Remembering Forward

 

“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future” - Elie Wiesel

“Memory is deceptive because it is coloured by today’s events.” – Albert Einstein

“To be a Jew is to know that over an above history is the task of memory” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

 

The command to remember is an important pillar in our Jewish tradition. “The imperative of the Hebrew word zachor,” asserts David Pillegi, “is mentioned more than twenty-five times” in the Tanach (Jerusalem Post, March 29,2012). The Jewish year, accordingly, is mottled with many memorial days, national and private.

One of my favourite modern Yisraeli poets, Yehudah Amichai (May 3, 1924 – September 22, 2000), also, dwells on the notion of memory. “The world is filled with remembering and forgetting,” he writes. Amichai likens memory and forgetfulness to “dry land” and “sea” as metaphors to our duplicate realities which, he believes, are elements of our existence. “Dry land,” he suggests, is the memory of our starting point, our past, the anchor that keeps our feet secure on the ground. The “sea” is a metaphor for the unknown that awaits us in the days ahead. It is an unpredictable zone where we sail into the future in our desperate effort to hold on to forgetting memories, the ones that threaten to overwhelm, drown our essence in their torrent and prevent us from forming a future. Only those who have a stable dock on dry land, suggests Amichai, have some firm fulcrum, to which they can return to and safely resume their daily routine.  

Though our Jewish heritage prizes memory, I must admit that in my many years of interaction with Jewish communities around the world, I have encountered, on more than one occasion, the desire to forget and consciously erase our bad memories. Many Jewish parents want to spare their children the exposure to dark chapters in our history for fear that such a disclosure might affect them emotionally.

One example that comes to mind is during the time that I lived in New Zealand. I was once asked to conduct the Passover Seder at some friend’s house. All went well until I got to the part where the ten plagues were mentioned. When I reached the tenth one, where the first-born son of every Egyptian family was smitten, the father stopped me and said, “we don’t talk about death to our children…..” I was dumbfounded. Though I understood that the father’s silence and the temptation to forget, stemmed from concern, at the same time, I felt that it created a distortion. How could anyone not mention this very constitutive and cardinal act in our Jewish history? Can we raise a new generation without exposing it to the painful segments of the story?

This, however, is not merely a matter of a private case. Throughout history, many Jews elected to forget. That choice was the product of the yearning to prevent trauma and the wish to enable a future for their children.  Regrettably, though, it has always been at the cost of sacrificing the vital role of memory.

Jewish culture puts memory at the center of our collective identity. The Talmud (Yoma 56,1) teaches us that authentic remembering of events, good and bad, is the first move towards tikkun, improvement. Rabbi Nachman Bar Yitzchak, similarly, suggests that genuine memory leads towards action and change (Kiddushin 40, 2)

The horrors of the Shoah, a more recent sad episode in our People’s history, which happened eighty years ago, is another example of such a tendency. Sadly, quite a few Jews, both in Yisrael and elsewhere, spare details of that chapter from their children again, for fear of the impact it might have on their emotional well-being.

More recently, Yisrael has experienced one of the most horrific pogroms since the Shoah. I am referring to the massacre that took place close to two years ago on the Holy Day of Simchat Torah, which is better known by its Gregorian calendar date as, October 7^th, 2023. Despite the fresh memories of this bloodbath, many, including adults my age, refuse to see footage of the carnage or listen to the testimonies of its survivors.

This discrepancy between the necessity to remember and the wish to forget, between the “dry land” and the “sea,” as we have witnessed, engaged Amichai. In another poem, he offers yet another metaphor. This one is in the form of a “dam.”  This “dam,” implies Amichai, stands for the present tense, the stage in which we are. Just like a dam which controls the flow of water, Amichai’s “dam” allows us to release or block the flow of memory between the “dry land” and the “sea.”

It is at this point that the quote by Einstein, above, is brought into play. If the control over this “dam” is subject to our emotional and political agenda or is “coloured by today’s events,” in Einstein’s words, it might reshape the past not in accordance with historical facts, but by the demands of the present. Should we redraw our past? Should our “coloured” present determine which parts of our past be remembered or perhaps suppressed? What should be the fate of painful, yet essential and identity defining chapters in our history?

Memory is not merely what we choose to remember. Rather, it is the courage not to forget. Remembering forward requires of us, as Jews, to preserve the past, the good and the bad, without granting us the permission to rewrite it.

Memory

 

                                         "Memory is the secret to redemption" – Ba’al Shem Tov

 

Today, Jews, the world over, celebrate the joyous holy day of Purim. We wear costumes, eat the traditional hamentaschen and read Megilat Esther, the Book of Esther. It also so happens that yesterday, Shabbat, as on every Shabbat before Purim, the Torah portion that is recited is “Zachor,” (remember) along with its related Haftarah, which is taken from Samuel 1, Chapter 15.

It is no coincidence that these three important occasions are contiguous to each other. There is a golden thread that runs through them. At the core of all three rest the importance of Jewish collective memory and the lessons of history that need to be learned and internalized.

