This daf begins with a verse from Sancheirev’s relocation of the nations to places other than their ancestral homelands. Although the Rambam writes that we do not know who the nations mentioned in the Chumash are today due to this relocation, he still brings the halacha to remember and obliterate Amaleik.
The deeper works explain that after this relocation, our main avodah is to eradicate the Amaleik within.
Rav Nosson of Breslov explains that the inner force of Amaleik expresses itself in feelings of inadequacy. The Amaleik within convinces us that Hashem doesn’t hear our prayers, since we see that even though we’ve begged for help in some area for what seems like forever, we’ve yet to see results.
As the Purim story unfolded, the Jewish people’s situation became increasingly desperate. It took Mordechai and Esther to inspire us to believe in the power of our prayers, because we felt that we were under the pall of Divine apathy. They galvanized us to turn to Hashem in heartfelt prayer and the plot against us was overturned.
Rav Nosson concludes, “We still need inspiration to pray today. We need to hold on to our faith in the power of our prayers. If we really understood the immense power of prayer, we would invest our energies in it and the redemption would have come long ago” (Likkutei Halachos).
