JUST REMEMBER, IT’S PERSONAL (PODCAST)

Rabbi Dunner addresses the strange annual custom of remembering and never forgetting Amalek, a long-extinct warrior-nation who attacked the Israelites after they left Egypt. God demands their obliteration, but ironically they would have long been gone and forgotten if we were not expected to mention them each year at Parshat Zachor.

Using the fact that this directive is given in the first-person singular, very similar to the instructions for the building of the Mishkan, Rabbi Dunner recalls his extraordinary grandfather, ‘Adje’ Cohen of Holland, whose extraordinary exploits during the Holocaust years led to his being offered a knighthood by the Dutch Queen. He refused the honor, and Rabbi Dunner explains why, tying it in with the personal obligation of Zachor.