RABBI MICHAEL WHITMAN

I originally shared this sermon on Yom Kippur, 2009.

SELECTIVE MEMORY

Yom Kippur is about memory – God’s and ours.

Yom Kippur is about God’s memory. In what is perhaps the most moving High Holiday prayer, Unesaneh Tokef, we note: “VaTizkor Kol HaNichkachot (God remembers all forgotten things).”

Yom Kippur is about our memory. We remember our actions during the previous year. We say Yizkor to remember our mothers and fathers and other loved ones who have passed away.

But Rabbi Avi Weiss suggests there is a powerful lesson we can learn from God’s remembering to apply to our own. On Rosh HaShonah we read these loving words from the prophet Jeremiah: “Zacharti Lach Chessed Ne’urayich…” God says, I remember the kindess of the Jewish People at the beginning of our relationship, how you followed Me from Egypt into the desert, a barren and inhospitable place – simply because I asked you to.

God remembers our loyalty and trust in Him. But isn’t God’s memory a bit faulty? Yes, we did follow God into the desert for forty years. But the Biblical record shows we were not very loyal or trusting. We sinned with the Golden Calf. We disbelieved God’s promise of a homeland in favour of the spies’ warped report. We complained about the food (repeatedly), the conditions, the leadership. The rosy verse from Jeremiah appears to be a revisionist version of what actually happened. Yes, we followed God into the desert, complaining and rebelling repeatedly throughout the journey. Why does God, Who is perfect, remember imperfectly?

Rabbi Baruch Lederman tells the story of two friends walking through the desert. At some point in their journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other in the face. The one who was slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, he wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They continued walking until they reached an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had earlier been slapped got stuck in the mud and started to drown, but his friend saved him. After he recovered from nearly drowning, he chiselled on a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “Earlier you wrote in the sand, now you chisel on stone. Why?” And his friend answered, When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it. But when someone does something good for us, we must chisel it on stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

In order for a relationship to endure, we must develop the capacity to remember selectively, or as Rabbi Weiss puts it, “to remember with mercy.” “Maaver Al Middosov” or overlooking trespasses done to us, is one of the highest human traits, according to the Talmud (Megilah 28a, Yuma 23a). And we ask God to do the same. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”

I heard this story from Dr. Jerry Lob. His son was eighteen months old and he took him to the doctor for a shot. They were waiting in the exam room, and he was thinking, “What can I say to my son to make him understand what is about to happen?” Of course, there was nothing he could say. The nurse came in with the shot. He held his son. His son sees the shot, knows what is coming, and starts to scream. He said, “I will never forget the look on my son’s face. It was as if he was saying to me, ‘Daddy, are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? Not only are you not protecting me from this crazy woman attacking me with a sharp dagger, but you are conspiring with her by holding me down!’”

His son yells, has the shot, he comforts his son, and the son becomes quiet. Driving home, he thinks to himself, “How is it my son let me hold him again after the shot? How does he differentiate between me and the nurse?”

The answer is, because children get it – even if they can’t express it. Yesterday, Daddy was not crazy. There is a context of a relationship of love and caring and protection. Sometimes, there are things that don’t fit in – and you have to forget.

For many of us, Yizkor is a very emotional time, because of our grief and our loss. But sometimes it is also a very emotional time because of what we recall that perhaps we should not remember. On the one hand, memory is essential for self-respect, for self-identity, for taking responsibility. Sometimes a misdeed or abuse is too serious, too significant to forget, especially if it is ongoing, or it can be fixed. But on the other hand, if we remember everything, we will be stuck.

On Yom Kippur, when we say Yizkor, when we go through this day of memory, we – like God – must remember with mercy. God does this for us. We should do the same for each other, for those we love.

And we should even try to do the same for God, as suggested in this poem by Dan Pagis:

“Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car”

here in this carload
i am eve
with abel my son
if you see my other son
cain, son of man
tell him
that i