The Edythe Benjamin חיה בת שלמה beloved mother of Barbara Hanus, Rosh Hodesh Iyar Torah Essay
By Karen Miller Jackson
Memory is one of the ways we find meaning in our lives. We need to remember for basic functionality (i.e. our ID number at the bank or where we left the car keys), but memories of our experiences, either happy or challenging shape our identities as individuals. That feeling you get when you open up an old photo album and suddenly find yourself awash in memories. Or the bittersweetness of moving out of a home where so many memories were created. These are examples of individual memories which we ourselves experienced.
But how do we remember events which we care about but never personally experienced? And how do we remember events collectively as a nation?
Rosh Chodesh Iyar is bookmarked by days of remembering, with Yom Hashoah a few days before and Yom Hazikaron just after. These days of remembrance are modern additions to the Jewish calendar but they fall within a period of the Jewish calendar which has been associated with remembering throughout Jewish history. Sefirat Haomer, the 49 day period between Passover and Shavuot, marks a period of mourning the loss of Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students according to the Talmud, who died in a plague, and the Aruch Hashulchan wrote that this is also the period commemorating blood libels and crusades that occurred in the Middle Ages.[1]
These tragedies are commemorated through the mitzvah of sefirat ha-omer and the customs, minhagim, associated with this period. This is the case on Tisha B’av as well when we remember the destruction of the Holy Temple, the Beit Hamikdash. This first model of remembering in Jewish sources is through mitzvot: performing actions which remind us to remember.
The Torah commands us “zachor,” “to remember” many times in several different contexts.[2] A look at just a few of these times deepens our understanding of how we should remember. “Zachor” appears in the mitzvah of Shabbat in the Ten Commandments (Shmot 20:7):
זָכוֹר אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, לְקַדְּשׁוֹ.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
With regard to Shabbat the mitzvah to remember is fulfilled through performing the mitzvot aseh, positive commandments on Shabbat such as kiddush.[3] Again, Judaism insists that the way to remember is through an act, a mitzvah. Moreover, the Rambam explains the mitzvah of zachor as follows:
היא שצונו לקדש את השבת ולאמר דברים...
To sanctify the Shabbat and say words...[4]
The Rambam adds another component to remembering: through speech. Through re-telling the story of the creation of the world and the Exodus story which is also commemorated in Shabbat kiddush, we remind ourselves of these key moments in our history.
Two other significant occasions when the term “zachor” is used include the mitzvah to remember the Exodus and the mitzvah to remember what Amalek did to us. In both of these cases we learn a similar lesson with regard to remembrance. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out that in the midst of the exodus narrative itself Moshe commands the Jews, Bnei Yisrael, three times to remember and pass on their story and to internalize its message.[5] The Talmud in Tractate Bava Metzia explains that the Torah emphasizes our origins as strangers to ensure that we will always look out for the weak in society:
Rabbi Eliezer the Great says: For what reason does the Torah warn in thirty-six places, and some say in forty-six places, about a convert? Because his inclination is bad.What is that which is written: "And you shall not wrong a convert, nor shall you oppress him; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt"? We learn that Rabbi Natan says, “One who has a blemish himself should not point it out in others.[6]
Amalek, a complicated mitzvah, contains a similar message. The Rambam explains that the purpose of reading the portion telling the perfidy of Amalek, Parshat Zachor each year is to not only remember but to rouse our emotions and to ensure that such evil behavior does not return to the world.[7]
So a third model of remembering presented here is in order to shape our behavior for the good.
These three models: actions, speech and self-improvement or chesed are Torah-based ways we can commemorate Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron so that the memories of those lost will be for a blessing.