1. Rabbi Yosef Safati in his work Yad Yosef reveals that there are two kinds of hatred. The first is exemplified by the Egyptians who feared that the Israelites would rebel. Therefore, they decided, they needed to enslave them
The other kind of hatred is like that of Amalek who held an irrational unfounded hatred against the Israelites. He simply wanted to destroy them.
2. There are two mentions of Amalek in the Torah, The Midrash states of them, echad domeh l'zvuv, echad domeh l'keleev. One is like a fly and thother is like a dog. In Exodus 17:8 comes the idea that Amalek is like a mad dog. If you get to close, try to befriend him, the dog will bite. There are some wicked ones who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be cajoled or cured. Get too close and they will attack you. Leave them to God, tells the Torah and "I will surely wipe out the memory, all thought, of Amalek."
Later in Deuteronomy 25:19 Amalek is likened to a fly. A fly only comes when there is filth. Some anti-Semites flourish because they are given a pretext to hate Jews. They meet a Jew who is dishonest or direputable and they learn to mistrust all Jews. In this instance Torah says, timcheh et zecher Amalek, clean up your own act and there will be no more Amalek.
3. Before Amalek attacks the Jewish people, the Torah tells that the people doubted and questioned: “Is God with us or not?” (Exodus 17:7). Once they allowed doubt to seep into their psyches Amalek was empowered to launch a full fledged assault. To explain the sequence, Rashi cites a Midrash (Tanchuma Yitro 3; Exodus Rabbah 26:2): [God says:] “I am always among you, and always prepared for all your necessities, but you say, ‘Is G-d with us or not?’ By your life, the dog will come and bite you, and you will cry out to Me, and [then] you will know where I am.” This can be compared to a man who mounted his son on his shoulder and set out on the road. Whenever his son saw something, he would say, “Father, take that thing and give it to me,” and the father would give it to him. They met a man, and the son said to him, “Have you seen my father?” So his father said to him, “You don’t know where I am?” He threw his son down off him, and a dog came and bit the son.
All doubts begin with the first cosmic doubt: “Have you seen my father?” “Is God with us or not?” - Rabbi Simon Jacobson
