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Rav Chaim Lifshitz
Parashat Ki Taitsai
Essays
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Rosh
Hashana: Remembering - Relating
Translated
from
HeBRew by DR. S. NAthan
l'ilui nishmat
Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN
LAIBEL
L'ILUI NISHMAT BEN TZION BEN
MENACHEM CHAIM
“It is
strongly
recommended to everyone who serves God - to recite the “Six
Remembrances” every morning after prayer .”
Why? What part do the “Six Remembrances”
play in serving God?
“You remember the making of the universe," we
say as we pour our hearts out on the Day of
Remembrance, that aspect of Rosh Hashanah's
sanctity that is expressed as memory. The
Holy One remembers, and by His remembering, He
tends to all His creatures.
How does remembering relate to the King of the
Universe? The Holy One relates to every
one of His creants; He does not suffice with the
mere act of creating them, but rather continues
to bestow His attention upon them. He
continues to grant a personal relationship to
all those who personally relate to Him. He
continues His responsibility towards them.
He cares about them. He relates to us with
a seriousness of attitude that surpasses our
attitude to Him. His relating to us
obligates us to relate to Him, to be attached to
Him, to be dependent upon Him, and to report to
Him about our lives.
We function in such a way as to carry out His
mission. We are soldiers in God’s army,
and we carry out missions. There is great
importance in the way we fulfill the missions
that justify our existence. And God
remembers!
His relating to us obligates us to relate to
Him. On Rosh Hashanah we determine – and
God, for His part, determines as well – the
quality of the reciprocal relationship that will
be formed anew each year between ourselves and
our Maker.
God remembers every detail, meaning that there
is no randomness in the world. Nothing is
devoid of significance. God counts and
reckons every detail of human behavior as being
a fulfillment of the human mission, a link in
memory’s chain.
God’s relating to us takes all of time into
account. It is a total and
all-encompassing grasp of time that embraces
cause and effect, beginning and end –
continuity.
Such a perception of time contests the narrow
existential approach that focuses only on the
here and now. There is a yesterday that
came before yesterday, and there is a tomorrow
that will come after tomorrow. The past
does not disappear. It exists in the
present, for the present is no more than "a
continuation of..." It is the link in the
chain that closes the cycle of life’s
completeness.
Life’s purpose is to close this circle, while
integrating within it our own role in the
present, as a link in the cycle of completeness
– in which other people take part as well, such
as forefathers and children and grandchildren –
students who pass the Word, and our masters who
have transmitted the Word, from Moses our great
master, who received the Torah at Sinai and
transmitted it to Joshua, who transmitted it,
etc.
Despising any link in the chain, God forbid,
could sever the cycle of completeness, and
therefore no one may break free of it.
You do not represent only yourself.
Rather, you represent the complete cycle.
You constitute a link, and therein lies the
secret of your significance as a human being –
bearing value and laden with eternity.
The source of the power of your qualitative self
derives from your capacity as a link in the
chain.
Delving into the meaningful content of memory’s
details fills them with personal
significance. From among the “Six
Remembrances” that constitute the links of the
chain, some of them are negative memories:
“Remember what God did to Miriam,” who was
punished with leprosy for speaking negatively
about Moshe. Remember Amalek. These
remembrances knock at the door of every Jew, a
reminder of sin, of negative tendencies ignored,
transgressions "that one tramples with one's
heels.”
Memory as relating - leads to consciousness, to
self-awareness. Without memory, awareness
is absent, and a human being turns into an
object, into an animal living the life of the
moment, which passes in a flash, leaving no
traces in the depths of one’s personality.
This is how the value of a personality is
measured: According to the depth of memory.
A newborn infant attains memory at eight months
of age, when the objects and the people
surrounding him begin to take on permanence in
his life. He remembers his relatives and
bursts into frightened weeping when strangers
appear. The infant is at that point
already capable of distinguishing between those
who belong to him and those strangers toward
whom he feels recoil.
From that point onward, memory continues to
develop, to eventually become a foundational
element in the structure of the adult
personality.
The Torah calls the human being a tree of the
field. There is a diagnostic test, in
which a person draws a tree. If the
drawing is given careful attention, then the
individual who is drawing the tree unwittingly
includes in his tree – every single detail of
his past that has had any importance to him, any
detail that has contributed to his personality.
