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The Laws of War and Peace with Rav Shlomo Katz is a series based on Hilchos Milchamah VeShalom by Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, opening up the Torah of מלחמה ושלום for the times we are living in right now.
In these episodes, Rav Shlomo explores the halachic, biblical, and inner spiritual foundations of war, courage, national responsibility, emunah, and redemption. Through the lens of Tanach, Chazal, and the living reality of Am Yisrael, this series asks: How is a Jew meant to think, feel, pray, and act in a time of מלחמה? What does true gevurah look like? How do we fight evil without losing humility? And how do war, mesirus nefesh, and miracles become part of the unfolding geulah?
Chodesh Sivan sponsored by the Silver family, לעילוי נשמת בתיה פייגל בת ישראל. Sponsored anonymously in memory of all the holy Chayalim that gave their lives and the ones who are working tirelessly to protect us and the land. By the Finns for a davenning for a big victory for Am Yisrael and the shemira on all our Chayalim Tzaddikim and a refua shelema to all those that need. The week is sponsored by Chana Sarah Zeller in memory of her late husband Rav Dovid Zeller whose Yahrtzeit was yesterday.
It was a very, very special evening we had upstairs over here. So if you have the sefer please open up to page 68. I also want to give a big Shalom Aleichem to one of my old chavrusas, Ron Not-a-Kohen Katz who's joining us today. Okay chevre, page 68.
Juicy, juicy topic. A topic you all know that has been spoken about and has been mentioned. But when you wake up in the morning again, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but we're waking up kimat every single morning during a ceasefire here, hearing about another chayal that was killed and I'm sick and tired of it. And it's such a, it's such a sick, demented reality that this is just our lives in a ceasefire.
It's sick.
חילול השם אין כמוהו. What ceasefire? Exactly. Amalek is still all around us.
We're very nervous to use that word for obvious reasons, but we have to learn the sugya inside. What is this inyan? What is this entity? Is it true that there's no Amalek today? Is it true that there is Amalek today? Well, just giving our talking from the gut is not going to help us with these inyanim. Like we said from October 8th, our response is to find through the Torah how to respond to what's going on right now. And we still have a long way to go, and we know that already.
But this shiur is a very, very important shiur especially for chayalim that are going out to krav, that are on the battlefield as I told you that I had chayalim call me on their way to Aza in November 2023 trying to get a clear definition whether this is called Milchemes Amalek or not. Like what a what holy chayalim. This is what they're thinking of as they're going down to the battleground. So let's a very, very deep thing.
Here we're going to we're going to look inside Rishonim today to understand what is this whole inyan, what's this sugya about? So we know there's a מצוות עשה לאבד זרע עמלק. There is a positive commandment to wipe out the seed of Amalek.
הרמב"ם כותב שיש מצוה למחות את זכר עמלק. Rambam in הלכות מלכים פרק ה says like this: וכן מצוות עשה לאבד זרע עמלק שנאמר תמחה את זכר עמלק ומצוות עשה לזכור תמיד מעשיו הרעים ואריבתו כדי לעורר איבתו.
He says an amazing thing. There's a mitzva to never forget what they did in order to what he says is called l'orer eivato. What does that mean? To awaken what's eivato? Animosity. Our animosity.
Remember this is not something that should lie dormant. This is a very interesting thing the Rambam says. Not easy. Apparently not enough.
Well if it was really כמו שצריך לא היינו בבלבול הזה. You know they make it easy for those that are walking around with their eyes wide open you know.
שנאמר זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק.
מפי השמועה למדו זכור בפה לא תשכח בלב since we have two different tzivuim here one is to remember the way we learned it out over the years is zachor meaning in your mouth you have to say it lo tishkach baleiv in your heart שאסור לשכוח איבתו ושנאתו.
Don't ever don't ever forget how much their how much their hatred truly is to us. Don't forget it. I know you'd love to live in a world where it's not shayach anymore but זה לא הסיפור שלנו, this is not our story. Rambam מביא ראיה ממלחמת שאול בעמלק.
Where's he giving us proof? The famous story of Shaul fighting with Amalek.
שם שמואל מצווה את שאול המלך להילחם בעמלק ומעורר אותו. When Shaul haMelech gives him a commandment to fight Amalek he wakes him up להבין למה חשוב להילחם בו. Why it's how does he wake him up explaining to him why it's important to fight Amalek.
רק אחר כך הוא ציווה עליו להרגו. Only after he brings up Amalek in the machshava in the lev then he says to him the commandment is to kill him. And he quotes from Shmuel Aleph here.
כה אמר ה' צבאות פקדתי את אשר עשה עמלק לישראל אשר שם לו בדרך בעלותו ממצרים.
Remember what they did to us as we're leaving Egypt. Remember what they did to us after 1945 while we're trying to build a state. Remember what they did to us every single day since then.
והכיתה את עמלק והחרמתם את כל.
ולא תחמול עליו. No mercy.
והמתה מאיש עד אשה מעולל ועד יונק משור ועד שה מגמל ועד חמור. What is he basically—what's the commandment basically describing? Total eradication.
