9/11 The Power of Remembering and Forgetting: Ki Teitzei 5771

I want to begin this morning with a segment I saw this past year on 60 minutes. The story was produced by Leslie Stahl, and as her opening words she wrote:

“It is often said that we are our memories - that web of experiences, relationships, thoughts, and feelings that make us who we are. We don't remember it all of course. That would be impossible.
Or would it?

There has been a discovery in the field of memory recently, so new you won't find it in any textbook. It's so hard to fathom, there are some who remain unconvinced.

For the moment, the scientists studying it are simply calling it "superior autobiographical memory." And unless you happen to know one of the handful of people discovered so far who have it, get ready to be amazed.”

The rest of the segment was truly remarkable to watch. The segment introduced us to a group of six or so people who have undergone rigorous testing which shows that they indeed posses a ‘superior autobiographical memory’, which means that they can recall every detail of every day of their lives, down to what time they got up in the morning, what they ate for lunch or which pair of socks they wore on any given day.

And I’m not talking about just the big moments in our lives which all of us tend to remember – no, they remembered the little ones as well. All those tiny little Tuesdays that you and I so easily forget are instead permanently etched in their minds, an intellectual imprint of a moment long disappeared.

So let us entertain for just a moment what life could be like if all of us had superior autobiographical memories. We would never forget a pleasant encounter with a stranger, a romantic dinner with our loved ones, a time spent rolling on the carpet with our child, or a hilarious joke told to us by a friend. If we are our memories, then we would no doubt be more complete human beings if we managed to remember everything.

But, let’s be honest. There would be a downside as well. We would remember every fight, every argument, every slight we ever felt – and therefore hold every grudge forever. We would be able to vividly recall every no, every rejection every time our heart was broken. And of course, there we would be, reliving every moment of tragedy in Technicolor detail, while others simply ate their lunch.

In fact, as the 60 Minutes report so fascinatingly stated – none of these gifted individuals could boast of another of life’s great gifts: a successful marriage. After all, would you want to be married to someone who remembered every time you made a mistake?

The truth is that God has endowed us as human beings with two equally powerful gifts – the gift of memory, which allows us to cherish, sanctify and learn from each experience; and the gift of forgetting, which enables us to live hopeful and productive lives, despite the tragedies and suffering we experience.

As we all know however, there are certain individual days in our collective history – rare indeed – when an entire nation can claim to possess superior autobiographical memory, and one of those days occurred ten years ago tomorrow.

We all remember where we were when we heard about the first plane striking the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46am. Many of us were on our way to work, or sitting at the breakfast table when the news first broke. ‘Strange,’ we thought to ourselves, ‘that a plane would be flying so low over southern Manhattan.’ And tragically, and by design of the monsters who planned and executed the attack, the entire world was already watching when the second plane struck the South Tower at 9:02am.

And this is where the superior autobiographical memory begins for all of us. I am certain that all of us can recall where we were, who we called, being glued to the television, staying home from school or work and the intensity of panic which spread throughout our great nation on that day. Some of us had family members, loved ones, friends and acquaintances in lower Manhattan that morning, or perhaps boarding a plane in Logan, or working in Washington DC. These memories are forever branded in our minds – because of pain, fear, sorrow, panic and adrenaline, our forgetful minds will simply not allow that Tuesday morning to fade into the sea of Tuesdays that make up our lives. That Tuesday was different. That Tuesday was tragic, and in its unspeakable tragedy, it becomes not just memory, but sacred memory.

However, despite our indelible recollections of that day; the truth is, that we human beings remain habitual forgetters. For example, how many of us watched as each of the names of the victims were read aloud at ground zero on September, 11th 2002. How many of us watched the following year as well as children of the lost read the names aloud?

But slowly, and with certainty, many of us who did not lose a loved one in the tragedy - also began to forget. We marked the passage of the years with compassion and sorrow, but ‘September 11ths’ slowly became a part of our lives. We paused, we watched for a few minutes the one or two networks that carried the recitation of the names live, we reflected on the day – but we also went to work, went to school, we tried to move on with our lives. We sought out the normalcy that forgetting so often affords us.

But here we stand. But one day from the ten year anniversary of the attacks of September 11th and something indescribable happens – we remember again. As I was driving in my car this week, listening to NPR, a personal reflection on 9/11 was on, one of many which were aired this week. It was by the editor of Scholastic Magazine and it so eloquently described her witnessing the attacks from a commuter ferry headed towards Manhattan that morning. The confusion which quickly turned to panic as she realized that her brother had recently started working at a financial firm in the World Trade Center. The hysterical phone calls to cell phones which no longer worked, and ultimately, days later the realization that her brother was dead – leaving behind his two small children, her niece and nephew. This passionate report ended with the revelation that one of her brother’s children, eight at the time of her father’s death, recently wrote about the experience of losing her father - as part of her college entrance essays. As I pulled into my parking space, tears were flowing down my cheeks. The tears felt as if they were ten years old, testimony to the power of both remembering and forgetting.

