah reading to commemorate Purim. Just before we celebrate we read about the Amalekites, an enemy tribe who are despised in the Torah not for only for seeking to destroy the Israelites as they wandered through the desert, but for the barbaric manner with which they attacked. The Amalekites attacked from the rear of the Israelite nation and massacred the defenseless women and children rather than attacking from the front where the soldiers were stationed. The Amalekites went for the murderous and easy kill. The Torah reading commands us to blot out the name of the Amalekites forever and instructs us: לא תשכח—Lo tishcach (Don’t forget).
Let us not forget the murders of the Fogel family. Let us not forget Udi, age 36 and his wife Ruth, age 34. Let us not forget the children, Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4, and Hadas, only 3 months old. And let us not forget the survivors: Tamar, the 12 year old daughter who discovered her murdered family, and her brothers, Roi, age 8, and two-year-old Yishai.
May each of us look back at the past week and not forget.
But may we learn lessons from history and meet the tension of celebrating and moving forward by embracing our Jewish heritage, our culture, our history, and our peoplehood.
May Purim this year and every year be that reminder to us all.
