Shabbat Zakhor is this coming Shabbat, when we read an extra Torah portion about the nation of Amalek. The tradition understands Amalek as evil incarnate. Haman is associated with Amalek and therefore this portion is read before the holiday of Purim. For the Hasidic master, the Sefat Emet, the holidays are not just recollecting past events in the life of the Jewish people. For him these events can be experienced in the present moment. He believes that the day of the festival is especially propitious for that experience, whether it is freedom on Passover, revelation on Shavuot and the diminishing of the power of evil/Amalek on Purim. The Sefat Emet understands the blessing we recite before the reading of the megillah to literally mean ba-yamim ha-heim ba-zman ha-zeh.  What happened then can happen now! 

      He suggests that the Jews in the time of the Purim story were hesitant to create a new holiday and to “add” to the Torah by writing the scroll of Esther. Then they remembered this verse about Amalek: God said to Moses, “Write this in a document as a reminder” (Ex. 17:14). They understood that the struggle against Amalek is the responsibility of every generation of Jews. The generation of Mordecai and Esther took that potential and made it actual. Our task is to remember to actualize the theme and purpose of each of the holidays. For the Sefat Emet this is one of the purposes of the Oral Torah. 

      Therefore, the practices of Purim were established to help us make the potential of Purim realized. We are to give gifts to the poor and presents of food to our neighbors. We are to rejoice with a feast (seudah) that takes place in the afternoon. It cannot take place at night in darkness, which is the realm of Amalek. Purim is especially a time for community. In the desert, Amalek attacks the stragglers in the line of the Israelite march. Amalek is evil because it goes after the vulnerable. Joshua leads the Israelites in a counterattack. On a hill overlooking the fighting, Moses holds his staff aloft. As long as we keep our principles aloft, we can defeat Amalek. When we get tired or discouraged, Amalek becomes stronger. As Moses’ hands droop, Amalek rallies. But then, two people help hold up Moses’ hand. When we lift up our hands, we lift up our hearts and the hearts of others. Only then can the voices of negativity and division be defeated.

      Each year Purim offers us this teaching. It is not about what happened long ago in Shushan. In cyclical rather than linear time, what happened then is also happening in the present. In cyclical time –the moment is always NOW.