I always wondered why Mosheh Rabbeinu didn't just keep his hands raised in the battle with Amalek. The Noam Elimelech finally cleared it up for me: Mosheh Rabbeinu was on a level whereby, if He wasn't careful, he could have unified the whole world with God, causing it to cease to exist. Whenever he raised his hands, in other words
asserted his authority, he had to do so in a metered fashion, lest the world be overwhelmed with divine mercy such that even the evil-doers would go unpunished.
The world was created to submit to the authority of Tzaddikim, and Tzaddikim generally act in one of two ways, either
mitook haDin (sweetening of the harsh judgements) or awakening divine mercy that preempts any judgement at all. Because of Moshe's unique level, he only performed 'sweetening of the harsh judgements' because his 'awakening divine mercy' was beyond the threshold of what the world could bear.
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