Total eradication. Question? Yeah. Was this after—this is after Shaul HaMelech got the divine presence taken from him, right? This is after—no, this is before he's anointed. I think before.
Before. Yeah, I think before. Gamar. So that's the Ramban.
Now there, he's not telling us who Amalek is. We're just having the first—we're just learning that there's a mitzvah, okay? We're not—it's not going into definitions yet of who Amalek is.
גמר רמב"ן סובר כמו רמב"ם. So the Ramban is holding like the Rambam.
כי עיקר המצוה היא שלא תשכח מה שעשה לנו עמלק עד שנמחה את שמו מתחת השמים ונספר זה לבנינו לדורותינו לומר להם כך עשה לנו הרשע ולכך נצטוינו למחות את שמו. That you should never forget what Amalek did to us until you wipe them from the face of the earth, and we should tell this to our children and to their generations, to tell them this is what this rasha did to us. And therefore, we were commanded to wipe out his name. You know there's a woman on Twitter, I'm forgetting her name right now.
I don't know how I found her, but she posts every single day footage of the atrocities of October 7th. Like the most gruesome things that you could imagine. And every day she writes, "We will never forget." So the first few months that she was doing this, I was like, "Yeah, this is really," but she's not gonna have to do it after a while because A, they won't be an entity or B, it'll be so clear that it's in our blood and we won't ever forget. And I'm realizing two and a half years later that she has to keep on—she has to keep on doing this every single day.
And every few weeks she'll write—she'll write, "Does if anyone really sees this, just say hi or like," 'cause she wants to make sure. She's not going for clickbait. You know what I mean? This is not clickbait stuff. This is—this is her inner shlichus of being a beacon of awareness that she took upon herself.
I forgot her name. Noa or Noga, something. Anyway, this is what it is. What percentage of the world believes that the Shoah was a—is a—is a fraud, Jewish fraud? Shoah.
Yeah. Well, I'm saying it's happening more and more, right? You know when I was younger, I remember we would say like "Never forget, never forget." We have to have all these museums. And I was thinking when I was a kid, especially there was a massive one in LA, the Museum of Tolerance. So I was always wondering as a kid, I was like, "Why—I don't understand, like, Spielberg's testimony accounts and everything.
But you see, like, even with all that, even with all that and all the preserving of edus and even with all of that, it's an amazing thing. Now, but—but it makes sense that Hashem says, "Wipe out Amalek." Why? Because of 2026. Why? 'Cause of eighty years after Auschwitz and the pace of everything—you see what's going on. Lefi devarav, according to the Ramban, עיקר המצוה הוא לספר את מעשיו הרעים של עמלק.
So according to the Ramban, the ikkar of the mitzvah is to speak about what Amalek did to us. But do you think that according to that, so I'm gonna ask you outside the text, if according to the Ramban, the ikkar mitzvah of this mitzvah regarding Amalek is telling the story, don't you think he's basically saying the same thing as the Rambam in terms of the actual need to wipe them out, or you think he's saying it's enough if you just tell the story? Lesaper kedei leorer. Bediyuk. What's the point of telling the story? What's the point of sharing it? So what's the point of all these museums of tolerance and what's the point of all these awareness things? What's the point of it? Just to put up a monument? And to say we remember you guys? What's the point of it? To make sure it doesn't happen again.
The point of it is that it's still in the air. It's still in the air and it's coming at us in this generation. We ain't seen nothing yet. We ain't seen nothing yet.
Now Rav Shmuel Eliyahu says here something that many Rabbanim don't like to hear and they don't like to say this and they don't like to give it over because it's very non-politically correct.
גם בימינו יש עמלק. There's Amalek around also in our times.
יש שואלים למה צריכים לזכור את עמלק אם אנחנו לא יודעים מי הוא.
If you say, like many people say, that we can't know who Amalek possibly is, then why—why do we have such a mitzvah to keep on remembering? If we can't—how are we supposed to remember something that you can't put your finger on?
הרי עמלק הוא אומה נשכחת. There is no nation— It used to be a nation called Amalek. Today there's no one nation called Amalek, if you catch what I just said.
בא סנחריב ובלבל את כל האומות, as we know the Gemara tells us, Sancheriv comes and he makes a complete mishmash of all the nations, therefore making it almost impossible since his time to say this is the nation Amalek that was spoken about in the Torah.
I want you to follow the mahalach of the shiur today. This is important. When - please give all your attention because there's a lemaise here that we have to be in tune with. Maybe we can't say today because of due to Sancheriv, maybe we can't say today you can't put your finger on a nation and the nation that the Torah was referring to as that nation called Amalek.
Probably, because you can't do that with any nation besides us, right? But what could you still do? Is Amalek, this is the shayla, is Amalek designated only to that nation that the Torah was speaking about in like that came and tried to trip us after we left Mitzrayim? No. So let's learn it inside and see what is it? What is the inyan here?
