A photo went viral this week on social media that was both hit close to home, and if I’m being honest had a poetic and dark humor to it. It showed President Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, while Tucker Carlson sat across from him, mid-gesture, hands in motion, and the caption, dubbed Haman’s infamous words right over Carlson as if he were saying: “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom.” If that verse sends a chill down your spine, it should.Those are the words of history’s most notorious antisemite, spoken to King Ahasuerus of Persia as the opening move in his plan to annihilate every Jewish man, woman, and child in the empire. The Book of Esther records his full pitch:
When a man with an audience of millions sits in the Oval Office and peddles the same tired conspiracies about Jews that Haman whispered to a Persian king three thousand years ago, that is not a coincidence. That is Amalek in a suit and tie. The fact that this ancient quote can be slapped onto a modern photo and feel eerily relevant tells you everything you need to know about the world we are living in right now, and about the biblical holiday we are about to celebrate.
This coming Shabbat is known as Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. It falls on the Shabbat immediately before Purim, and on it we read a special passage from the Torah commanding us to remember the attack of the Amalekites, the ancient nation that ambushed the Israelites shortly after the Exodus from Egypt. The Torah is blunt:
Here is the question worth sitting with: Why Amalek? The Israelites faced plenty of hostile nations on their journey through the wilderness. The Amorites attacked. The Midianites schemed. Yet the Torah singles out Amalek with a uniquely severe commandment, not just to remember, but to erase their memory from under heaven. What made Amalek different?
The answer lies in motive. The Amorites fought over land. The Midianites had a strategic agenda. But Amalek? They were a wandering desert tribe with no fixed borders and no homeland to defend. They had no border dispute with Israel. No territorial claim. No political grievance. They attacked a massive group of formerly enslaved people, exhausted, hungry, vulnerable, simply because they could. And they didn’t even attack head-on. They came from behind, targeting the weakest stragglers, the elderly, the sick, the children who couldn’t keep up. This was not war. This was slaughter for sport. Cruelty as ideology.
That is what makes Amalek the Torah’s archetype of evil, and it is why the rabbis of the Talmud identified Haman as a direct descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites (see I Samuel 15:8 and Esther 3:1). Haman’s hatred of the Jews had no rational basis. Mordechai refused to bow to him, and Haman’s response was not to punish one man but to exterminate an entire people. The escalation is breathtaking in its madness, and heartbreakingly familiar.
Because this is the pattern. It has repeated across millennia. Amalek attacks the vulnerable from behind. Haman targets an entire nation for the behavior of one man. Hamas murders families in their beds and takes grandmothers hostage. The faces change. The flags change. The evil does not. And on October 7, 2023, the world watched that ancient Amalekite cruelty play out in high definition, the deliberate targeting of civilians, of the defenseless, of children, with gleeful sadism that defies comprehension.
And this is exactly why the Torah commands zachor, remember. Not because God wants us to nurse a grudge. But because the Jewish people are, by nature and by calling, a people of peace. Our most central prayer, the Amidah, concludes with a plea for shalom, peace. The priestly blessing in the Book of Numbers ends with shalom. When we greet each other on the Sabbath, we say Shabbat Shalom. Our holiest city, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, draws its very name from the Hebrew root shin-lamed-mem, the root of the word shalom. One of God’s own names is Shalom (Judges 6:24). We are a people so hardwired for peace that when we encounter raw, purposeless evil, our instinct is to explain it away. Surely it will pass. Surely if we extend a hand, offer aid, show goodwill, the hatred will dissolve.
Shabbat Zachor exists to shake us out of that dangerous naïveté. It is the Torah’s way of grabbing us by the shoulders and saying: This evil is real. It has always been real. And wishing it away will not make it go away.
Haman tried to destroy us, and we are still here. He is gone. The Persian Empire is gone. But on Purim, Jewish children around the world will dress up in costumes, eat hamantaschen, triangular pastries named for the villain himself, and stamp their feet to drown out his name. There is something deeply defiant about that. We do not just survive. We celebrate.
But celebration without vigilance is reckless. The commandment to remember Amalek is not a relic of ancient history. It is a standing order. This year, as we face a world that has shown us, again, how quickly the mask of civilization can slip, that commandment hits harder than ever.
So this Shabbat, when the Torah scroll is unrolled and the words of Zachor ring out in synagogues around the world, listen closely. Remember what Amalek did. Remember what Haman tried. Remember October 7. And then walk into Purim with the fierce, joyful defiance of a people who have stared down every Haman in history, and are still here to tell the story.
