The Art of Remembering: Parshat Bo 5770

We human beings are a forgetful folk.
No matter how hard we try, we are constantly forgetting things. Often they are relatively small things, an email we needed to respond to, an errand we needed to run or a phone call to a friend we meant to make. But sometimes, they are important things, like your mother’s birthday, or that it was your turn to pick the kids up from school, or even your anniversary. No matter what we try, inevitably we end up forgetting something along the way.

Throughout the years, there have been many different attempts at solving the human predilection for forgetting. For example, there is the common tradition of tying a string around your finger as a reminder of something important; but lately this has become impractical. After all, how many of us always have a little piece of string at the ready to tie around our finger at a moment’s notice? Furthermore, even though a string may serve as a good reminder to do something, what it doesn’t do is remind us what exactly we needed to do. This could lead to a series of strings tied to a series of fingers each reminding us what the previous string was supposed to indicate!

I once heard of another clever approach to prevent this ancient practice of forgetting; this one suggests that whenever we have a moment of remembering and need to ensure that we will not forget, we should place a shoe on the toilet seat. This way, the next morning, when we see this shoe oddly out of place, it will jog our memory and we will no doubt succeed in remembering the task at hand. But this approach is also fatally flawed. First off, there is rarely an easy-to-find shoe in my bathroom, and even if there was, due to my absent-mindedness I could easily imagine a situation when I would spend fifteen minutes the next morning searching for my missing shoe!

Finally, there are now technological innovations which can help us to remember when our human frailties urge us to forget. I am constantly scheduling reminders in my phone, which will then beep or vibrate, revealing a detailed message of the task that is at hand. The trouble is that sometimes the phone is in the other room, and occasionally I will say to myself: “yeah, well that one can wait a bit,” and there is no procrastination feature which automatically sets a new reminder.

Nowadays there are even popular email services which will send you a friendly reminder message in your inbox, telling you that today is mom’s birthday; though it won’t make the phone call for you!

There must be literally thousands of ways we have invented to try and remind ourselves of things, but no matter what we do, sometimes we still end up forgetting. I guess it must be built into our DNA; we human beings have become professional forgetters.

But don’t feel bad! Sometimes it is nice to remind ourselves that we are not alone, people have always been this way. How do we know? Simple, because it is in today’s Torah portion.

In this morning’s Torah portion, Parshat Bo, we learn of the origin of one of the world’s most ancient anti-forgetting device, otherwise known as t’fillin.

As the Children of Israel make their hurried way out of Egypt, they are told in no uncertain terms that when they arrive at their fated destination in the Holy Land, they must do everything in their power to remember that God took them out with a strong arm and an outstretched hand. The Torah informs them, and through them, it informs us, that in each and every generation we are to commemorate the Exodus with a festival for God. And in each and every age we are told that we must teach this to our children, and say to them “It is because of what the Lord did for me, when I came out of Egypt!”

But then, in what seems to be somewhat of a non-sequitur we are told:
וְהָיָה לְךָ לְאוֹת עַל-יָֽדְךָ וּלְזִכָּרוֹן בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ לְמַעַן תִּֽהְיֶה תּוֹרַת יְהוָֹה בְּפִיךָ כִּי בְּיָד חֲזָקָה הוֹצִֽאֲךָ יְהוָֹה מִמִּצְרָֽיִם:

“And it shall be for you as a sign upon your hand, and as a reminder between your eyes, in order that the teachings of the LORD shall always be in your mouth, for it was with a strong hand that the LORD took you out of Egypt.”

What is clear from this verse is the sense that the experience of leaving Egypt is so paramount to our people that we must do everything in out power to ensure that we do not forget; that despite our distance in both time and space from this event, we nonetheless must try to see ourselves as though we were the ones who left Egypt. But what is unclear is whether or not the Torah is being literal or metaphorical. Are we literally supposed to wear a sign upon our arms and between our eyes at all times in order that we not forget, or perhaps, the Torah using a linguistic tool which really means: keep this story close to you, wear it on your hearts, and keep its message before your eyes always.


