Remembering the Wine and the Vinegar
Longevity = Positive Attitude
The Midrash records some thing very strange. When the Jewish people first heard the commandment of (Deut. 25:17) “Zachor!” – Remember what Amalek did to you so that you will know to eradicate this evil personified, they were perplexed. They turned to Moshe and questioned: “Moshe Rabeinu, how can you command us to remember Amalek, when you’ve already commanded us to remember the Sabbath?! How can we fulfill both ‘Zachor’s?”
Before we look at Moshe’s answer, let’s ponder this strange question. Why were Bnei Israel bothered by the fact that they were commanded to “remember” both Amalek and Shabbos? Why can’t a person remember two different things? I was very bothered by this question until I remembered a person whom I’ve grown to admire greatly. Her name was Alice Herz-Sommer, and she died at the age of 110 in 2014. She and her son were survivors of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, but her husband, parents, and sister were all murdered by the Nazis. She was a professional pianist and stayed alive by playing piano in a trio in the camp.
Hatred eats the soul
Until her passing, she was the oldest survivor of the Holocaust. When asked about the key to her longevity, she answered that it was her positive attitude, which allowed her to be happy every single day. She saw only the beauty in everything, even in painful situations. She never complained and had a perpetual smile on her face. She was an eternal optimist: “When you are optimistic, when you are not complaining, when you look at the good side of your life, everybody loves you.” And, she never looked back with hatred against the Nazis: “Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not the hated.”
Alice had a beautiful soul, which was fed by her music and her joy of life. We read about her and are somewhat envious, because we know that what she says is true. If only we would focus on the good parts of life and ignore the bad, we would be so much happier. I believe this is what Bnei Israel were questioning when they heard about the mitzvah to remember Amalek.
Their line of reasoning was: Moshe, you’ve already commanded us to fill our minds and souls with the thoughts of Shabbos, the most holy and spiritual day of the week. We thought this meant that we were supposed to focus on the good and the holy in life, and to look past the evil and the ugly. We appreciated this commandment, because it’s so much healthier to focus on the good and the beautiful.
How can you now tell us that we need to also focus on the bad in the world? How are we going to live to be 110 years old, and to always be happy, like Alice? Won’t our souls be consumed with hatred if we must remember Amalek?!
Moshe’s two answers
Now that we have somewhat a grasp on the Midrash’s question, let’s look at the answer. There are actually two versions in two different Midrashaim of Moshe’s answer. In one version, Moshe answered Bnei Israel: “There are two kinds of beverages: Spiced wine, which we drink to celebrate, and vinegar, which, while bitter, we drink to cure an upset stomach. Both are necessary, just as both commandments to ‘Remember’ are necessary.”
In the second version, Moshe offered a different parable: “A king makes a festive meal. When the table is laden with all of the delicious food and drink, he tells his guests, ‘Remember my beloved friend, John.’ Later, when the table is cleared off and they are all sitting around an empty table, he tells his guests, ‘Remember my despised enemy, Tom.’ Similarly, there’s a time to remember Shabbos, when the table is full, and a time to remember Amalek, when the table is empty.”
The Midrash’s response is truly profound. In essence, Moshe was telling the Jewish people that seeing the world’s beauty only is a luxury that you as the Jewish people cannot afford. Evil exists, and to ignore it will have dire consequences, just as not taking bitter vinegar or medicine when you are sick will have dire consequences.
There is good and there is evil
By telling us to remember both Shabbos and Amalek, Hashem is essentially teaching that while there is much beauty in the world, evil will always abide, and the role of the Jewish people is to be part of the solution to eradicate that evil. There will be times in life when the “table will be empty” and mankind will be thrust into darkness and hatred. Usually, the Jew will be the “canary in the mine,” the first object of that hatred. If we don’t know how to deal with Amalek (as Mordechai and Esther did in the Purim story), we risk being annihilated by our haters.
True, being forced to remember Amalek may actually curtail our quality of life, because by not living like Alice, our hearts may get filled with anxiety and dread from time to time. But this is our albatross as the Jewish people: We’ve been assigned to be the guardians of the light and the good by watching out for evil in all its incarnations. (I emphasize that this not a criticism of Alice Herz-Sommer; she encountered and endured Amalek face-to-face. She fulfilled many lifetimes-worth of her mitzvah of “Zachor” while in Theresienstadt, and was certainly entitled to spend the rest of her life focusing only on the good and the beautiful. For the rest of us who are not survivors, the mitzvah of “Zachor” requires our constant diligence, no matter how tempting it may be to emulate this great woman’s attitude on life.)
Zachor es HaShabbat & Zachor es Amalek
We should also note that the mitzvah to “remember the Sabbath” is one that applies every single day, as is noted by the poskim. But the mitzvah to “remember Amalek” can be fulfilled by hearing the passage in the Torah only once a year. This should indicate to us that while both mitzvos are to remember, the Torah wishes for us to place much more mental and emotional investment in thinking about the holy and the beautiful than the evil and the ugly.
Until the Messiah’s arrival, we should spend every day remembering the good and the holy. Remembering Shabbos daily reminds us that there is so much beauty in this universe, which far outweighs the evil and the ugly. Occasionally, we must also remember that Amalek still abides, both within us and outside of us. Our failure is sometimes in creating the right balance. Just as “spiced wine” should be far more plentiful than “vinegar” on our tables, we mistakenly ingest too much vinegar and not enough sweet wine. It would be a mistake to only look at the animus and anti-Semitism that still lingers in certain segments of the world. We have at least as much obligation to see the “spiced wine” of the philo-Semites who truly love Israel and the Jewish people.
May we succeed in eradicating Amalek in our lifetimes, bb”a.