Sometimes there are problems in the field of
memory. Memories that held an important
place in childhood ultimately merge with the
foundations of the personality, just like a tree
whose roots are buried deep in the earth and
never see the light of day. When an
individual draws the tangle of roots, showing
them exposed, this points to childhood memories
that have not merged with the personality, and
the matter requires further investigation.
Usually this person is suffering from some
childish character trait that has not been
digested by the personality, like a bone stuck
in one’s throat; one can neither swallow it nor
vomit it out. When such a person
encounters some unimportant event, he
over-reacts. He is unable to continue with
business as usual. His response is that of
an overly emotional child who lacks all sense of
proportion and has no capacity for judging
life’s daily realities.
Similarly, there are memories that are doomed to
oblivion, just as there are memories destined to
play an important role, both in the present and
in the future, such as gratitude for
example. Someone has done you good?
Do not forget it. Reward him as he
deserves and do not forget him. It is not
such a comfortable sensation to feel obligated
to someone, if you have no benefit from this
obligation at present. This is why the
trait of gratitude is the noblest of all midot,
and its reward is great in this world, and
continues to produce dividends in the next world
as well, such as honoring one’s parents, for
example.
Despite the fact of life that stipulates,
“therefore shall a man leave his father and
mother and attach to his wife,” nevertheless,
let him not forget his obligation to his
parents, God forbid, even if to all utilitarian
appearances, their role in relation to him has
ended. Nor does the obligation continue
only with his parents. Rather the test of
gratitude’s memory relates to every person that
has ever done you the slightest kindness in the
past, even if it appears to have utterly lost
its significance in the present. In spite
of this, your quality is measured by the quality
of your memory.
On the other hand, one of poor quality is
measured by the extent to which negative
memories populate, take hold of and acquire
tenancy in his personality: Who has done
me wrong? Who has not treated me as I have
deserved, etc. A good person has good
memories, as opposed to the evil person who
wallows in his bitter memories. Memory is
the key to human quality.
The Torah’s purpose in giving so much space to
memory thus becomes obvious, to the point that
the People of Israel is perceived by the world
as being a People of Memories. Memories
constitute the reason for many of the practical
commandments as well as many of the
contemplative commandments - “because you were a
slave in the Land of Egypt”. The memory of
slavery takes up significant space in the
national awareness, and in the individual
awareness as well.
You might ask at this point: Such conscious
awareness, what purpose does it serve? Who
needs it? The answer is: It is for the
purpose of repair and correction, of tikun.
The
human creature formed in the Divine image is a
partner to the Holy One in managing the
creation. For this purpose, humans were
graced with a character trait that enables them
to bear responsibility for the proper
functioning of the universe.
Without a sense of awareness, responsibility is
not feasible. This means awareness of
oneself and of one’s environment, whether near
or distant, both in terms of space and in terms
of time. Awareness of this sort allows one
to acquire an objective perspective. It
enables one to assess situations, to judge in a
balanced fashion, and to arrive at a decisive
conclusion. These abilities alone are what
grant the human creature its advantage over all
the other creatures. The greater a human
being’s awareness, the greater that human
being’s advantage over the other creatures.
It must be pointed out that this awareness
varies in quality from person to person.
Without awareness, the human is no different
from any of the other animals, which operate
mainly by an instinctive system, like automatic
instruments activated by an external stimulus.
We find this progression in human development as
well: From a creature activated primarily
by mechanical stimuli in childhood, a human
being becomes a possessor of awareness.
This awareness eventually becomes an indicator
of personal maturity, bestowing quality upon the
personality.
We see from this that being self-aware in the
present, as one stands before the Heavenly
Court, demands that one give an accounting for
one’s actions. Awareness in the present
must include also memories, which express one’s
attitude toward and one’s responsibility for
one’s actions in the past. An awareness in
the present that relates to the past enables one
to grant value and meaning to the past.
Whether it will be of permanent value beyond the
fleeting moment, only the future can determine.
We find therefore that the ability to predict
and to plan future developments is what
determines one’s abilities to evaluate one’s
past actions. The ability to anticipate
the future, grants one the ability to evaluate
the results of one’s actions. Without the
ability to anticipate and evaluate results, one
would be unable to weigh one’s actions from any
perspective, just as the deaf, the mentally
disabled and minors cannot evaluate the results
of their actions. This can be dangerous,
because whoever harms such people is guilty of
wrongdoing, whereas if they harm others, they
are innocent of any wrongdoing. The fact
that the halacha includes a minor in the same
category as the deaf and the mentally disabled
proves that a minor’s limitation exists by
virtue of his lack of awareness and his lack of
responsibility for the results of his actions.