למה לזכור את עמלק ממילא לא נוכל לעשות עם המצוה הזאת כלום. Omer haRamban. The Ramban says כי האומות אכן התערבו אבל עמלק לא התבטל.
We're going to see this inside. The nations may have gotten all mishmash with each other, but Amalek wasn't batel beshishim. It wasn't like, 'Oh, they all got all mixed up with each other, so there's no such thing as Amalek anymore.' No, that's not the emes.
ולא עוד אלא שהמלחמה האחרונה שתהיה לנו מלחמה על קיומו של עם ישראל.
The last war that we're going to have will be a milchama what's called a milchama kiyumis. That means existential war, which we're - you everyone realizes that we're fully in that one, right?
כך הוא כותב על עמלק נכדו של עשו. Look at the next page. The Ramban writes this about Amalek, the grandson, the einikel of Eisav.
כי המלחמה מן המשפחה הזאת. This nation, this family. They were the first war and they'll be the last war for Am Yisrael.
היא הראשונה והאחרונה לישראל כי עמלק מזרע עשו.
Anyone want to try to trace it really fast? Elifaz, the son of Elifaz. Biduak. It's not that complicated. What's Eisav's son's name? It's Elifaz.
From Elifaz comes Amalek. So it's not such a, you know, hard thing to trace. I don't remember but I think it was Rav Eliyahu Michel in the earlier shiur he was giving what he said - that they came about through like some sort of weird how did Amalek the woman wanted to convert. Yeah, I don't want to get into that.
I want to stick to the mahalach of the shiur.
כי עמלק מזרע עשו וממנו בא אלינו המלחמה בראשית הגויים. From that it says Reishis Goyim Amalek, meaning from the beginning they're the first ones that came out to us.
ומזרעו של עשו היה לנו הגלות והחורבן האחרון.
So they were - Amalek was the first one to wage war as we were a people leaving Mitzrayim, but who were the ones that sent us into 2,000 years of galus? Who was it? What nation? Rome. What's Rome? Edom. What's Edom? Eisav. It's the same mishpacha.
Kasher yomru raboseinu as it says in the Gemara Avodah Zarah שאנחנו היום בגלות אדום.
וכאשר ינוצחו ויחלשו בעמים רבים אשר איתו ממנו ניוושע לעולם. And when he will be weakened and the nations that are with him, we will be redeemed from them, Kasher amar as it says in Ovadya we just said right now: ועלו מושיעים בהר ציון לשפוט את הר עשו והיתה לה' המלוכה.
והנה כל אשר עשו משה ויהושע עמהם בראשונה.
Everything that Moshe and Yehoshua did with Amalek in the beginning, יעשו אליהו ומשיח בן יוסף עם זרעם.
על כן התאמץ משה בדבר. He put in all his strength to give koach, the Ramban is saying to the doros acharonim, which is - he says over here - אליהו ומשיח בן יוסף, which is our dor to finish what they began. Zot omeret, according to the Ramban, every time you wage war against the bechina of Amalek in this dor, you're mashlim something that began by Moshe and Yehoshua.
And you see the clear directives that Moshe gives Yehoshua with the war and how we fought so passionately.
בדוקא משיח בן יוסף כהכנה למשיח בן דוד. Betach, because Mashiach ben Yosef is the Mashiach that's identified much more with the act of the physical. Lachen, אי אפשר לומר כי בימינו אין מלחמת עמלק, or so you can't say that we finished, that there's no milchemas Amalek because Moshe Rabbeinu is already thinking about the last dor before Mashiach comes that's going to have to fight Amalek as well.
But what comes up from the Ramban's words? They're not a nation anymore. So a little bit—what comes up from the Ramban's words in terms of who would be—huh? That it's Edom. Exactly. That's what it seems, from the Ramban it seems that the end of Jewish exile of 2,000 years would have—it would—it seems like it would have added up if the people we fought in order to get out of exile and establish our own sovereignty would be Edom.
But didn't Yishmael and them marry Edom? Like there was a—again, everything's mish-mashed today, right? But al pnei hakarka, pnei hashetach, when we think today of Edom, where does our mind go? America. Yes. Or Russia. European, yeah, I mean, and and and well, soon it's going to be Yishmael will be in, right? But that's not—that's not what we're talking about over here.
The Chachamim also make it very clear that Germania is a direct descendant of Edom. That's in several of the—is a direct descendant of Edom. That's what I'm saying. That's what—but that brings us up pretty clearly to—yeah, but remember, the end of 1945 wasn't יהי שלום בחילך שלוה בארמנותייך, but I'm saying that if you're following the lineage from Esav, it can go clearly to—to—to Germania.
If Mashiach came after 1946, everything you said would shtim perfectly with what we're saying over here. There's this klipas Yishmael that is in the way over here that we're seeing is—what we're gonna see is directly linked to this whole story. But to just—what he's proving something different right now. He's saying, chevra, just to get up and say there is no Amalek anymore in these days, you can't say, you can't define them, you can't identify them, ee efshar, that's running away from something.
