[Avodah] Questions about mechiyas amalek

[Arie Folger via Avodah]

R' Martin Bluke asked:
> 1. When Shaul returns to Shmuel Hanavi after fighting Amalek he says
> hakimosi es dvar hashem that he destroyed Amalek and in fact, the Medrash
> states that Amalek only survived because Agag was allowed to live the
night
> and it was his descendents that perpetuated Amalek.
>
> However, the Navi says (Shmuel 1 30) that a few years later David fought
> Amalek in Tziklag and 400 Amalekim escaped. Who were these Amalekim if
> Shaul had wiped them out a few years earlier?
>
> 2. Why did no King after Shaul attempt to fulfill this Mitzva? Both David
> and Shlomo certainly had the power to do so and yet they never attempted
to
> wipe out Amalek, nor did any other king, why not?

This leads Rav Menachem Leibtag to offer what I consider the most cogent
and most ethically sensitive interpretation of the commandment to wipe out
Amalek.

First the data:
* The mitzva kicks in behaniach haShem Elo-hekha lekha mikol oyevekha
misaviv, i.e. when we have peace and no other pressing matters.
* The mitzva is, according to Rambam, on the melekh
* As we can see from the pessukim, and against some of the mefarshim, there
does not seem to exist any mitzva to go after every individual, and it
isn't fully genetic. David killed an Amaleki for killing Shaul or for
robbing his body and pretending to have killed him (and thus try to get
into David's good graces, as Amalek understood royal grace to happen). But
David didn't even hint that he was killed for being from that perpetual
enemy nation. Shaul was criticized for taking the sheep, but not for a
fairly large number of amalekites who later attacked Tziklag, David's
Pelishti stronghold.
* Ergo, we must think differently about what it is that obligates mechiyat
Amalek and also doesn't make the continued existence of other Amalekites a
problem.

So Rav Leibtag suggests that we had to destroy Amalek as an act of
international altruism, which was totally ruined by Shaul.

Basically, Amalek are a pirate people, who won't be reformed. They were
pirates attacking us davka when we were an easy pray, ve-ata 'ayef
veyagea', and continued their piracy consistently, for over 400 years. Like
the later Vikings, they live from spoils and take prisoners only to enslave
them; unlike the Vikings, Amalek did not end up settling down as Normans,
but remained pirates. David thus found out who attacked Tziklag because he
found a sick prisoner who had been abandoned to die in the desert.

So davka when we are under no outside threat, when we're doing well and can
defend ourselves against Amalek easily, are we to fight and destroy them,
because they threaten all voyagers, including Moabites, Amonites, Edomites,
Egyptians & co. By not taking any spoils, we'd show the world that we
didn't attack them to get even or get spoils, but rather to make the world
safer (think the international force that fights piracy off the Erithrean
coast). But by taking the animals, even for sacrifices, Shaul ruined that
important sign, and Israel is no longer fighting for peace, but for revenge
or for spoils, no better than Amalek itself.

Shaul destroyed Amalek's stronghold. That was enough, and had he not taken
the cattle and sheep, he'd have fulfilled G"d's command.

Ad kaan.


-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://rabbifolger.net/

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<http://rabbifolger.net/2016/02/15/koscheres-geld-podcast/>

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