In Parashat “Zachor,” we are commanded, “Remember what Amalek did to you as you came out of Egypt; how he met you on the way, and cut down all the weak who straggled behind you when you were weary and exhausted, and he did not fear G-d. Therefore, when the Lord, your G-d will relieve you of all your enemies around you, in the Land which the Lord your G-d gives you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget” (Deuteronomy, 25:17-19). Amalek, the Torah tells us, ambushed our People during their wandering in the desert when they came out of Egypt. They killed the weak, the vulnerable and slaughtered babies in their mothers’ arms. “Zachor” is the only Parasha that is read aloud in synagogue each year and is considered one of the few Torah portions that every Jew should hear.

The corresponding Haftarah to this portion is taken from Samuel 1,15:1-34 where we are reminded of what the Amalekites did to our People in the desert.  Samuel, upon G-d’s order, commands King Saul to erase Amalek in its entirety including its possessions, its sheep, men women, babies, toddlers, camels, and donkeys, without compassion. “Go and you shall destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and you shall wage a war against them until you destroy them all. Saul succeeds in harming Amalek, kills their people yet captures their king Agag and saves some of the prime sheep and cattle to use them as sacrifice to G-d.

Samuel is surprised to find out that Saul has spared some of sheep and cattle and reproves while Saul, apologetically explains that the People are the ones who collected the spoils. In other words, Saul caves in to the People rather than carry out the word of G-d. “Even if you are small in your own eyes,” responds Samuel, “are you not the head of the tribes of Yisrael? And the Lord anointed you as king over Yisrael….. Has the Lord (as much) desire in burnt offerings and peace offering, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?” Behold, to obey is better than a peace-offering; to harken (is better) than the fat of teraphim.”  Every deed, we are told, bears its consequences. “For rebellion,” proclaims Samuel, “is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Since you rejected the word of the Lord. He has rejected you from being a king.”

Eventually, Saul does carry out the order. He kills Agag, and whatever is left of his possessions but not before he must pay a dear price for his disobedience to G-d’s directive.

Saul’s and Am Yisrael’s violation of G-d’s command, regarding Amalek, proves that Jewish collective memory and its necessary lessons have failed the practical test. Unfortunately, Saul’s irresponsible leadership and infraction of G-d’s command would eventually rebound and expose our People to further threats of annihilation.

And that is, precisely, dear readers, where the story of Purim enters the scene.

The Book of Esther chronicles the story of the Jewish community in ancient Persia. We witness the ideological struggle between the wicked Haman and a Jewish hero, Mordechai. A look into the text will reveal that Haman is described as "the Agagite.” He is a descendant of Agag the king of Amalek whose life, king Saul, initially, spared.

Furthermore, the script also discloses Mordechai’s pedigree. It tells us that “There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai, the son of Yair, the son of Shimei the son of Kish, a Benjamite” (Esther, 2:5).

With your permission, let me rewind back to Samuel 1 chapter 9 and focus on verses 1 and 2. They describe the lineage of King Saul and read, “There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish, son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin. Kish had a son named Saul.”

Lo and behold, the Jew, Mordechai, and King Saul share the same family tree. They are distant kinspersons, in the same manner that Haman, the “Agagite” is a kinsperson to the worst enemy of Am Yisrael, Agag, the king of Amalek.

The Book of Esther is the last piece of that golden thread that connects yesterday’s Parasha and Haftarah to the story of Purim. As the story of Purim unveils itself, we learn that Haman and his seed are obliterated off the face of the earth which is, of course, a cause for celebration.

In addition to the important lesson of the Haftarah regarding the necessity to obey G-d’s command, there is, however, another, no less important, lesson delivered to us in the Book of Esther.

The narrative of Purim also teaches us the significance of carrying out G-d’s commands promptly and without procrastination, be the reason whatever it is. As we learned from the Haftarah, King Saul did not fully follow G-d’s orders. Had he done that, had he and Am Yisrael committed to memory the decree to eradicate Amalek and its offspring, the descendants of King Saul would not have had to face those of Amalek, the Book of Esther would most likely not have been written and the holy day by the name of “Purim” would have never seen the light of day.

Unfortunately, Amalek is a chameleon that changes its forms and emerges in different forms, during different times in our Jewish history. As these words are being written, Yisrael is fighting for its survival against one of Amalek’s reincarnations, a terrorist group by the name of Hamas. There are two lessons that last Shabbat teaches us.

The first, as we all saw, is the importance of obeying G-d and following the decree to “remember what Amalek did to you…” The second is the significant message that is enciphered in it. 

It is the message that we should commit to memory the decree of Parashat “Zachor,” fight and destroy, today, those who wish to harm and kill us so that our future generations will be spared the need to face them, or worse ones, tomorrow.

Not until such time will the Jewish People be redeemed and free to realize its glorious destiny.

Purim Sameach, fellow Jews.