Please refrain Shabbos Parshas Teruma, Rosh Chodesh Adar
from reading I, 5771
these pages
during davening
and Torah Israel and Amalek: The Ultimate Superbowl
Moreinu V’Rabeinu HaRav Michel Twerski, shlit”a
Recorded on January 31, 2007 (5767)
At the end of Parshas Beshalach, Klal Yisroel
asks for water. Moshe Rabeinu strikes the rock,
water comes running out and the Torah names the
place “Masa Umeriva”, which implies that this was a
place of quarreling and contention. That was where
Klal Yisreol tested G-d and asked “Is G-d in our midst
or not”?
Immediately thereafter, Amalek attacks Klal
Yisroel. Moshe tells Yehoshua to go do battle with
them. The sequence and juxtaposition of the events
is very interesting.
Excusing the Inexcusable
One commonly used defense that people
have for inexcusable behavior is “The Devil made me
do it”. The implication is that man is, in one way or
another, invested with some form of inherent evil
and that he is helpless against that drive.
There are people who take comfort in the
fact that, "G-d made me this way. I am an angry,
rageful person. I was born with a passionate or
violent disposition. I was born very phlegmatic; I
can't move. I can't get out of bed in the morning."
We blame these things on G-d and think that justifies
our actions as right or defensible.
People are willing to do that and
acknowledge at the same time that it's not right.
They're willing to hurt others saying, "I know that
hurting people is not right, but I can't help it." In the
same vein, people will hurt themselves and claim,
"Oh, but I can't help it. I was born with an addictive
personality."
This was among the characteristics of this
vast divide between the two counter-poles of Klal
Yisroel and Amalek. As will be explained, one of the
ways that it's reflected in Klal Yisroel is in a certain
precept which has been institutionalized in our
interaction with Torah.
The Sanhedrin System
Let's take a look at it in one of its finest
expressions. We have the Great Sanhedrin that
occupies a special hall on the Temple Mount called
the Lishkas Hagazis, where the seventy one justices
meet. Every community big enough had a Sanhedrin
of twenty three justices. In order to qualify to be a
member of a Sanhedrin you not only had to be a
person who knew virtually all of Torah but you
needed to be a person who was humble, had good
middos, never committed any kind of immoral act, a
person whose ledger was free of any kind of
suspicion, a very formidable list of qualifications.
Every question in the community that was
not totally obvious went to the Sanhedrin. The
Sanhedrin would try to clarify the issue, and if they
couldn't, the person who asked the question was
escorted by a member of the Sanhedrin to the
Sanhedrin that was in Yerushalayim. On Har
Hamoriah there were three Sanhedrins. Two of them
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‫בס"ד‬
had twenty three justices, and then the supreme
Sanhedrin had seventy one justices. They would take
it to the lower court first. If it couldn’t be resolved in
the lower court, they would appoint a delegate to
present the issue to the higher Sanhedrin.
Ultimately, if the second Sanhedrin couldn’t come to
a conclusion, they would end up going to the
supreme Sanhedrin of seventy-one judges.
Now, you had the original person who posed
the problem, a representative of the local court, the
delegate of the first higher court, of the second
higher court, and finally this entire entourage, this
entire delegation came to the Sanhedrin Gedolah to
present the problem along with all the discussions
and arguments that had gone on until that point. The
Sanhedrin Gedolah could not let this issue emerge
from the Lishkas Hagazis without resolution. They
would discuss it until they had nothing left to
discuss, and then they would vote on it.
Since you could only become a member of
the Sanhedrin Gedolah if you went through the
whole system, the people who occupied the
Sanhedrin Gedolah were people of quintessential
righteousness, humility and greatness of spirit.
These people who were not only the nation’s
greatest scholars but the greatest tzadikim as well.
Man As Coauthor
Assuming they went through all of the
requisite steps, what came out of that Sanhedrein
became Torah.
What is the will of Hashem? Using all of the
Torah, arguing from all the precedents that were part
of what they received from Moshe Rabeinu in the
Oral Torah, they would formulate and then vote on
their positions.
The conclusion is that the Ribono shel Olam
is saying, “If you follow that line, I will fix My will
according to that conclusion.” The Ribono shel Olam
is saying that if you follow the process, everything
He has told you to do, He will make that His will.
