Rabbi Elazar Hamodai reveals a chilling detail about Amalek's attack. The Israelites were protected by the Clouds of Glory — miraculous formations that surrounded the camp on all sides, shielding them from enemies, heat, and hostile terrain. But Amalek found a way in.
He "sneaked under the edges of the cloud." Like a predator slipping beneath a fence, Amalek crept into the gaps at the margins of divine protection and "snatched souls of Israel and killed them." The victims were those on the outskirts — the stragglers, the weak, the ones who had fallen behind the main body of the camp.
The verse from Deuteronomy confirms it: Amalek "met you on the way … when you were faint and weary, and did not fear God" (Deuteronomy 25:18). He targeted the vulnerable, striking at the rear of the column where the exhausted and the sick were struggling to keep up.
But the Mekhilta offers another interpretation of that last phrase — "did not fear God." Others say this refers not to Amalek but to Israel. The Israelites at the edges of the camp "did not have mitzvot (commandments)h in their hands." They had no merit, no commandments protecting them. The cloud covered the faithful, but those who had separated themselves from observance were exposed.
Both readings deliver the same warning: divine protection has edges, and those who drift to the margins — physically or spiritually — are the first to fall.