The mitzvah in connection to Amalek

I listened to a shir online last night in which the speaker ended up misrepresenting the mitzvah of remembering Amalek that we uphold with the yearly reading of Parshas Zachor. She said that it's a mitvah to hate Amalek, though that's not my understanding of the point of remembering.

It's more along the lines of "Don't get mad, get even," or  "You don't need to hate, but do eradicate." 

Feeding hatred is not productive. In fact, it can be dangerous. This is what struck me in a tweet that showed up on in my timeline:

@MarcACaputo 
The greatest danger of hating evil people is that it’s so easy to become evil in the process of hating.

This is not to say that one should forgive and forget all evil. On the contrary, the point of the mitzvah with respect to Amalek is not to forget and to pursue the eradication of evil. That is consistent with other mitzvos we have in the Torah that warn us "ubiarta hara mekirbecha" [eradicate the evil from your midst.]  There's no point in feeling hatred toward the one who seeks to trap others in to sin; you have to channel the revulsion against evil toward removing it. 

related posts:

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2018/02/on-second-thought-doubling-of-purim.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2020/02/hoisted-by-their-own-petard.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-power-of-half-shekel.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/03/purim-countering-confusion-of.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2015/03/good-will-and-good-works-on-purim.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2016/04/word-association.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/thoughts-on-purim-and-unexpected.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/03/thoughts-on-mishloach-manos.html

 http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2015/03/purim-when-we-were-all-heroes.html

http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2010/02/poetic-justice-as-sign-of-divine.html

Like and follow on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KallahMagazine/