That's not true. That—that can't be. That's not it. That's not the story that's going on.
And I know for some of you, you're sick and tired of me teaching these things, and I'm sorry, but I love you enough to keep on teaching these things because there's—remember, there's an inyan that I believe in Yiddishkeit is an important one. Stay alive. V'chai bahem. And we haven't seen—I'm telling you, look at what's going on in the world and the fact that we're waking up every morning to another chayal being killed, it seems that unless we wake up fast, that October 7th was just a promo.
What can we do about it? We could sit and learn and raise consciousness and create a generation of a critical mass of conscious Yidden that won't put up with this. And we can get thousands and thousands and thousands of our brothers and sisters to come home and make Aliyah with that same consciousness and create a completely new entity of a critical mass of people that do not accept being in an induced coma. Takes two to tango. And to not like ever ask that question because you don't have an option, Naftali.
You don't have an option. What are we going to do about it?
אין לך ברירה אחי. You have no option. What I mean is—what I mean is—what I mean is the people in this room mostly or completely are with you.
I mean, you're preaching to the—I'm not preaching! I'm—I'm learning with us inside from a Torah perspective what these inyanim are. But we're there. I'm saying—we're not there! We're not there yet! We're there! We're not there yet!
אני לא מסכים איתך! We want to destroy Amalek, we want to—the people in this room? We maybe want, but we're not yet. So how could we? Oh! Yofi! Bo natchil.
בוא נלמד קודם כל, the first thing, ראשית חכמה יראת השם. First let's learn these concepts to be things that are ingrained into our Yiddishkeit, just like we would never have a shayla about chillul Shabbos—meaning, not—not a halachic shayla, meaning we would never have a shayla whether we would desecrate Shabbos, we would never have a shayla regarding going out to make sure this mitzvah is mekuyam because in order to keep Shabbos, I have to stay alive. Not rocket science here. Can I—can I give an answer to Naftali? Sure.
We—we have a הכנה לשבת שיעור, but we're all shomer Shabbos in the room. But—preaching to the choir. No, but with Shabbos, it's within our ability whether or not we're going to do this—but you have to understand how to do the hachana. Here we're dependent on the government that's dependent on Trump kivyachol.
If this is a democracy, if this is a democracy, then it is—then there's no difference, bottom up. If it's a democracy, and it is. Ma she'eila? Okay chevre, back inside the seifer, please put your phones away. If you're here in the shiur, I want you to be with me.
Jump one paragraph, go down to the bottom.
שונאי ישראל בעצם הם עמלק. Now this is a shita we've mentioned in shul many times and it's one that many people from the YU world are not as comfortable as quoting everything else about Rav Soloveitchik said, but this is from Rav Soloveitchik. It says not from Rav Meir Kahane, this is from Rav Soloveitchik.
לדעת הרב הגאון יוסף דוב סולוביצ'יק זצ"ל במלחמה על החמאס ואויבי ישראל האחרים יש גם מצוות מחיית עמלק. Now Rav Soloveitchik didn't say that it was Hamas, but you're gonna understand in a second how he would say it is Hamas without even blinking an eye based on the quote that the Rav is gonna give we're gonna get right now.
הרב הגאון רב סולוביצ'יק הביא את לשון הרמב"ם בהלכות מלכים פרק ה' שכתב בהלכה ד'. He brings this mitzvah, מצוות עשה להחרים שבעה עממים שנאמר החרם תחרימם וכל שבא לידו אחד מהם ולא הרגו עובר בלא תעשה שנאמר לא תחיה כל נשמה וכבר אבד זכרם.
What did the Rambam say about each person? Each person that falls under this category, if they weren't wiped out you're over on a mitzvah. This is the same Rambam that was brought down by Shimon haLevi in Parshas Vayishlach. I mean, the Rambam, well, okay, and I know, I know. Ken ken ken, I understand, nachon.
לעומת זאת בהלכה ה' העוסקת בעמלק הנזכרת לעיל לא כתוב וכבר אבד זכרם. Meaning the Rambam again the Rambam in halacha daled says oh there was a people that we had to make sure that we had to completely annihilate but kvar avad zichram meaning they're already gone. Nachon. Comes in halacha hei that deals with milchemes Amalek, the Rambam doesn't say kvar avad zichram.
Which means which implies they're still here.
ושאל אביו למה לא כתב בעמלק וכבר אבד זכרם הרי סנחריב שערבב את האומות ערבב גם אותם.
מכאן למדנו שמצוות מחיית עמלק נוהגת בכל הדורות. Now who is the mitzvah of Amalek applied to?
שבכל דור שרואים אומה ששונאת את ישראל ורוצה להשמידה כמו גרמניה או איראן יודעים שהוא מזרע עמלק ומצווה למחותה.
What what is said here in the name of the Rav Soloveitchik? Any generation that you see a nation that hates Am Yisrael and wants to wipe out Am Yisrael like Germany or Iran you know that he says that identifies them as Amalek. Okay why is that so complicated for us? Because what did we do post October 7th? We're trying to talk, we're trying to, it went right into a sicha, the conversation was the innocent Gazans. Yeah right. It all goes into there and that, and that goes into our very rachmanus-dike brains and our minds of are you gonna you know children and all these you know that that's what goes right away into our mind.
