Making sense of the Sedra: Tetzaveh Zachor
'They shall take for you pure olive oil, crushed for lighting, to make the continuous flame rise' (Parasha); 'Your children are like olive shoots around your table' (Psalms 128)
Oil appears at the opening of this week’s parasha — not as a commodity of power, but as a source of light.
In our world, oil has often symbolised wealth, leverage and geopolitical influence. Nations have risen and fallen around it. Yet the Torah’s oil is different. It is not “black gold” extracted for mundane profit; it is olive oil — pressed, refined, and destined to illuminate the Menorah, and the world, with lessons of moral clarity. Its purpose is not economic power, but moral illumination.
Today, as we read these verses, our thoughts turn to the people of Iran – heirs to ancient Persia, the setting of the Purim story itself. The modern Iranian economy has suffered gravely. Years of political isolation, sanctions and internal repression on religious grounds have brought soaring inflation, shrinking opportunity, fear and profound hardship. It is not leaders who bear the brunt of economic collapse, but ordinary families — parents, children, workers — whose lives are constricted by instability and fear.
Purim reminds us that behind imperial decrees and ideological hatred stand real human beings. The Jews of Shushan and the Empire of Ahasuerus were vulnerable not because of economics, but because of an ideology of annihilation. Haman, descendant of Amalek, personified that hatred. The Iranian revolutionary regime has promoted that for over five decades.
This week we read Zachor — the command to remember Amalek. Amalek is not merely an ancient tribe; it is the recurring force in history that seeks the erasure of Israel. Pharaoh embodied it. Haman embodied it. In later generations, Hitler embodied it. In our own time, the Iranian regime, terrorist movements they sponsor and those who openly call for Israel’s destruction embody it again.
Amalek is not defined by geography. Amalek is defined by hatred — by the targeting of the weak, by the denial of Jewish legitimacy, by the dream of erasing the Jewish people from history. Wherever such hatred arises, there Amalek stands. And yet Purim teaches something more profound: Amalek does not have the final word.
As we approach Purim this year, we pray that economic suffering in Iran should cease; that its people should no longer bear the weight of policies and hostilities that impoverish them. We pray that destructive ideologies should fall away, that the resources of nations be used to build rather than to threaten, and that the region move from instability to dignity.
At the same time, Zachor reminds us that vigilance is not optional. Judaism survives through Jews who are able to stand, defend themselves, and carry forward their mission. One third of our people were exterminated in the 1940s. On and after 7 October 2023, Hamas sought to rekindle the illusion that Israel can be erased. The lesson of Purim is that such dreams must be confronted firmly and without illusion.
The Menorah’s flame is described as “tamid” — continuous. Jewish existence must also be continuous: spiritually vibrant, physically secure, morally clear.
May this Purim see the downfall of hatred wherever it manifests.
May those who personify Amalek be frustrated in their designs.
May suffering peoples find relief.
And may the light of the olive — pressed but luminous — continue to rise.
Shabbat Shalom. Purim Sameach.
This week’s piece is dedicated to our 12th wedding anniversary and our daughter’s birthday.
Rabbi Ariel Abel is a Rabbi, army chaplain and practising solicitor
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