What were we supposed to remember?

This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetze, which means, when you go out, contains 72 laws, more than in any other Torah portion; There are laws about negligence, divorce, inheritance, returning lost objects, and fair business dealings, among many others. Then, at the end of the portion is a puzzling commandment, which reiterates a statement from Exodus: (Deut. 25:17-19) Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt; How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Eternal your God has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which God gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget. If God wanted the Amalekites to be forgotten, why mention their name? God certainly can cause a nation to die out, without asking us to take part in their demise. But something is being asked of us. It seems like a paradox: what is it that God wants us to remember and what is it that we are commanded to forget? A detail is added here in Deuteronomy that was not in the account in Exodus: that Amalek struck the rear where our weakest members walked, when we were faint from thirst and exhausted from the journey. Amalek therefore attacked out of sheer hatred, not because we were a threat. The Chassidic Rebbe Kedushas Levi wrote that we are being asked to eradicate is the evil aspect, the Amalek that is within us. Perhaps it is our habit of being critical and judgmental of others: attacking others for their weaknesses, rather than acknowledging our common humanity and recognizing that we carry the same faults within us. When we criticize others, we act as if God were not present and listening; as if we are not a part of the Oneness of creation, as if we were not, in reality, attacking ourselves. Two other Chassidic masters, the Yid HaKodesh and also Rabbi Hannoch, speak about arrogance: that Amalek is the arrogance within us and that forgetfulness comes from arrogance. In effect, we use others to make ourselves feel better: to allow us to forget about our own faults and to escape thinking about them. This forgetting leads to regarding another as an It, in the language of Martin Buber, and not as a Thou: a holy encounter of one soul to another. In remembering Amalek, we must remember that how we treat others is a sign of how comfortable we are with ourselves. Can we accept all that is within us, or are there parts of ourselves that we still reject? Have we integrated enough parts of ourselves that we can be truly loving and giving, helping others when we encounter them rather than attacking what is weakest in both of us? What would have happened if the Amalekites had greeted us in love: with water and food? Then competition would have dissolved into cooperation, fear into friendship, and destruction into blessing. When Amalek becomes a mirror, we can see how similar we are to every other human being and acknowledge our common human needs for sustenance, connection to each other, and union with the Divine. As we approach the Holiest season of the year, may we blot out our need to judge and hate, may we forget any slights or insults that come our way and see only the good in others, forgiving them for their and our common weakness; and may we always remember how much blessing flows to us from choosing love.