But who is it al hacheshbon of? Our children. Our children. This is, Eli you're having a hard time with this? It's not, I'm having a hard time with, we have to keep our categories very straight. The problem is when it's hard is we're talking on the one hand about a nation, yeah, on the other hand when you drill down into the nitty gritty you're talking about individuals.
This is where it gets hard because the Rambam explicitly says here that it is about individuals. But if I'm standing across from somebody and I don't know necessarily his politics and where the rubber hits the road it gets it gets hard. So that's why you know that it's in a real world it's not so simple.
כמה חכם ולא סרים שפתותיך.
I can quote all sorts of both sides but... No no no, the reason guys guys guys the reason I'm asking Eli is because Eli's a talmid of the Rav. That's why I'm that's why I dafka asked Eli. I remember the first time I heard him say it, I heard him say this and nobody in the room reacted and I immediately was like this has very practical consequences.
Did anybody wake up and hear what was being said? Right? Okay you know I was a high schooler at the time but it's but it's still you know. Did you ask him? No. I spoke with him about other situations. One of the first questions I asked him...
One of the first questions I asked him, it's not for the shiur, but the first question I asked him was about the gemara in Shabbos which says you're not supposed to pull. You know what? Maybe it is for the shiur. Now say that. I love that.
Say say this. I came I had a chance to speak with the Rav on many occasions. I was 15, but I was very fortunate and I sat with him and there's a gemara in Masechet Shabbos you're not allowed to pull an akum out of a pit. Right.
And I said how do we say this? How what do you mean? I'm walking by somebody you know. How do I not pull him out of a pit? And the Rav says something very interesting. He says look I'm not going to say that this was the case but I want you to consider the possibility. He says imagine that Hitler or Goebbels had just wiped out your entire family and you saw them in a pit on Shabbos.
Wouldn't you want any excuse in the world not to pull them out of the pit? And I sat with that and it made some sense. Now in that case I knew it was Goebbels and I knew it was you know Hitler. I knew that they killed my family. So that's already a different inyan than here.
That's where this gets hard. But there is an inyan that says you know somebody's that way and basically they they constitute or could constitute a direct threat or they already gave evidence of what they're made of then they lose in some sense their their integrity as a human being and you might treat them different. Still it was that you don't pull them out of a pit. It wasn't that you go and you know throw water.
Right. What about all the videos of parents holding like two year olds in Gaza saying I want my child to grow up to blow themselves up? I want everyone to just chill and listen to Elie but don't breathe heavy and just listen. We're here to learn. Yeah.
So I get it and that's but that's already another inyan because they are a threat right? And they are telling you exactly what they want to do right? And then you have to figure out all right I mean this is where the inyan of international humanitarian I'm sorry the humanitarian law comes in, law of war and so on and so forth. When is somebody a civilian? When are they not a civilian? Right? It gets sticky because you have western concepts that are foreign somewhat to us. In other words in the Jewish context as well right? And then you have some concepts that came out of our context and they're being fed back to us. This is why it's important, really important to learn the halacha.
You have to learn the halacha. That's that's what we're doing here. I don't need maybe Naftali's saying you're preaching the sentiment. I'm not trying to preach the sentiment.
I want us to learn the halachot inside because that way when you then approach something that you're emotionally so triggered with that's already ולא תתורו אחרי לבבכם. You can't. You have to learn it. So when we're learning inside and we have the chilluk between Halacha Dalet and Halacha Hei it seems very clear that there is Amalek in our dor and the Rav gave I I believe be-emunah sheleimah not because I'm looking for it but I believe be-emunah sheleimah that the Rav would have paskened 100% after October 7th that this milchama this Milchemet Amalek because it's a it's a self-proclaimed nation that in its vast vast vast majority, not 51%, not 52%, not 60%, not 70%.
We're talking the top top percentages are are proud, happy and proclaiming that this is just going to happen again and again and again. So where's the room to wonder you know if this is a nation that doesn't deserve? A nation? They're not a nation. That's the to me the tricky thing is that they're not even a real people. They're a made up they're a made up nation.
There's no such thing as you know as we say all the time. Palestinians. Right.
אין דבר כזה בכלל.
So the more that you have enough conscious people that are learning Torah and saying wait a second shniya Torah goes out of its way to emphasize this mitzvah. This is a big big mitzvah. This Lo Tishkach. What do we what else do we have this mitzvah about? Lo Tishkach you know this level of Lo Tishkach.
Shniya אז יש פה משהו. Oh but it's so uncomfortable because I'm friend from the I'm friends with the guy that comes and delivers you know the Super-Sol. You know who else were friends with Super-Sol? In Gaza. They were much better friends than we will ever be with the chevra, the chevra down that were burnt to a crisp.
