The past is never as far away as we first imagine. At CSS, we have congregants ranging from over a century to just born. Take Jennie Pohl, only a few months removed from her 100th birthday, and still vital, volunteering in our office every Wednesday. In her lifetime she has come in contact with individuals born well before the Civil War. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I think of my youngest son Noam, born in 2013, who with any luck may make it to the next century, and may, in his life span, come in contact with those who may live into the century following. Together there are possibly four hundred years of human history in their collective grasp.
When we are told in this week’s Torah portion, Shemot, the beginning of Exodus that “a pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph,” it is a severing of that history. And the consequences are grave, a people once considered friends have now become enemies. This fact will set in motion the entire narrative. It begs the question, how do we ensures remembrance? If not, as Winston Churchill once said, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
In essence, the entire enterprise of Judaism is designed to remember. Our rituals and stories overlap and intertwine. We retell and retell and retell some more, as the Talmud commands, “turn it, turn it, everything is in it.” Most essentially, we do not segregate by generation, but encourage conversation between them. From Jennie to Noam there are many lessons on how to live, how to endure and, most importantly, how to remember.