That Good Is Increased

Rabbi's Notes - April 2001

by Rabbi Margaret Holub

A friend of mine recently experienced a kind of therapy and told me a bit about it right afterwards. This isn't even all he said, much less all that actually happened in his session. But a piece of his account struck me deeply. Apparently he was asked to tell the story of his childhood in some detail -- not a surprising beginning to a therapy session. But then he was asked to go back and make up a totally different story: in this one he had two parents who were thrilled to give birth to him, who raised him wisely and lovingly amidst happy siblings and supportive friends. He filled in the details from each age of his new, imaginary childhood. The premise seemed to be that if his present-day difficulties came from roots in childhood rejection and deprivation, he could give himself another set of stories from which to spring forward into the present day. Instead of old recollections of abandonment and resentment triggering present-day feelings of rejection, his made-up past of love and acceptance would trigger present-tense feelings of confidence and embrace. "After all," he said, "my childhood is just memories."

It is obviously true that our present-tense experience springs in some measure from our past. In particular there is an emotional present -- anxieties, feelings of loss and abandonment, anger, as well as present-day delights -- that springs directly from our childhood experience. Or, perhaps, this emotional present springs from our memories, the stories we have within us about our childhood, regardless of what "actually" happened. Maybe we can just as well replace that dysfunctional story we think of as reality with a more sustaining version...

I had this conversation with my friend just a couple of days after Purim, right when I was first starting to think in earnest about Pesach coming. These days I am also deep in reading Elie Wiesel and thinking about the theological and psycho-social issues that arise from the holocaust. The other day I saw among the comics on a friend's fridge that old saw: "Jewish holidays in summary: they tried to kill us/ we won/ let's eat." And finally, just this morning I got a bulletin from the Campaign for Secure Dwellings telling me that in the past few weeks, after a long hiatus, several Palestinian homes have been demolished in Beit Ummar, where "my" family (with whom I am matched as an advocate) lives under demolition threat.

All of which has me thinking with new urgency about childhood memories -- not my own but those of the Jewish people, particularly the Purim/Pesach/Yom Hashoah axis in which we find ourselves right now. Purim: Haman arose with a plot to commit genocide against the Jews and was thwarted by, depending on how you tell it, feminine wiles, Jewish self-defense or the hidden Divine hand. Pesach: A new Pharaoh arose with a plot to commit genocide against the Jews and was thwarted by, depending on how you tell it, the Divine hand, a great political leader, or a massive proletarian uprising. Yom Ha-shoah: Hitler arose with a plot to commit genocide against the Jews and, no matter how you tell it, was not thwarted until six million were murdered. Part of the tale, if you choose to tell it this way, is that the present state of Israel would not exist were it not for the holocaust, and so, even though it is no recompense for all that was destroyed, at least it is some evidence that "am Yisroel chai" -- "the Jewish people lives!" Some also see the Divine hand somewhere in this equation.

This is our collective childhood, if you like, the memories that form us. And of course, in contrast, perhaps, to those spiritual practices which train people to "live in the moment," Jewish spiritual practice is all about living in a present which is fully informed by the past (and the future as well -- every moment is seen, if you like, as suspended between the "root experiences" of our collective history and the eventual resolution of history in the coming of a messiah or a messianic age.) Judaism is a spiritual practice which sanctifies the process of memory. The theologian Emil Fackenheim wrote a brilliant little book called "God's Presence in History," in which he says that the paradigm created for Jews by the root experience of the exodus was shattered by the root experience of the holocaust. I would suggest that they may also be parallel and contiguous memories, the holocaust in some ways reinforcing, not shattering, the memory of the exodus. In both cases: "we were victimized/ we survived." All this deeply embedded within us, repeated in our prayers and songs and stories and holidays, passed in the family and in the shul from generation to generation.