We may conclude from this that anyone found
fully focused in the present – in a present that
also encompasses and includes both past and
future – can be said to be standing with both
feet firmly planted on the ground of a reality
that he is able to control. This explains
his ability to bear responsibility for his
actions.
The more limited one’s sense of the present, and
the fewer components of past and future that it
contains, the more limited one’s quality, in
keeping with one’s limitedness of vision in the
present.
A person who is detached from the present is
considered (and rightly so) to be either a fool
or mentally disturbed. Of the mentally
disturbed, there are two categories: Those who
exist only in the past, and those who exist only
in a future utopia. The former believe
themselves to be Napoleon and the latter believe
themselves to be the Messiah. What both
have in common is a lack of ability to
experience the present.
It is important to note that a healthy sense of
the past includes only those experiences that
contain an expression of creative quality.
Painful memories of the fight for survival are a
curse. One should rid oneself of
them. They do only harm.
In the mitzva of vidui, we are to realize the
importance of memories. The purpose of
confessing our sins is not to torment our
conscience, as those who suffer from compulsive
neurosis believe. The purpose of vidui is no
different than the purpose of memory: It is a
value – the value of relating through
awareness. In the same way, remembering
one’s parents and one’s national ancestors
[during prayer] is designed to deepen our
experience of relating through memories, making
this experience more powerfully tangible from
both the personal and the national perspective.
“Remember
the Sabbath Day, to sanctify it.”
This remembering is meant to awaken a personal
relationship with the Founder of the Sabbath, to
connect one to the Holy One Himself in all His
glory. Keeping the Sabbath is intended to
deepen one’s personal connection with the
Founder of the universe, with the creation of
the universe. More emphatically, keeping
the Sabbath is meant to deepen one’s sense of
connection to the cause of the universe and to
the purpose of creation, rather than merely
experiencing the sensation of creation.
The
Phenomenon of Denying Memory
The most well known of these is the denial of
the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, or the
deliberate blurring of memory, such as viewing
Palestinian murder gangs as a nation – all these
are included in the crime, the results of which
are fraught with disaster. These denials
are the rotten fruit of the yetser hara, the
“urge to create evil,” the human tendency to
deny the extent of one’s responsibility for
one’s actions. Such denial frees one from
the feelings of regret that invite repentance,
for it is only in this blessed state that one is
forgiven for one’s sins. The memory of sin
brings repair and repentance whereas the denial
of sin springs from wanton cowardice.
There is a certain phenomenon of forgetfulness
that belongs to the realm of pathology within
the framework of incurable mental
illnesses. Oliver Sacks, currently
considered a world-class neurologist, describes
a case of amnesia that afflicted an engineer of
the American Marine Corps, who was hospitalized
at the end of his life due to this
illness. His defect was so severe that he
would forget his way to the lunchroom and to the
bathroom. For some reason, he was able to
remember the period of his military service
during the Second World War in minute detail,
including names of people and of events.
Similarly, he was able to remember every single
plant in the hospital garden, and the precise
treatment and care that each plant
required. He could also remember all the
details of prayer ceremonies.
Oliver Sacks presented this bewildering
phenomenon to his superior, the Russian-Jewish
Professor Landau, considered a genius in the
field of neurology. Landau replied that he
knew of a similar phenomenon but could not
explain what caused it.
We believe this phenomenon proves the validity
of our approach, which makes a clear distinction
between an experience that derives from a
creative source and an experience that derives
from the survival/self-preservation
instinct. A creative experience is the
result of quality. It is an expression of
the self, which encompasses and unites both past
and future within the present. However, an
experience that belongs to the survival system
belongs to the ego, which does not characterize
a human being in any way, in that it is a
standard characteristic of every animal, of
every cat and dog and not only of human
creatures. It contains no expression of
the human being whatsoever, and certainly no
expression of the unique individual. There
is therefore no reason that an experience from
the source of ego should acquire tenancy within
the depths of human experience. The
experience of ego finds its place in a truncated
present, and leaves no traces in the past or in
the future. Eventually it must disappear.
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