It should not surprise us to learn that the rabbis and the commentators spent a lot of their time discussing this very issue! The famous medieval commentator Rashi explains that this verse is specifically telling us to write down these verses on tiny pieces of parchment in order that we should bind them to our head and upon our arm. For Rashi, this is the source of the rabbinic ritual of t’fillin, two boxes, one to be worn on the head, one to be worn on the arm, each containing a series of parshiyot, sections, from our Torah which refer to this concept of literally wearing a reminder of God’s majesty upon our bodies.

However, the Rashbam, Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, Rashi’s grandson clearly disagrees with the interpretation of his grandfather on the true intent of this verse. (Clearly, even Rashi is not immune to the complications of family conflict.) For the Rashbam, the p’shat, or the plain meaning of the text is clear! He writes:
‘According to the true intent of the verse, it teaches us that we should constantly try to remember the Exodus, k’ilu, as though it were always written upon our hand. And when it says, we should wear it between our eyes, what it really means is that God’s special relationship with us should be like a piece of jewelry we wear on our foreheads, making us beautiful.’
So which is it? Is the verse trying to tell us that we should literally wear these verses on our person at all times, or is it meant as a spiritual metaphor encouraging us to never forget what God did for our people in Egypt?

Well, in what no doubt is a strange coincidence of history, generations before our medieval commentators, the Rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud clearly decided to go the route of the string tied around the finger. In so doing, they created t’fillin: the ritual of encapsulating small pieces of parchment into two leather boxes and then wearing these boxes between our eyes, and upon our arm, closest to our hearts.

For us as modern Jews however, this ancient ritual of t’fillin can sometimes be difficult for us to connect with. For some it is a clear example of the comically-literal nature of the rabbis, and therefore something that no longer holds meaning in our more refined world. For others it is just plain strange; a ritual which awakens in us that most uncomfortable feeling of ‘otherness’, making us feel strangely foreign in our beloved, melting-pot society.

In fact a timely example of this sense of ‘otherness’ that t’fillin can cause in our modern world came across the newswire on Thursday, when it was reported that a plane on its way from New York to Kentucky was diverted to Philadelphia due to a terrorist scare. What was the suspicious incident which caused this diversion: A seventeen year old boy was putting on his t’fillin to pray the morning prayers. No wonder some of us may be hesitant to lay t’fillin, it is seen by others as so foreign and so unusual to warrant suspicion, or worse, even arrest!

But for others, myself included, there are incredible spiritual benefits for fulfilling this ancient mitzvah. There is a special moment for me each morning when I say the Sh’ma while wearing my t’fillin. It is a moment of consciousness. It is the sense of being in the moment; the feeling of perfect precision, when we find ourselves engaged in the very ritual our liturgy is describing. For others of us the meaning of the mitzvah of T’fillin comes from the sense of enwrapping ourselves in the text, in our community, in God’s sheltering presence. For many of us, we can’t help but pause and feel that stunning sense of nostalgia each time we wear the very same pair of t’fillin that our fathers and our grandfather’s wore…(and in another generation of time) that our mother’s wore.

And so finally, I want to conclude by returning to the perpetual problem of forgetting. It’s true; we human beings are a forgetful folk. Despite our best intentions we try and we fail to remember things; big and small. But one of the functions of religion in general, and of the Jewish commandments in particular is to be a string tied around the finger of our spiritual selves. T’fillin are meant to be a daily email sent to your inbox reminding you to remember to live a holy life, to try and emulate God’s ways, to not forget what is truly important. Although they may seem a bit strange, and these days could even be the cause of an emergency landing, they are meant to wake us up from our spiritual slumber, to enlighten us to the possibility of living a life with purpose. In a world filled with professional forgetters, wouldn’t you want to be counted among those who practice the ancient art of remembering?

Shabbat Shalom.