Remembering and Forgetting
When you reap the harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow—in order that Adonai your God may bless you in all your undertakings.Deuteronomy 24:19
The world is filled with remembering and forgettingAs it is with sea and dry land. Yehudah Amichai
Gather round, and listen to a little tale…
Once upon a time, a certain chassid (pious man) was gleaning in his field. As he moved, inch by inch and row by row, it so happened that he forgot one of the sheaves in the field. Some time later, he glanced back. He realized what he had done. And he took off at a run, warbling with joy to find his son!
He said to his son, “I forgot a sheaf! Go, sacrifice on my behalf a bull for a burnt-offering and a bull for a peace-offering!” (These were the customary ways of expressing gratitude and rejoicing in those days.)
Taken off guard by his father’s enthusiasm, his son replied, “Abba, what makes you want to celebrate the joy of this particular mitzvah more than all the other mitzvot in the Torah?”
The chassid answered, “God has given all the other mitzvot in the Torah to be observed consciously, but this one is observed unconsciously. Were we to observe this one of our own deliberate free will, we never would have the opportunity to do it! But we are told, “When you reap the harvest of your field and you forget a sheaf…” The Torah gave it for a blessing. I’ve been hoping to fulfill this mitzvah for years and years, but only now have I been fortuitous enough to finally forget a sheaf. Only now have I finally let this verse live through me.”
And so the father, his son, their whole family, and all the community celebrated with enthusiasm and joy a righteous act of forgetfulness.
(This story is based on Tosefta Pe’ah 3:13.)
I particularly love this story, tucked away within an obscure Jewish text. So much of Jewish practice is about remembering - in fact one of the names for Rosh HaShanah is Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance, in which we yearn to be remembered by God for good in the year ahead. Memory is key to ritual observance, to divine blessing, and to learning lessons from a difficult and rich history. But in this story, the key to success is to forget!
The poet Yehuda Amichai mulled on this theme in his poem “Remembering and Forgetting.”
The world is filled with remembering and forgetting
As it is with sea and dry land. Sometimes memory
Is the dry land that is firm and founded
And sometimes memory is the sea that covers everything
Like in the flood. And it is forgetting that is the dry land like Ararat…
Why is memory dry land? It gives us the foundations to build our own sense of ourselves on. Personal memories, handed down familial stories, and the mythic memories of a people each inform identity, help us make sense of the world, and move us to certain kinds of actions. To forget sweeps us away from ourselves…
And why is memory the sea that floods? Because memory is malleable. Memory is made, not reported, an alloy of experience and imagination. Memory can wash over reality through post-traumatic reactions flowing from the past, or through our fear of letting go of who we think we are in the face of a changing future. Memory smooths over the varied terrain of truth with a fluid and powerful calm.
And then forgetfulness can actually return us to a firm foundation of what is, the dry land of Mt. Ararat (where Noah and his family emerged from the ark.)
In both the story from the Tosefta and Yehuda Amichai’s poem, forgetfulness plays a surprisingly positive role. As we approach the High Holidays, perhaps you will find a new appreciation for the roles remembering and forgetting play in your life. And may both what is remembered and what is forgotten be, as the Torah says, a blessing.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Jay LeVIne
