The Responsibility of Individual Memory

The Responsibility of Individual Memory
D’var Torah for Parashat Bo
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
January 27, 2012


The Hebrew word zachor appears only a handful of times in the Torah. The command mode of “remember,” the grammatical form of zachor addresses us individually, commanding each of us, individually and personally, to remember. The memory is to be more than a collective one; it is always to be also a personal memory, connected somehow to our own personal story.

The first time zachor appears, it is in context of the Sabbath. Even though Shabbat is a collective holiday, observed and celebrated by the Jewish people as a whole, it is also meant to establish an individual connection between God and each one of us. It reminds us that the image of God, the Creator, is embedded in each and every human being. It isn’t enough that other Jews celebrate Shabbat; I need to observe it. Holiness isn’t achieved only by association, but also through a unique and personal connection with God.

Another collective memory that is given personal context in the Torah is that of the evil tribe of Amalek. One of the enemies that the Israelite people encountered during the forty years of wandering in the Sinai Wilderness, the Amalekites attacked the rear of the Israelite camp, decimating the very people that God commands us to help—the women and children, the sick, the old, the weary and the despondent. In this context, the personal form of zachor carries a powerful message: Evil, even when perpetrated against someone else—and particularly the weak—is an assault against all of us and, simultaneously, against each one of us.

In this week’s Torah portion, “Bo,” (Exodus 10:1-13:16) the word zachor appears once again.

In the midst of the upheaval caused by the final three plagues that strike the Egyptians (locust, pitch darkness and the death of the first-born), the Israelites are commanded to prepare for the exodus. Collectively (yet by households), they are told to slaughter a lamb and cook it, use some of its blood to mark their doorposts as a sign for the Destroyer to pass over their houses, even to mark this very day as a day of remembrance for all times and generations. The emergence of the Israelite people is forever to be marked in our calendars as a national holiday marked by communal ritual and celebration.

Yet immediately following these community commands, Moses turns to each Israelite and, using the personal form of the verb “remember,” zachor, commands each and every one of us to take individual responsibility in this commemoration, to see this not only as a collective story of redemption, but rather as our own, personal redemption from slavery (Ex. 13:3).

It is a command reiterated in the Passover Haggadah: In every generation, every person must see him- or herself as if he or she had personally left Egypt.

This doesn’t mean merely that if our ancestors had stayed in Egypt, we, their descendants would still be slaves. It is that, yet more, too. What this teaching has us remember is that freedom carries with it individual responsibility. We are—each of us—responsible for ourselves but, additionally, also for one another and for the nation as a whole.

That we have internalized this commandment is evident in our reaction whenever we hear of the accomplishments of a fellow Jew. We are quick to take collective pride in his or her success. On the other hand, we cringe when we read of the misdeeds of a fellow Jew. The shame spreads quickly among all of us. The same sort of community consciousness is behind our collective efforts to help other people—Jewish or not—who may find themselves endangered or oppressed. It isn’t by coincidence that we see Jews active in every struggle for human rights. It wasn’t only the fall of the Soviet Union that brought the release of over a million and a half Jews from Soviet captivity. It was the hard and courageous work carried out by many of our brethren in Israel and America and elsewhere in the world.

The command “zachor” that we encounter in this week’s portion carries an important message. Coming between the commandment to distinguish between the holiness of Shabbat and the evil of Pharaoh (who, as you might remember, not only enslaved our people but also carried out a genocide against it, drowning male newborns in the Nile River), the purpose of the individual command here is to make a similar distinction in our own lives. Free people—which we were, at that moment, becoming—have the power to choose. Imbued with equal capacities for evil as for holiness, each of us has the power to decide which path he or she will follow.

It isn’t—God forbid!—mass murder that the Torah would have us stay away from. Evil doesn’t always express itself in the most extreme way. It is enough to ignore the cry of the broken-hearted, to turn a deaf ear to the pleas of oppressed; it is enough to blame someone else for the hurt we ourselves may have caused; it is enough to judge someone for their color, religion, gender or gender identification.
Freedom means we have the choice of helping or hurting. It’s as simple as that. The singular form of the command to remember this, zachor, has us bear in mind that we can’t merely depend on someone else to fulfill this sacred mission. It’s the responsibility that from now on each of us must shoulder. Each human being is accountable for his or her choices, for better or for worse.

It’s an awesome task, a sacred task.

Remember this.
© 2012 by Boaz D. Heilman