Why do we remember? Memorials, silences and where no words can be said.

Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi wrote a book compiling his essays on the subject of Judaism and memory in 1982; in it, he argued that academic scholarship and historical 'truth' have been disconnected from popular memory since the 19th Century. Up till then, Judaism saw history as a grand divine narrative, starting with Adam and culminating in the Moshiach. The passage of time was never seen as relevant apart from its religious meaning. Wars, plagues and tragedies were seen as essentially the same thing - a reminder from God to repent. But after the nineteenth century when secular scholars began placing historical events in their own context, the history of religion and the academic scholar permanently divided.

Amos Fukenstein critiqued this position by suggesting that a. It is difficult to describe a people as remembering in one particular way, individuals remember not people ( a classic postmodern critique which is then qualified by mentioning that there can still be many shared traditions and experiences) and this has varied over the centuries with Rambam and renaissance thinkers having more of a 'realist' view of history 2. The German Academics of the 19th century were also writing for a Jewish audience with similar aspirations to themselves, to become emancipated, enlightened and universalist in nature. They shared the popular mindset of the Reformers. 

But the overall point remains strong: In classical Jewish sources until the 19th century, the importance of remembering is how to respond to God's signs in history. It is a call to action or a call to repentance. During our fast days which are held on days commemorating a tragedy, we are not told to analyse the details of the day - the kinnot are fairly thin in historical detail - but rather to cry out to our father in heaven for repentance. Memorials and silences out of respect might cause introspection but they do not contain the implication that we must or can do something about this memory. 

But then comes Holocaust memorial day. The most difficult of topics to think about. In fact, one of the reasons I have avoided studying modern history is because I simply cannot grasp the enormity of the holocaust in a way which comes close to being detached (Not that any scholar is ever completely detached from their sources but there is definitely a spectrum).

The academic, prosaic mindset can't grasp it. Perhaps here are the borders of scholarship, where data and interpretation must concede that they can go no further. Here, in my opinion, is also an excellent example of the tension between traditional religion and modernity. 

Many in the chareidi/ frum world have given speeches over the years about how the ignorant 'secularist' Israeli government insist on making another Shoah day whilst ignoring Tish'a B'Av. The Jewish position, they say with some justification, would be to place the holocaust in the overall narrative of Jewish suffering in history. 

But to the modern mind, the indiscriminate systematic and comprehensive evil of the Shoah cannot be simply placed in a system which seems to lay blame on its victims. It can never be justified or understood by adding it to a religious narrative of history, as if this explains it. It cannot be seen as part of something else. To give explanations that focus on punishment seems so short-sighted, cruel and foolish. 

And yet religion is significant only to the extent that the individual can have a personal, intimate and unmediated relationship with the divine. A God who loves us.
The mind has reached its limits. Silence now. 

Thinking back to various figures who either directly or implicitly told us that we had a duty to do something to preserve the memories of those who were murdered, perhaps you didn't understand that sometimes no words can be said. That sometimes the lessons you taught are cheap and cruelly manipulative and stab us with pangs of guilt. Perhaps you should have stayed silent about that which you cannot speak. 

Perhaps I can conclude in my own mind that although as a Jew painful collective memories must be used to stir us to action, sometimes it is up to us to decide the relationship between that memory and our action, for to draw links between the two implying a causal relationship assumes an omniscience that I nor any other human being can ever have.