There are times in life when we are not sure which path to take. Do we take the beaten path, the well-worn, well-tested path? Or do we go on our own, trying something new, something bold?
As I’m sure you are aware, there is a “kite war” being waged against Israel now from Gaza. This is a very low-tech war, yet causing devastating results. Over 6,000 acres of land and its trees and wildlife have been destroyed. The method of Hamas is new; they are not using the same old methods of launching missiles and rockets. What is the motivating force that makes them come up with new ideas?
In this week’s Torah portion, we learn about Amalek, the sworn enemy of the Jews, who comes to attack the Jews yet again. The verse says that he heard that the Jews were traveling Derech Haetarim, the “way of the spies.” And so the Amalekites attacked.
This begs the question, Why is the fact that the Jews were traveling the “way of the spies” a reason to go to war? Their direction cannot just be a trivial fact, since the language in the verse makes it clear that their direction was the impetus for the attack.
“The way of the spies” was a route that had already been traveled, an easy path. Amalek saw a weakness within the Jews – an unwillingness to work hard, to push the limits – and hence, did not fear the Jews any longer and was not afraid to attack.
Another translation of the Hebrew words Derech Haetarim is the “way of the Ark,” meaning that the Ark traveled with the Jews and paved the way for them. While Amalek and his warriors knew that G-d was with the Jews, and did not see any weakness in the Jews, nevertheless their hatred toward the Jews was so great that they were willing to put their lives on the line, and attacked with full force.
Here we see that when there is so much hatred, one finds new methods of attack—they were willing to put their lives on the line. They became irrational just to hurt their enemy.
The lesson for us must be to turn this on its head.
When we want to do good, how should we go about it? Do we take the easy route or that radical path?
We can take the path that was traveled before, do things that make sense, and take actions that were tested before, the safe and sound method. Or we can try to go beyond our comfort zones and do something that might make us a little uncomfortable; perhaps it might even demand of us to put our ego aside and be humbled a bit. Do a mitzvah that we might even consider a bit radical, simply because we haven’t done it before. That is what we would call “walking in the path of the Ark.”
Shabbat Shalom,