Remember the Alamo

This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Saturday, August 22, 2026

I was in San Antonio last Shabbat with my nieces and in-laws. And there was something there that I was supposed to remember, but for the life of me, I don’t know what I was supposed to remember.

I’m kidding; of course I remembered the Alamo. We made a special trip to take a photo in front of the iconic mission building so we would never forget the Alamo. Do you know how the city has made sure that no one ever forgets the Alamo? There are hundreds of businesses in San Antonio named after it.

There’s Alamo Xtreme AC & Heating, Alamo Aquatic Pets, Alamo Area Beekeepers Association, Alamo Succulents. I imagine telling Davy Crockett, “Don’t worry, we remember the Alamo. We have Alamo Urology Associates to remind us.”

The Torah portion is in here somewhere, I promise. There are weeks when Torah gives us one big idea to wrestle with. And then there is Ki Tetzei.

Ki Tetzei contains 74 mitzvot, more commandments than any other parshah in the Torah. It can feel almost breathless: laws about family relationships, returning lost objects, building safe homes, paying workers on time, caring for the vulnerable, honest business practices, treatment of animals, and how we conduct ourselves even in war.

It is as though Torah is saying: there is no part of human life exempt from the demands of being a decent human being.

And then, after all those laws, Ki Tetzei ends with something entirely different: Zachor et asher asah lecha Amalek. “Remember the Amalek!” Well, sort of. It’s “Remember what Amalek did to you.”

The Torah tells us that Amalek attacked the Israelites from behind, targeting kol hanecheshalim acharecha, those who were weakest, exhausted, and straggling behind. “Remember the Alamo” was about avenging the loss, but our rabbis take a different approach to remembering Amalek.

Rashi, commenting on the word karcha, that Amalek “happened upon you,” suggests that Amalek represents a cooling of moral urgency. When human beings can look at suffering and become indifferent to it, that’s when Amalek enters.

Perhaps that is why this reminder comes after 73 mitzvot. Ki Tetzei has spent an entire parshah teaching us that there is no arena of human life in which our moral obligations disappear. Not our homes. Not our businesses. Not our relationships with strangers. Remarkably, not even war.

Earlier in the parshah, Torah commands that the military camp itself must remain kadosh, holy. Torah knows that war is messy and frightening, that human beings make impossible choices under impossible circumstances. And still it insists: even here, there are boundaries. Even here, human dignity matters.

That is an enormously challenging teaching; the Torah asks us not to surrender our moral voice. Not only in global conflict, but in our local communities. When someone is demeaned, excluded, intimidated, or treated unfairly, our first question cannot be, “Whose side are they on?” It must be, “What does Torah require of me here?”

Maybe that is why Ki Tetzei ends with Amalek.

Amalek attacked hanecheshalim acharecha, those who were vulnerable and straggling behind. Torah commands us to remember because a sacred community is measured, in part, by what happens to the people who are easiest to overlook.

Our charge, then, is not to have the perfect political analysis. It is to refuse moral indifference. To notice. To question. To speak when necessary. And perhaps hardest of all, to remain willing to examine our own camp with the same moral seriousness with which we examine everyone else’s.

Seventy-four mitzvot remind us that holiness lives in the details. Amalek reminds us that holiness also requires courage. We remember, and in the remembering, may we have the courage to stand firmly for our beliefs while not losing the qualities that make us all human.