Meaning, when a person either rejects an invitation
to violate that precept or dedicates themselves to
live by that precept, they are conforming to the
Divine wisdom in the same way one does so in
honoring one’s parents or keeping the Shabbos, or
not murdering or not committing adultery. It has the
same status. It’s not one iota less than those laws
that G-d Himself spoke at Sinai.
One of the most impressive implications of
this is that man can be and is, under the appropriate
circumstances, something holy. If man was
inherently compromised or somehow innately
corrupt, if there was something about man that was
affected definitively by evil, then the Divine will
could not be fixed by man. G-d would not set His
watch, so to speak, by something that had gone
through the prism of man, if that lens is flawed.
Torah Is No Longer In Heaven
This is best exemplified by the machlokes in
the Gemora regarding a certain kind of an oven.
Rebbe Eliezer said it was tahor and the Chachomim
said it was tomei. There were all kinds of miracles
that Rebbe Elizer brought to demonstrate that
Heaven concurred with his position. It ended up that
Rebbe Eliezer finally called on Heaven to proclaim
that Rebbe Eliezer was correct and everyone heard
this Heavenly echo saying that the halacha is like
Rebbe Eliezer. Rebbe Yehoshua then got up and
quoted the pasuk, “torah lo bashomayim hi”, “Torah
is no longer in heaven”.
G-d has said that Torah belongs to us, we
decide, and go after the majority, and that is G-d’s
will. The Gemora concludes that later that day one of
the Chachomim had a revelation of Eliyahu Hanavi
who said that while they were arguing out this
halacha, G-d was (anthropomorphically speaking)
smiling and saying “nitzchuni bonai”, My children
have won over Me.
The point is that it’s a commentary on what
man can become, in the most fundamental and far-
reaching way.
Amalek’s Issue
That definition of man, being able to choose
to become something of the utmost Godliness so
that man could become a coauthor of Torah, is
directly challenged by Amalek.
Amalek’s position is: “the devil made me do
it”. Man is corrupt, defiled, contaminated; man is
inherently flawed. Essentially, man is predetermined.
His weaknesses are responsible for what he does and
all that he does or doesn’t do is justified and
defensible by his circumstance and his
predisposition. You cannot hold him accountable.
So it is very easy to see that the presence of
Klal Yisroel and the position that it sets forth is a
thunderous renunciation, a terrible condemnation of
Amalek. Amalek will never, ever be comfortable in a
world that Klal Yisroel is walking around in. From
time immemorial, the Amalekites, the Hamans and
the Hitlers find that the presence of Klal Yisroel
requires them to declare war, because it is too
painful a presence; it’s a refutation of their very
existence. They can’t live with that. Hitler in Mein
Kampf makes that very statement: as long as there
is one Jew around, even if that Jew is a three year old
child and doesn’t know where he comes from and
knows nothing about Judaism, the world is not safe
from the conscience of that Jew.
So in a certain sense, the Oral Tradition and
the license that it grants the Sages to become
coauthors, to write, is because Torah Shebaal Peh is
really what opens the Torah to expansion, deduction,
induction, interpretation, etc.
Self-Doubt Attracts Amalek
When Klal Yisroel asked, “Hayesh Hashem
bikirbenu im ayin”, “Is G-d in our midst or not?”, they
were really speculating whether or not G-d is within
each and every one of us and that we can become a
coauthor to Torah. If Hashem is in our midst, then I
have a responsibility not to hide behind
rationalizations and to make important decisions
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which will define my life. Even if it’s not easy, even if
I am born with a violent disposition or a phlegmatic
or passionate one, I still have the possibility of
drawing on this inner G-dliness and making
something special of myself. Is G-d within me or not?
