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The never-ending fight against Amalek

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The end of parasha Beshalach focuses on the epic battle between our nascent nation and the marauding desert tribe of Amalek:

“Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, ‘Pick men for us, and go out and fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of G-d in my hand.’ Joshua did as Moses had told him, to fight against Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur ascended to the top of the hill. It came to pass that when Moses would raise his hand, Israel would prevail, and when he would lay down his hand, Amalek would prevail. … Joshua weakened Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. The L-rd said to Moses, ‘Inscribe this [as] a memorial in the book, and recite it into Joshua’s ears, that I will surely obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens.’ Then Moses built an altar, and he named it ‘the L-rd is my miracle.’…”

In sum, there was a battle between Amalek and the Jewish people fought on both the physical and spiritual planes. Joshua was the general who commanded our people’s troops, and Moses served as the viaduct through which G-d’s protective beneficence flowed. The final pasuk — “For there is a hand on the throne of the Eternal, [that there shall be] a war for the L-rd against Amalek from generation to generation” — is very difficult to understand, however, since the tribe of Amalek ceased to exist as an identifiable ethnicity thousands of years ago. If that is the case, how can there be “a war for the L-rd against Amalek from generation to generation?”

My rebbe and mentor, the Rav (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l) (1903-1993), answered this question in his famous 1956 essay, “Kol Dodi Dofek,” in which he presented a seminal idea learned from his father, Rav Moshe Soloveitchik (1879-1941) zt”l, regarding the future of the fledgling State of Israel:

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