Let us be clear: Hamas is a modern Amalek, and must be completely and entirely destroyed. Like rabid animals, they have surrendered their souls through their horrific actions and need to be put down. Netanyahu phrased it appropriately today when he said, “every Hamas member is a dead man”.
And yet, it is more important than ever that we remember other teachings so that we do not lose our own humanity in the process of destroying evil.
There is a midrash that when the Egyptian soldiers of Pharaoh were drowning in the Sea of Reeds that the angels rejoiced. God stopped them, chastising them that the work of His hands was being destroyed and there was no joy in this. We cannot allow ourselves to be happy that we are ever forced to kill others, even those who are truly evil.
Years ago during the second intifada, I walked into a cigar lounge to the sound of a group of men cheering while watching the tv as if at a football game. They were yelling that I had to watch the replay on CNN of Palestinian terrorists being blown up as they tried to attack Israel through a terror tunnel. I stopped them (using very un-Rabbinic language) and told them that they were idiots as there was nothing to rejoice about. We had just made 40 parents lose a son; and orphaned 40 or more children. We had to destroy them, but this was nothing to cheer about.
We must remember this aspect of the war we now are experiencing. Hamas has demonstrated that they are Amalek, and must be entirely blotted out of existence. But for the sake of our own souls, me must not allow ourselves to do this in vengeance, hate, or anger. We must kill every one of them, and it is profoundly sad that we have to do this. Although evil now, each of these men were born with pure souls, which were quickly degraded as they grew older until they became the animals that we see killing babies, kidnapping hostages, and personifying evil.
If you owned a dog that got rabies, you would do everything you could to heal the animal. But the moment the animal attacked a child, you would put it down. And you would probably cry at the loss of what the animal once was. In the same way, while we put down these animals of Hamas, we need to mourn that we they have forced us to do this. We must mourn not for their benefit, but for the benefit of our own souls.
As the days go on and Israel, with the help of God, utterly destroys Hamas and salts the earth with their ashes, let us remember to take no joy in what we need to do… for our own benefit.
For if we rejoice in the killing that we are obligated to do, we become no better than the animals that we need to eradicate. Through rejoicing at their demise, we lose the real war: the war for our very souls.
Golda Meir elegantly phrased this truth when she spoke about what could happen in the future during a time of peace. “We will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for making us kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
May God bless us to speedily and safely annihilate Hamas and all modern Amaleks entirely. And may we be blessed to retain our humanity and never rejoice in this obligation to destroy human lives…even those like Hamas who have chosen to abandon their own humanity.