As is always the case, our Jewish tradition has a powerful lesson to bring to bear about the dichotomy of remembering and forgetting. In this morning’s Torah portion, parashat Ki Teitzei, we read a familiar and haunting text.
זָכוֹר אֵת אֲשׁר עָשׂה לְךָ עֲמָלֵק בּדּרֶךְ בְּצֵֽאתְכֶם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם: אֲשׁר קָֽרְךָ בּדּרֶךְ וַיְזַנּב בְּךָ כּל-הַנּחֱשׁלִים אַֽחֲרֶיךָ וְאַתּה עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ וְלֹא יָרֵא אֱלֹהִֽים:
“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt – how undeterred by fear for God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.”

The text explains, that therefore once we enter the land the Lord our God is giving us, that we are to:
תִּמְחֶה אֶת-זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם, לֹא תּשְׁכּח:
Wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven – Do not forget!

Much has been said about this dual mitzvah of wiping out the memory of Amalek while also not forgetting - but I think these verses, the rituals associated with them, and the context in which they are contained, have much to teach us as we commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Firstly, these verses validate a very natural, if uncomfortable, human emotion – and that is anger in the face of evil. We were so angry after 9/11 – and in many ways we still are; and we have a right to be. It is impossible for us to understand how other human beings, purporting to be religious individuals would conceive of, plan and execute an attack on thousands of innocent men, women, children and heroic first-responders. Another NPR story I heard yesterday told me of a young couple from Attleboro and P’tucket, destined to be married, they left Logan airport for a trip to Hawaii before they started graduate school. Now, all one mother has to remind her of the physical presence of her daughter are her credit cards which were recovered in the rubble.

This makes me angry. I am incensed and enraged – and the Torah tells me that I am allowed to be. We are allowed to harbor anger towards those who would do this to us, and we are even permitted to seek out their destruction. Perhaps this is why I understood, even if I squirmed, while watching the impromptu, visceral reaction to the killing of Osama Bin Laden: USA, USA, USA.

But our rabbis in their wisdom taught us something else about this anger: It cannot be allowed to run rampant controlling our every action – instead it must be contained through the art of ritual – And so we read these verses twice a year – once in their regular cycle as part of parashat Ki Teitzei; and once as the musaf reading for Parashat Zakhor, the reading before the holiday of Purim. And we are given one day, just one day, each year to blot out the memory of Amalek, to shout at the top of our lungs and indeed to rejoice at his demise.
One day - and we call it Purim – and then we must move on with our lives.

Secondly, we as Jews have the obligation to understand these verses not as an island floating in the humash – but rather, as an intentional part of the larger parasha – parashat Ki Teitzei. And so therefore, we are allowed to be angry, we are allowed to seek revenge – but not out of the context of the other moral commandments found in this morning’s parasha:
You must return a person’s lost items – you cannot ignore them.
You must not abuse a needy laborer; you must pay his wages on the same day.
And, You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless – remember that you were once a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there – therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment.

The message of this morning’s parasha, as a whole, is clear. You are allowed to be angry, you are allowed to seek justice and retribution in the face of evil – but not if it means sacrificing the morality we seek in our everyday lives and in our interactions with our fellow human beings.

Finally, one last word about Parashat Zakhor. The commentators have long noted that this section of verses is unique in that it speaks in the second person singular. Remember what Amalek did to YOU (L’khah), not Lakhem. Therefore You (L’khah) must blot out his memory, You (singular) must not forget.

Rabbi Simhah Bunim of Pesischa understands this language as supremely important. He explains that in moments of tragedy, when we come under attack from the forces of evil – we become one, united in purpose and in principle. And when we are united as one people, Rabbi Simhah explains, Ein Amalek Sholeit Bahem – Amalek cannot even touch them.

Another part of our superior autobiographical memory that day was the Achdut – the unity we felt as a nation in the weeks and indeed in the year that followed the attacks. People were kinder to one another. People were more willing to see the humanity in the stranger, to reach out to help the widow and the orphan. We felt as though we were one, and we were stronger because of it.

Ten years later, the power of forgetting has overwhelmed us. We feel fractured as a nation, and we are. People seem to be overwhelmed by hatred, not just for the stranger, but for their fellow citizens as well. Civility is disappearing, anger has consumed us, in short, we have lost our moral context.

May it be God’s will that this year, this tenth year, be the year of our remembering – recalling that feeling of ahdut, of unity as a people; and may it be the year in which the words of a long-gone leader of our nation, delivered some 148 years ago finally ring true in our ears and in God’s world:
“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”