Making Sense of the Sedra: Zachor

As a teenager, two minutes of national silence at 8pm meant that it was National Holocaust Memorial Day in the Netherlands, from where I hail. A day that always had me wondering: what does ‘remembering’ mean? What do I do with it?

The word zachor (remember) is mentioned twice in this week’s Torah reading, when speaking about the clothes of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest). The instructions for the two gemstones on the shoulder straps and the breastplate state that these gemstones are there “for remembrance before God at all times”. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (Germany, 19th century) explains in his book Haktav Vehakabala that this ‘remembrance’ was dual: to remind God, so to speak, of the goodness of the Jewish people and to therefore treat them favourably; secondly, it served as a reminder for the Kohen Gadol. The stones symbolised the Jewish people and served to remind the Kohen Gadol who he was representing. A good motivation to invest all he could in the service. The stones therefore served as a hopeful catalyst – for God to treat us with kindness, and for the Kohen Gadol to represent us in the best way possible. They were there to cause something to happen.

In Judaism, commemorating is not necessarily a minute of silence (although that isn’t excluded), but rather a call to action. It isn’t static, it is there to trigger movement.

As we read parashat Zachor this Shabbat, my thoughts drift again to this word, ‘zachor’. Remember. We are reading about the war with Amalek after the Exodus. The passage we read reminds us of what Amalek did to us and our responsibility to make sure this never happens again. And although in the times of the Temple, the call to action was to eradicate the evil of Amalek, I believe there is a practical voice in this even for us now. The perspective that Amalek advocated was one of godlessness, a lack of connection between God and humans. Coincidence, agnosticism, happenstance. Steering away from that, inviting God into our lives and minds, our actions and our beliefs, is a practical answer to the call of the zachor, to act as the antithesis of Amalek. Zachor is a catalyst for movement in the other direction.

It is no coincidence that we read this mere days before Purim, the story in which you are able to choose whether you reject Amalek, to instead see God’s hand and act accordingly. Zachor calls us to think and change. It does not simply mean ‘remember’, but instead ‘remember, and…’, for the real commemoration starts when the two minutes of silence end and you start to change.