Purim

Jews to Join Palestinians Against PLO

The world is divided into 72 nations: the Jews, the Amalekites, and "the Seventy Nations," a collective reference to all non-Amalekite gentiles. The holiday of Purim is a celebration of the victory of the Jewish people and the Seventy Nations over the nation of Amalek twenty-three centuries ago. This was the third of the four wars to be fought against Amalek, an evil nation which, unlike the rest of the gentile world, is permanently engaged in a battle to remove G-d, His Law and the messengers of that Law (the Jews) from the world.

In contrast, the Seventy Nations are neutral, capable of being influenced either by Jews to observe G-d's Universal Law or, in the absence of Jewish influence, by Amalekites to join their battle to prevent Jews from "conquering the world with Torah." Although the Seventy Nations seem to be caught "in between" in this scenario, they are, in truth, aligned solely with the Jewish people, for only be siding with G-d's Law are they assured of life in the world to come.¹

Thus, when Achesverosh, the Persian King and leader of the Seventy Nations at the time of the Purim story, switched sides just before the war with Amalek, from supporting the Amalekite army² headed by Haman to supporting the Jewish people³, not only was it a victory for the Jews, but for the Seventy Nations as well.

Moreover, the Purim war and the other two wars already fought against Amalek demonstrate how Amalek can be defeated in the fourth and final battle against Amalek which, according to the Lubavitcher Rebbe,⁴ will be fought in this generation, when the Jewish people will permanently remove the nation of Amalek from the world:

1. In the first war, Amalek attacked the Jewish people as they left Egypt, when the Jews were at their strongest, immediately after their victory at the Sea of Reeds over Pharaoh's army.⁵ The Amalekites knew then (as they do now) that they could not win on their own, without the help of the Seventy Nations, but, like the first person into a pool of hot water, hoped to pave the way for others to follow.

2. In the second war, the Amalekites attacked the Jewish people as they were preparing to enter the Land of Israel, at the end of their forty years of wandering in the desert. The Amalekites disguised themselves as Canaanites in the hope that the Jews would pray for victory over "the Canaanites," thus rendering their prayers ineffective. The Jews, however, realized that their enemies were in disguise and successfully prayed instead for victory over "this people."⁶

3. The third war took place after the Jews settled in Israel, when King Saul was commanded by G-d to destroy Amalek completely, but instead imprisoned their king, Agog , who sired a child while in prison. This war continued for five centuries until Agog's descendant, Haman, infiltrated the Persian Empire and used his position to turn the Seventy Nations against the Jews, inciting street riots against the Jews in Jerusalem⁷ and convincing the King of the empire to issue an edict calling for the extermination of every Jew.⁸

This war ended when the Jewish leaders, Mordechai and Esther, were able to pull the Seventy Nations out from the influence of Amalek. Without the support of the Seventy Nations, the Amalekites were powerless against the Jews who easily defeated them.

According to the Lubavitcher Rebbe,⁹ the first and the third wars mirror each other as do the second and the fourth:

1. The first and the third wars both involved overt attempts by Amalek to prevent the Jews from bringing the Torah into the world. In the first war, Amalek attacked the Jews on their way to receiving the Torah. In the third war too, the Jews "accepted" the Torah, by agreeing to remain Torah observant and identifiably Jewish even after a decree was issued calling for their extermination.

2. In the second war the Amalekites operated covertly, disguising themselves as Canaanites, in an attempt to stop the Jews from "putting the Torah into action," i.e., transforming the land of Canaan into a holy land. Not having succeeded in keeping the Torah out of the world, the Amalekites hoped to keep it confined to the Yeshivas of the desert. Instead, the Jews were commanded to conquer the Land of Canaan with Torah, ending all practices there which were against G-d Law. Thus, all gentiles were given the choice of either becoming Torah observant "Noachides," or fleeing.

The fourth war, also, will be against an Amalekite nation concealed and disguised among the Seventy Nations. And, again, it involves Amalek's attempt to stop the Jews from conquering the world with Torah. This time, however, it is the ultimate battle, since, "In the future to come, the Land of Israel will spread to cover all the nations,"¹⁰ i.e., all six billion gentiles will have to observe G-d's Seven Universal Laws since there will be no place to flee: The whole world will become holy like the Land of Israel in the times of the Temple.

How do Amalekites disguise themselves among the Seventy Nations today and how do these disguises prevent Jews from conquering the world with Torah? In the same way that Haman did--by infiltrating the governments and institutions of the Seventy Nations and using their power to instigate anti-Jewish violence. As with the second war against Amalek, if the Jews do not realize the source of the attack against them, they cannot properly propel it.

Thus, if Jews are lured into believing that their enemies are the German, Russian, Arab and African peoples, they will not only fail to root out the source of the attacks against them, but they will be discouraged from attempting to uplift those peoples with Torah, thinking that their aberrant, murderous behavior is innate and, therefore, that they are too anti-Semitic to be influenced by Torah.

One the other hand, when the disguise is removed, it is revealed that such regimes as the murderous Nazis, Communists, PLO and Black Panthers are not at all a natural outgrowth of any part of the culture of the peoples those groups purport to represent. It then becomes apparent that it is the agents of Amalek who are carrying out attacks against the Jews, as well as against the very Germans, Russians, Palestinians, blacks, etc. that they claim to represent.

With the source of the evil revealed, Jews can join with Palestinians against the PLO, with blacks against the Panthers, etc. Then, the Jews will, as Mordechai and Esther did, properly influence the Seventy Nations to support Torah, not the forces seeking to remove it from the world.

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¹Isaiah 45:22; Mishneh Torah, Hil. Mel. 8:11
²Esther 3:12-15
³Esther 8:9-14
⁴Likutei Sichot, Vol. 1, Parshat Vayikra-Zachor, Mechilta, and Mechilta deRashby, end of Beshalach. Tanchuma, end of Tetze. Cf. Sefer Mitzvot Gadol, Mitzvot lo ta'aseh:226
⁵Shemos 17:8
⁶Bamidbar 21:1. See Rashi there.
⁷Midrash to Ezra 4:3-24
⁸Esther 3:12-15
⁹Likutei Sichot, Vol. 1, Parshat Vayikra-Zachor
¹⁰Pessikta Rabbati 1:3; Yalkut Shimoni, Isaiah, sect. 503
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