There's nothing we need to like there's no inyan there's no chiddushim. That's what I'm saying. There's not nothing's a chiddush here. No I just meant to suggest also when I said preaching I didn't mean that in a negative way I'm just saying the sentiment.
Okay, so let's all go vote for whoever, for Moshe Feiglin or for Yair Golan or for some... if that's the only way we can... lehavdil. If the only way we're able to influence anything changing is through our democracy and voting.
Okay, so let's all... let's go and vote for someone. I'm saying... I mean, I'm biased, but you know who I'd vote for.
So I'm saying I will. Okay, and I'll tell you. Okay, and the other thing I want to say is, you know already what my answer is going to be, but whatever, continue. Yeah.
Because lichora, anyone that's trying to kill you, the Torah doesn't have to even talk about Amalek.
הבא להורגך השכם להורגו. You would think. You would think, but when...
you're correct in logical... in logical sense. But for years here, the protocols of the soldiers, hora'ot peticha be'esh, right? Which means... how do you say that? Rules of engagement.
Are sick. They're sick. They're twisted. Of course, no I'm saying as to what Eli was saying.
Meaning, the Torah seems to be adding another category. Besides for someone who's with a gun trying to shoot you or trying to kill you immediately, the Torah is saying there's another category of enemy that even if there's babies and animals and stuff like that and they're not involved in this right now... They will be. They will be, they won't be, I don't know.
The Torah says this is something... this is something different than just a regular enemy. This is something where we have to... even the non-combatants, even the innocents ke'ilu.
Is that how I say it, Amalek? Right. And this is where it gets hard. Eli, I mean Tobi, it gets... it gets very hard for us that weren't raised in a culture that...
of course it's hard because we're rachmanim in our teva. But it hasn't... that good place inside of us never did anything good for Am Yisrael in the long run with regarding our relationships with enemies, ever. And our enemies don't draw the same distinction, of course not.
It's the opposite. That good place in us, that place you're talking about, that nice, like, rachmanutdike place. That never served Am Yisrael letova in the long run or the short run. So, alright, so...
it's heavy stuff. I understand it's heavy stuff because we have kedushat hachayim. The thing is that we're so, sometimes we're so galus mentality that when we say kedushat hachayim, we don't think of ourselves before we think of our enemies. We think of our enemies, we say kedushat hachayim, we have value of life.
Well, chayecha kodmin. Your own life comes before the life of a potential threat. So when we say kedushat hachayim and we have this sensitivity to the value of life, if you're not speaking about your life and your children first, your version of kedushat hachayim is warped. It's borrowed from a different religion.
It's not our religion. It's a matter of timing. Why do I say this? We also have Gemaras... I mean, the Mechilta or the Tanchuma seems absolute on this law.
And then you have inyanim where we say that the descendants of Haman studied in Bnei Brak. Is that a commentary on Bnei Brak? Okay. That's why they don't want to go to the army. It's for real.
No, it's for real. So in the long run, we see that it could be... it could be good. But it's a matter of timing and being very sensitive to the timing.
I mean, I don't know how that happened. What, the בני בניו של המן? Yeah. That the... that Haman...
that the descendants of Haman ended up learning in Bnei Brak. There was a way to bring them around to do tshuva, right? And then something good did happen. It's not like it's ideal, it's not the inyan. It's not the inyan, and here's where the rubber hits the road.
Here, like, I don't see that timing happening now. I mean, here we see a dreadful situation and the question is where you weigh in on all of this. There is, quote-unquote, things that we dismiss as political correctness and the fuzzy notions, things like this. And they seem absolutely wrong.
And then on the other hand, there's a glimmer there of something. There's also a difference between the way Rav Kook, for instance, saw whether there was such a thing as irredeemable evil, and his grandson, Rav Chanan, who took it and said, yeah, there is irredeemable evil, or at least they said now is not the time to be... like that might be beshamayim, but now's not the time. Here's the time we gotta fight.
So that's why I'm saying it's hard. I, Eli, I fully hear you. I davka wanted to... you think I need to hear from anyone else in here? I need to hear from you because I know that...
I know the struggle, the internal struggle. I get it. And that's why you have to learn these stuff inside before we have any of our own opinions. That's...
to me, that's more important than, again, the sentiment. But the only chiddush would be that our tzibur has to learn these inyanim inside before we are so clear as to what our opinion, our kishka's opinions are. Yeah. But the soldiers who have a special ruach of clarity that's beyond, because there is such a thing of Orachot Kedem, you know, this kind of Torah where like Rav Zusha used to talk about where you have a direct kesher with Hashem which is above the sugyas, above the pilpulim or poskim, it's sort of like just clarity of what needs to be done.
The soldiers are on that madrega, and then we're like, you know, trying to figure it out, fill certain things, but we're figuring it out lefi haTorah. How do we bridge their ruach and clarity to our Torah-dik sort of, you know, a mehalach of what we're trying to do here? Because it seems like that's, that's where there's a lot of space and then they could fall God forbid into once they come down from that clarity into our, you know, sort of... Well, because they see that there's a people that are back here, that are here, that aren't as clear as they are, and they're the ones that are sitting and learning. And we're quoting sugyas and they're just like, "Right." Well, I wouldn't tell them that...
