A teacher’s mistake once caused a national catastrophe.
This week’s Parsha of Ki Teitzei gives us the Mitzvah, ‘תמחה את זכר עמלק מתחת השמים לא תשכח’, ‘Wipe out all remembrance of the Amalekites from under the heavens – never forget’.
A nice commentary I read from The Chief Rabbi of England and the Commonwealth, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis says, that in the days of King David, as is recorded in the first book of Kings, he asked Yoav, the Chief of Staff of his army, to fight against the Amalekites. And it took Yoav six months in order to be victorious. At the end of those six months, he came back to King David and triumphantly he declared, “I have killed all the males of Amalek”.
King David said to Yoav, “are you not aware of the Mitzvah in the Torah where Hashem commands us to wipe out the entire people of Amalek – they are the ultimate evil that can ever be on the face of the earth, their very presence will plague good people for the rest of time”.
And Yoav said, “but the Torah only talks about the males”. King David says, “where?”
As is recorded in the Gemarah, Mesechet Bava Batra, Yoav pointed to the verse in our Parsha, ‘תמחה את זכר ...’. King David said, “not ‘זָכָר’, meaning ‘males’, rather ‘זֵכֶר’, the ‘remembrance’ of them all”.
Yoav was stunned. Suddenly he realized that when at school, he was taught incorrectly. He went out and he sought to find his teacher. Eventually, he located him. By now, the teacher was an old man. Yoav came into his home with a Sefer Torah, he opened it up, he pointed to the verse and he said to the teacher “read it!”. And the teacher read, ‘תמחה את זכר ...’ – ‘זָכָר’ and not ‘זֵכֶר’, the ‘males’ and not the ‘remembrance’ – different vowel points.
And Yoav was so angry, he took out his sword and he had to be restrained from actually killing his teacher.
The fact that the Talmud reveals the story to us is a message all about the quality of education. Of course, we must have as many schools as possible, and we must populate them with as many pupils as possible. But together with that, we should never compromise on the standard of Jewish education.
When a teacher or a parent makes a mistake, I don’t think it’s going to cause a national calamity, but nonetheless, we have a responsibility to always get it right.
So let’s try to always get it right and let’s pray with all our hearts, for our soldiers and healthcare professionals, and Chevra Kadisha members worldwide, and for those who need healing, shidduchim, children and parnassah and may we be blessed to have the most awesome, gorgeous, beautiful, peaceful, healthy, amazing, relaxed, spiritual, loving and sweet Shabbat.
NUMBER OF MITZVOT: 74
MITZVOT ASEH: 27
MITZVOT LO TAASEH: 47
NUMBER OF PESUKIM: 110
NUMBER OF WORDS: 1582
NUMBER OF LETTERS: 5856
HAFTORA:
Yeshayahu 54:1- 10 (רני עקרה) (this is the fifth of seven Haftorot, [the Seven Haftorot of Consolation] that precede Rosh Hashanah).
This week we study Chapter 2 of Pirkei Avot