It is at this juncture that Amalek arrives and
declares war. They can’t bear the possibility that
there might be an affirmative answer to that. This is
also one of the first appearances of a reference to
the Oral Torah. Hashem says to Moshe, “Record this
as a remembrance in a sefer, v’sim b’oznei
Yehoshua, and put this in the ears of Yehoshua.” In
other words, our war with Amalek has two
components. One is that we do have a written Torah
but that that written Torah is in turn dependent on
the “ears of Yehoshua”, it’s dependent on the fact
that Klal Yisroel has an oral tradition. And that’s
where, for the rest of time, this war is fought out
because Amalek refuses to accept that. It runs
against the very ground of their soul, because they
want to live in a manner where they do whatever
they are moved to. (And interestingly, it is on Purim,
a very important chapter in our war with Amalek,
that we are told that Klal Yisroel accepted the Oral
Torah. Until that victory against Amalek, we weren’t
completely at peace with the Oral Torah.)
Make Hashem Part of the Equation
Judaism wouldn’t contradict the fact that
people are born with dispositions and inclinations,
but we would never conceive that that becomes a
justification or a defense. The Ribbono shel Olam
knows what everybody is; He knows what made
them. That's His business. Our business is to make
choices.
Making a righteous choice in a world which is
predominantly saturated with evil borders on the
impossible. This world, olam haasiya, is mostly evil;
the majority of the world is inundated with
wickedness. For man to be able to make or carry out
good choices can only be done with Divine
assistance. No person should be arrogant and
believe that they have the ability to act
independently of G-d and make the right choices. We
can choose well but carrying our commitments
through is impossible without G-d’s intervention. Any
time a person is confronted by a temptation to do
wrong, they shouldn’t say “I want to do the right
thing”, rather they should say “I am committed and I
am going to choose the right thing.” When they
make that definitive statement they need to then say
to the Master of the Universe, “I am here; one
hundred percent of me is here with this decision. You
must help me make good on my choice.” You need
to turn to Hashem for that.
Needlepoint
The Gemara says that man would not be
able to overcome the yetzer hara without G-d’s help.
So Chazal tell us that that statement cannot be
provisional or conditional, it has to be definitive.
Chazal say as follows: “Pischu li pesach kechudo shel
machat.” Just give me an opening. They say kechudo
shel machat, like the point of a needle. That’s a very
tiny space. Open up a little hole like the point of a
needle, and I’ll open it up the rest of the way. But we
need to do that first thing so that it is as sharp and
as definitive as the point of a needle. G-d can work
with the tiniest commitment on our part.
In Shemos 8:12 it says, “Strike the ground
and it will become kinim, and he did so, and it
became lice all over man and beast and the dust of
the earth all over became kinim. And they did so, the
sorcerers, with all their sorcery, v’lo yacholu, and
they couldn’t. Vayomru hachartumim el Paraoh, the
chartumim turned to Paraoh and they said etzba
Elokim hi, this is the finger of G-d. And Paraoh didn’t
care.”
They acknowledged that this was not
sorcery. Rashi quotes Chazal that the reason that
they knew is because sorcery cannot work with
anything that’s less than the size of a se’orah, a
barley kernel. Sorcery has to work with something
more substantial, so it couldn’t be sorcery because
lice are smaller than a kernel of barley.
One of the things that the plague of kinim
teaches us is of man’s ability to define himself in a
holy way. What’s required of us is not gigantic; it’s
not that G-d wants us at every moment in our life to
be the biggest Torah giant. The biggest Torah giant
is made up of tiny little pinpoints. He got to be a
Torah giant by tiny little pinpoints. And G-d, unlike a
cult or the forces of darkness, asks us to make that
one hairline, that one tiny little decision of light, and
He expands it to the point where it builds people who
are giants.
We can make all the letters of the alphabet
with one little drop of ink. Everything starts from a
yud, every letter starts from a yud. So I think it
needs to give us the confidence in making the
choices that run against our disposition, because we
are born a certain way, some of us are cold, some of
us are hot, some of us are slow, some of us are fast.
Making those decisions, we don’t need to see
ourselves as having to throw ourselves off a cliff. We
need to be firm in our commitment that we are going
to act correctly, and the Almighty makes those
choices happen.

This D’var Torah was transcribed from a recording of an informal discussion and edited for clarity of the
written word only, leaving as much of the content, to the best of our ability, exactly as the Rabbi/Rebbe,
shlit”a, said it. Obviously, any mistakes, be they from a linguistic standpoint or in the content itself, are only
the product of the editors’ own shortcomings and oversight.