I wouldn't try to... I wouldn't try to convince them to... chas v'shalom. I don't know, that's an amazing question.
I don't know the answer to that. I think it's not about us meeting them. It's not about bridging, like, "Okay, let's meet." It's only about us going up and up towards their absolute moral clarity. Because they came to, even if they got to a level, like what the Rav always said, where it didn't matter, yamin, smol, background, Jew, non-Jew...
nachon? But you know why? Because they're in a war. Because they're actually in front of an enemy. Like, we're... it's a joke here.
Like, we're in this illusion that because we haven't been running to the miklatim in the last few months, is it? Two months? Since like pesach? Right, so it's almost like completely not, right, it's completely... it's just completely removed from us, but because it's not removed from them, that keeps the bullseye, that keeps the clarity and the target over there. Right, there's a lot more to say, I just want to learn a little bit more. Rav Shlomo Aviner...
Yeah. What message... you know, we were saying that we're all on the same page. So what message would you say to religious people who think we should not fight Amalek right now? No, no, that's not the question because they...
they don't say that it's Amalek. Right. That's a problem with the question, you see. They don't feel it's Amalek.
100%. No, am I... no, tell me if you think I'm wrong. You have to say, or, or they'll say it's not milchemet mitzvah.
Right, they'll say it's not milchemet mitzvah, they'll say it's not Amalek. If they came to a conclusion that now's not the time to fight Amalek, that's actually a point... that's an easier point to discuss. But if this isn't what this is, you have to know what...
what we're dealing with. And I think that's why the Ramban says specifically, ולא ספר את מעשיו הרעים של עמלק. It's not lesaper al Amalek. And then the Rav continues on, it's like maybe we don't know because of the mishpachot shehiggula sanheriv.
We don't know who really is. But it's the concept of ma'asav, especially in today's day and age with social media, like how the kids on campuses in America can come against us. It's just... it's ma'asav.
And that's who we're fighting. And it doesn't davka have to be Amalek itself that we know for sure this person is Amalek. It's his ma'asav. Which is still happening today.
More so today in front of us in ways that we could have never ever imagined. I have to... there's seven hands up. I just...
I'm sorry, sometimes I just have to vaiter it on. Just... just one more piece. Kashe lanu leha'amin.
Now Rav Eliyahu is addressing a lot what a lot of us struggle with.
קשה לנו להאמין שיש כזה רע בעולם שרוצה להשמיד אותנו.
אבל כבר כתבו לנו חכמינו בהגדה של פסח בכל דור ודור עומדים עלינו לכלותנו והקדוש ברוך הוא מצילנו מידם. So חלק ממצווה זכירת אשר עשה לך עמלק לסקור את רשעותו ושנאתו.
And now he says, well how do we mekayem the inyan of bechol dor vador, like to... snake and he says over here b'yameinu, Iran היא שמובילה את הסטרא אחרא.
זו המדינה שמתאבדת כדי שתהיה לה פצצה אטומית כדי שתוכל להשמיד את מדינת ישראל. You realize that when he says over here it's committing suicide just in order to get a nuclear weapon.
Do you know what that means? Do you know about Iranian economy at all? I started getting into this recently. It's a fraud. No. It's destroyed.
But it shows this fixation with we're gonna—we're gonna completely be self-destructive, our whole mishtar—everything about just the basic, how does a society—the structure of any healthy society is based on its economy. We're going to completely self-destruct the workings of the inner, of commerce, of economy, of everything, only to do what? Try to destroy us. Now, shniya, שלוחו של אדם כמותו. There're—we call them today, proxies, nachon? nachon.
We say there's a proxy up north, there's a proxy down south, meaning Aza, and there's a proxy way down south that—it's amazing. These people never had anything going for them, Teiman, right? Last few years there's this entity that people—oh that's right, there's a country down there. It's like it never existed before. No such thing, right? There's a proxy in the United States as well, they're funding them as well.
But I think there's—I think the proxy lives over here, right over here, behind here, you could say they all are. However, there are ones that proclaim proudly that they are, right? And these people will—look at Lebanon. It's the same exact thing. They've—they've destroyed that country, the land, the people, they've destroyed it.
Why? Meisina, from the hatred they have to us, they've completely wiped themselves out as well. Now Rav Eliyahu says like this, ברוך השם שהם לא מצליחים עם הפצצה. Now he wrote this a few years ago, right?
לכן הם מנסים להשמיד אותנו באמצעות החמאס והחיזבאללה. If—the only reason why there's Hamas and Hezbollah proxies is because they haven't reached the nuclear bomb yet.
But by them, it's the same motive, it's the same point.
לפי דבריו של הרב סולובייצ'יק דין החמאס בעזה והחיזבאללה הוא כדין עמלק וצריכים לקיים בהם מצוות מחיית עמלק שהרי הם כתבו באמנה שלהם להשמיד כל יהודי. You know what an amana is? Their charter. Their charter calls for the destruction of every Jew.
