Yizkor: The How of Jewish Memory
April 2014
Our Torah in an unique and essential way is a book of history. While the sacred texts of other ancient religions are often written as poetry, epic sagas, or collections of maxims, the Torah is almost entirely the prosaic story of our ancient father and mothers from Abraham and Sarah through the forty year desert wandering.
It is very strange then that there is no word in classical Hebrew for “history”. There is no Mitzvah in the Bible to research, and not much attention is given to recounting. There are however numerous mitzvot, commandments in which we are bidden lizkor to remember. Memory is the central value, not history.
How do we remember? How do we keep lit the Ner Tamid, the eternal light of our tradition? Is it by knowledge of facts, people, wars and regimes? Is it by surveys and courses?
Jewish memory lives in the heart. When we remember, we don’t just recall events that happened to someone else. We feel a claim that they make on us. So the Haggadah famously teaches, “In every generation, one must see oneself as if he or she personally came out of Egypt”.
One of the most well attended Jewish services is Yizkor, our memorial prayers for the dead. The Hebrew root Z CH R means to remember but the term Yizkor often refers to the future. G-d Yizkor/remembered Noah and brought him and his household out of the Ark. G-d Yizkor/remembered the cries of the Israelite slaves and planned their liberation. We remember not just to learn past events, but to direct ourselves towards a more just future.
We rightfully consider it a tragedy when a person forgets his or her childhood friends, brothers, sisters, or earliest, formative experiences. It is no less a tragedy when the struggles and the faith of our forbears is derided or lost.
We have now, through digital technology, massive information easily available about our family backgrounds and genealogies. Yet the children I speak to these days are less aware of their family histories then my pre-internet childhood friends, fifty years ago, in our first generation Jewish community in Washington, DC.
Passover challenges this amnesia. As all Jewish ritual, it does so in a paradoxical way. By conserving and hallowing the old, we bolster our ability to change. We remember that a fractious, powerless and errant pack of slaves took on an empire. To quote Jerusalem philosopher Rabbi David Hartman, of blessed memory, “the act of protest against (our) environment can occur because the Jews possess a memory of the impossible that became possible”.
At Pesach, we take this epic, world changing story of the Exodus and bring it into the hearts and minds of amcha, of Jews of all ages and all literacy. The bridge must be personal. Who from the Jewish past can you bring into your Seder? What hero, heroine, or story has inspired you, or helped you through a vulnerable time? Who would you set up as a model for your children? What Jewish struggle might you research and teach at this year’s Seder? What knowledge or insight do you have this year that you did not have last year? What would you like to learn?
Chag Kasher V’samei’ach, a Happy and Kosher Pesach!
Rabbi Weintraub