Please Don't Bury Our Souls: the Fear of Being Forgotten

I shared the following message with the Temple Israel community on the last day of Passover, right before Yizkor:

A poignant article appeared in the recent Sunday magazine section of the Times about two female African-American blues singers in the 1920’s and 30’s who are very highly regarded by the small group who knows them, but otherwise quite obscure.

There are very few remaining recordings of their songs and a major search was required in order to shed a bit of light on their lives and music.

One of the women, Geeshie Wiley, sang a song called "Last Kind Words," in which she implores, "If I get killed, please don’t bury my soul."  

The irony is that in a sense the actual singer’s soul was nearly buried, despite the persistent efforts of some ardent fans of her work to keep the work, the memory, her soul alive, the soul of a woman who, it appears, had a difficult life not unlike the lives evoked in her music.

Fear of death is one thing.  Fear of having one’s essence buried, fear of being forgotten – is, I believe, even more powerful.

On this final day of Passover, I want to ask us to consider our fear of being forgotten, as well as what we should do, communally and individually, to the extent that we acknowledge that fear.

Passover seems to me the proper occasion for this conversation because Passover constitutes an extended, multi-generational, multi-sensory response on a national level to the near-obsessive desire we have that we, along with our experiences, not be forgotten.  While the impulse is universal, I believe that Jews have responded to it with a unique degree of intensity and resourcefulness.  

The Torah’s account of the preparation for the Exodus from Egypt does two things simultaneously.  It records the preparation for the events and it also records the preparation for how those events would be remembered. 

The Israelites weren’t just told, prepare the lamb, put the blood on the doorpost, get ready to leave.  They were also told, when your children subsequently ask you about the ritual that you will continue to do, tell them the following.

Consider that the Israelites, even before the event took place, were asked to bear in mind how the event would be remembered.   The rituals enacted during the actual leaving of Egypt were supposed to be reproduced to some degree each year following the leaving of Egypt so that it would be remembered.

And then, in the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, the later rabbinic traditions, and in ritual and in prayer, the leaving of Egypt was remembered, as was the slavery itself. 

Every Shabbat when we hold a glass of wine and say Kiddush, we recite the words זכר ליציאת מצרים zekher liy'tziyat mitzrayim, declaring that one of the purposes of Shabbat is to remind us of leaving Egypt.  Shabbat, the day of rest, is ultimately a day of freedom and it’s linked to the liberation from Egypt.

Before we say the Amida, we recall the moment when our ancestors sang their victory song at the other end of the sea. That means that before we approach God in the most central prayer we recite each day, we remind ourselves of the time when our ancestors successfully crossed the sea, when, with God’s help, they found a path forward that they didn’t know existed.

And throughout the Torah, the experience of slavery was to be “remembered,” even by generations that didn’t directly experience it, as a way to sensitize them to the needs of the underprivileged among them.

Remembering Passover’s events has multiple implications, including the understanding of Shabbat as a day of freedom, the recalling of the crossing of the sea prior to prayer as a reminder of the possibility of overcoming adversity, the recollection of slavery lived or transmitted as a motivation to defend other people’s basic rights. 

In our own day, Rav Kook wrote the following:   The people of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt will forever mark the springtime for all humankind.

We are extremely preoccupied with memory, so much so that before events occur, and certainly while they are occurring, we are already thinking about how they will be remembered and what impact the remembering will have on us and on others.

In our own day, we have struggled, and continued to struggle, with wanting the Shoah to be remembered and wondering how it should be remembered.

We know that many Jews, during the depths of the horror of the Shoah, hid family heirlooms, religious articles of value, and written accounts of their experiences in the hope that future generations would discover them.

If I get killed, please don’t bury my soul indeed.

Looking at Passover as a template, I wonder:

To what extent will we memorialize the Shoah as part of our liturgy?  Will this occur only on Yom Hashoah or will it impact prayer more regularly?

I believe, by the way, that we need to emphasize specific rituals that mark Yom Hashoah, the way that we have rituals to mark the low points like Tisha b’Av and the high points like Hanukkah and Purim, to ensure that Yom Hashoah will continue to be observed.

The lighting of the yellow candle is probably the most universally observed ritual for Yom Hashoah.  It may well outlast other rituals that have evolved.

And what will the memory of the Shoah yield?  What will the implications of remembering the Shoah?

I had mixed reactions when my son forwarded me a link to the story about the leaflets handed out to Jews leaving Passover services in the Ukraine, insisting that they register.   On the one hand, I felt disgust that it was happening.  On the other hand, I felt some measure of gratitude that he understood the implications of the leaflets and introduced the link with a comment to the effect of, “here we go again.” 

Why do we teach our children about the Shoah?  In part to understand the tragic events of the past and in part to ensure vigilance against similar events occurring the future.

A group of Jews being asked to register with the government as Jews – whether sponsored by the state or initiated by a fringe group - should set off alarms. 

And I would add, in keeping with the trajectory of Passover memory, that the experience of the Shoah should increase our vigilance when we see the seeds of intolerance start to sprout toward any group regardless of their religion or ethnicity.

And now, I want us to think of this in personal terms.  As individuals, we don’t just want to live, we want to be remembered when we’re gone.  Whether we want to be famous, or just remembered by the people close to us, I don’t believe any of us would be thrilled to imagine that we will slip away one day and no one will give us a second thought.

Since on the national scale, the Jewish people seed memory in advance by considering how events should be remembered while they are occurring, we have good precedent for doing that on a personal level.

Why not ask the question, how can we increase the likelihood that our priorities, proclivities and values will be remembered by those close to us?

The answers will vary from person to person, but perhaps they include writing things down in the form of a so-called ethical will, or spending one on one time with the people we love. 

I want to share something which I hope others will find reassuring.  When my sisters and I get together, we share memories of our parents that are sad and funny, poignant and mundane.

Did my mother know which of her insightful and funny comments would be remembered? 

Did she know that years after I spent the day watching her teach a group of second graders, I would remember some of the things she said and did to engage the children but mostly the incredible love she had for the children and for the work?

Did my father know that, years later, I would remember that when he took me to Dunkin Donuts on the way to Hebrew High School, and pointed out a middle-aged woman who looked sad, working behind the counter, and said, “I have rachmonis for her,” I feel for her, and subsequently gave her an extra tip that morning every time we went, that I would remember? 

And I’m sure all of us have similar kinds of memories, and so my point is, that while we worry about what will be remembered and how, and while we legitimately take steps in that regard, we can also relax a little bit and know that, chances are, more will be remembered than we imagine.

The phrase, Yizkor Elohim et Nishmat…, may God remember the soul of this one or that one, is a Jewish phrase, a Jewish formulation, but it responds to a universal existential concern expressed by many people, including a blues singer, herself descended from slaves.  When we’re gone, please don’t bury our souls.

We whose ancestors left Egypt, who experienced cycles of oppression and redemption, have our own unique way of planting the seeds of memory.

May our ample historic precedent and our intuition of divine memory continue to give us the tools to plant those seeds and to tend to them so that even when our body no longer exist, our souls can continue to soar. 

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on the Eighth Day of Passover, April 22, 2014