ומעשיהם בשמחת תורה תשפ"ד and their actions on October 7th, רציחת תינוקות וילדים באכזריות והשמדת כל יהודי שנקרה בדרכם לימדו שהם שונאי ישראל. Yeah. Yeah. This happened way—I would actually—I would even have a kashya on what he's saying over here because I don't think we needed October 7th to prove what he just said over here.
Yeah. But then it was just berov am, you know?
על כן יש מצווה להילחם בהם מלחמת חורמה ואסור לנהל איתם שום משא ומתן של שלום.
הם הרשעה בהתגלמותה ואין השם שלם ואין הכיסא שלם עד שיימחה שמם ורשעתם מן העולם. Any Israeli so-called leader, aka politician, today that is not speaking about the complete destruction annihilation of the entity that is down there, in the way that I am not just feeling it but the way that I'm learning it.
Okay, of course you could always give me another opinion, that's why I never get into Halachic debates with anybody because everyone could always give a tzad, a teshuva, but the way that I'm learning, that I'm understanding this, leaves no room for—to me leaves no room for safek. It just stinks. It's so hard. No one's happy to do this stuff.
No one's joyous. Even the chayalim hakedoshim, they're proud to serve their country. Our soldiers are so holy, not one of them is tzamei dam. They're just tzamei for chayus, for Elokus, for godliness, for light, for emes.
Remember I always tell you, Reb Shlomo was—was interviewed once on—I forget which European station on—one of—during one of the wars, and they asked him while he was going to Israel during one of the wars, I think 73—I think it was 73—and they asked him what's the difference between an Israeli soldier and an Arab soldier. So he said that when— An Arab soldier pulls the trigger he's davening that his bullet hits the target. When a yid has to pull a trigger he's davening that Mashiach comes and there's peace in the world by the time the bullet hits the target. So if you believe that that's who we really are then there shouldn't be such a fear to mekayem the mitzvah of milchemet Amalek because I think what what gets us so nervous is what the world has told us that you're going to become like them.
This is a ongoing debate we've had with some of the chevre here. So there listen there's a lot more to say over here זה לא פשוט לא דברים פשוטים בכלל but I do believe that we have to keep on learning the sugya inside.
Darshening Rav Soloveitchik on Amalek’s Continued Existence
There's no conclusions over here there's I mean he has one step over here he's darshening out the Rav. He's darshening out Rav Soloveitchik.
I'm sure there are people that can darshen out Rav Soloveitchik in other ways but according to this shita the way that he's the way that he's built this up for us based on the Ramban and the Rambam shows us that Amalek is still an entity. The shaila within machlokes would be so is it possible to identify them not as a nation but as a people that the mitzvah and the chiyuv is chal on that person. I think le-kulei alma according to all de'os no one can say that you could that Sancheriv didn't belbel the umos and the truth is you could say about one entity this is the same group of people that's the line of the Amalek that attacked us after we left Mitzrayim. I don't think anyone even says that.
But the inyan we're trying to learn over here is based on the wording can we say that the mitzvah that there's no chalos of this mitzvah anymore because that same entity that same exact people are not around. And that the way we learned it is we can't say that.
Lo Tishkach: Torah’s Eternity and the Power of Stories
Lo tishkach the words of the Torah are eternal so when Mashiach comes תורה חדשה מאיתי תצא. Until then you can't you can't forget and how do you not forget? By telling the stories.
Now who do you think the stories are meant for? Us. Remember the first Rashi. What's the first Rashi in the Torah? Why does the Torah start from here and not from the first mitzvah? So what does Rashi say?
למה התורה התחילה מכאן ולא מהמצווה הראשונה? Right so then what does Rashi say?
כח מעשיו הגיד לעמו לתת להם נחלת גוים. Right so then what does Rashi say? You have to have what to answer? To answer who? The nations.
To yourself. Rav Nosson Breslever says yeah yeah it's first to yourself. It's not to tell the velt. The velt listens they're waiting for our answers and explanations as you could say ma pitom.
It's to tell yourself. The umos ha-olam there's going to be big avodah zarah of political correctness coming to you and telling you all these tainos on you. The shaila won't be what are you going to answer back to them? They're not interested in hearing a thing. The shaila will be what are you going to actually tell yourself? Is it going to be clear to you? Forget what the world wants.
This word hasbarah that we've that we've spoken about a lot which batel it's ayver batel already. This word doesn't do anything. It's what are you going to tell yourself? So we don't make up things. We tell stories about what happened and we learn in the Torah and we see how do our rishonim build this thing for for us.
Conclusion: Learning from Rishonim and Continuing the Discussion
Be-ezrat HaShem we'll continue this very boring topic in next time.
רבי חנניה בן עקשיא אומר רצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות את ישראל לפיכך הרבה להם תורה ומצוות שנאמר ה' חפץ למען צדקו יגדיל תורה ויאדיר.