Don’t Forget How to Remember

Parashat Ekev, Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25

Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue, Los Angeles

Remembering and not forgetting is a major issue in life, as it is in this week’s parasha.

In our very first verses we read. “Because you are listening to these rules, keeping and obeying them, Adonai your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy that he swore to your ancestors.” The kind of listening Moses highlights is the kind that results in appropriate action. If we are to apply God’s word to us, we must remember what it says. And this kind of remembering involves deep, attentive, and obedient attention.

Judaism is an auditory religion. That is why our core credo is, “Sh’ma Yisrael: Listen Israel,” and why the visual, idolatry, is foreign to our ethos. In ancient times, before the Gutenberg press, hearing was the faculty used to take in God’s Word. This is why we so frequently discover the Bible admonishing us to listen, rather than to read!

Life repeatedly teaches us to connect paying attention and remembering. When is the last time you couldn’t find your cell phone, your keys, or your glasses? And why was that? Wasn’t it because you failed to pay attention to where you put them. Yes it was!

Paying attention is essential to remembering. So is repetition, which is likely why our text repeatedly mentions remembering and not forgetting. The repetition is there to prevent us from forgetting and to enable us to remember.

In 8:2 we read, “You are to remember everything of the way in which Adonai led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you in order to know what was in your heart — whether you would obey his mitzvot or not.” Moshe adds, “Think deeply about it” (v. 5). In 8:11 we read “be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today.” So we see here that remembering is an essential means toward obedience, which is what Hashem seeks from us. Being careful, that is, paying attention, is essential to success in remembering.

In verse 19, Moshe reminds us why all of this is important: “If you forget Adonai your God, follow other gods and serve and worship them, I am warning you in advance today that you will certainly perish.”

After all this emphasis on God telling us to remember, it is striking that our haftarah begins this way: “Tziyon says, ‘Adonai has abandoned me, Adonai has forgotten me.’ Can a woman forget her child at the breast, not show pity on the child from her womb? Even if these were to forget, I would not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, your walls are always before me.”

Adonai is reporting that his people think he has forgotten them. This indictment against the Holy One is due to the downturn of their fortunes. But he is wrongly indicted. He remembers Israel even more than a woman remembers her child. Our walls are always before him.

For Jews, remembering is holy business. When we remember we bring the past into the present, such that it has the power to stand in judgment over us now.

The past is present in the event that we remember now, and our response to that memory is our response to the event itself and to the saving acts of God.

Each generation of Israel, living in a concrete situation within history, was challenged by God to obedient response through the medium of her tradition. Not a mere subjective reflection, but in the biblical category, a real event as a moment of redemptive time from the past initiated a genuine encounter in the present. (Brevard Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel)

The events of Israel’s redemption were such significant realizations in history of divine redemptive intervention that, together with the rituals, rites, and commandments they entail, they have the authority to assess each successive generation of Israel, including ours. Our response to these events, rites, rituals, and obligations, is our response to God. And we are accountable. Even though we may wish to avoid this accountability, we cannot.

The Haggadah, echoing the Talmud, agrees. It reminds us, “In every generation a man is bound to regard himself as though he personally had gone forth from Egypt.” Torah tells us of Passover, “This will be a day for you to remember (v’haya hayom hazzeh lachem l’zikkaron)” (Exod 12:14).

The holy past is no mere collection of data to be recalled, but a continuing reality to be honored . . . or desecrated. As a zikkaron, a holy memorial, the redemption from Egypt is so authoritatively present with us at the seder, that a cavalier attitude toward the seder marks as “The Wicked Son,” unworthy of redemption, anyone who fails to accord it due respect. In this remembrance, the holy past is present with power, assessing our response.

That such past-evoking rituals have intrusive and unavoidable authority to judge our response is proven in Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Table. In First Corinthians 11, he states that those who fail to discern the reality present among them in the ritual of remembrance, who drink the Lord’s cup and eat the bread in an unworthy manner, desecrate the body and blood of the Lord and eat and drink judgment upon themselves. He makes this point unambiguous when he states, “This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died” (1 Cor 11:23–31).

Because of this numinous power of holy remembrance, honoring the holy Jewish past and the holy Jewish future as re-presented in the liturgy, ritual, and calendar of our people must become a lived reality in our movement. Our only other option is to dishonor God and to trifle with his saving acts. I think it no exaggeration to say that failure to properly honor our holy past is just as truly an act of desecration as was the failure of the Corinthians to honor the body and blood of Messiah present in their midst in the bread and the wine.

Don’t forget how to remember. It’s serious business.

Scripture references are from Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).