Just as our own childhood memories shape our present experience of life, so too our collective Jewish memory shapes our present experience of life. We want it to -- that's why we have a seder, right? "In every generation we should see ourselves as if we came out of Egypt." But the process by which the past shapes our present is not completely straightforward. Most of us know siblings who grew up in the same troubled home: one becomes a criminal and the other a social worker. If you don't, then read John Edgar Wideman's "Brothers and Keepers." Likewise we see people like Elie Wiesel, whose process of memory has led him to be an impassioned spokesperson for present-day victims of violence and political oppression, whether Miskito Indians or Soviet Jews or all of us in the shadow of the nuclear arms race. And we also see Jews for whom the same memory completely justifies acts of violence and oppression against anyone perceived to be a threat.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow and others have written persuasively about how the present impasse in Israel/Palestine is fueled by conflicting collective memories and the emotional presents that spring from them: Palestinian historical memory has generated a deep, boiling rage in the young generation, where Jewish historical memory has generated an equally deep terror of annihilation in its young. Rage meets terror, and one fuels the other. One can argue -- but cannot win the point -- that neither side tells its story accurately, that "it didn't really happen that way." It is every bit as difficult with history as it is with childhood to be accurate in forming memory. And religions and cultures don't usually strive for accuracy as they form their historical memories out of whatever actually happened. Still, both sides have their memories, and both sides, in their own ways, sacralize the process of transmitting memory to the new generation and letting the past shape the present. In both sides, strength and nobility spring from these memories; and in both sides fear and outrage spring from the same source.

After I talked to my friend about his experience in therapy, I started to wonder if perhaps we should just make up a new past for the Jewish people. Imagine: we were created by a loving Parent and placed on a beautiful earth, where we have enjoyed friendship and respect of other peoples and other species over the millennia. As we have moved from place to place, we have been welcomed and have enjoyed cultural exchange with other peoples to our mutual enrichment. Because of this nurturant past, we have deep wellsprings of respect for others and a general glowing gratitude for the gift of life. We know that as a people we have gifts to share to help fix what is broken -- we have the confidence and the ingenuity for the task, and a humble recognition that other nations each have their own gifts to offer, so that "ours is not to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it..."

I'll take it! But, fortunately or unfortunately, memories are not so easy to uproot and replace. They lodge deep in our bodies and in our psyches. In one instant memory gives us confidence, in another instant fear. In one situation we find it easy to trust someone, in another we are completely at loggerheads. In one instance our memory of the exodus from Egypt gives us confidence in divine redemption to sustain us through present threat and loss. In another moment our memory of Haman's depradations causes us to suspect and oppose even the most innocent incursions from a neighbor.

So my question for this Pesach season is this: how can we allow the process of memory to enlarge us and not diminish us? Given the family that we Jews all come from, how do we become the child who works for peace and well-being and not the child who grows up to be a murderer? That story we are commanded to talk about all night -- about the Pharaoh, slavery, Moses, the Red Sea splitting, the soldiers and their horses drowning, the angels rejoicing -- how do we carry that memory forward so it springs into love, justice and delight in the present day rather than creating more slavery?

Our memories are what they are. But we are not helpless in the face of them. Many of us have worked with our own personal memories so that they spring forward into the present in ways that favor health and generosity of spirit instead of helplessness, outrage and terror. We have done therapy, we have meditated, we have forgiven and reconciled and worked to enlarge our perspectives through a host of strategies.

This year I will think about the Passover seder as something just a little bit like a therapy session (but tastier and more fun) -- in which the task is not just to tell the story, but to work with it, examine it, sit with it, meditate on it, pray about it. The task of the seder session is to try to find the engine which transforms raw memory into fuel for a vibrant and loving present-tense life. And THEN pass it on the the next generation.

But how??? We are not the first to ask this question, by any means. Take a look at a Santa Cruz Haggadah, written in the 'eighties and chock-full of questions for personal journaling, or the San Diego Women's Haggadah with its "lo dayyeinu" -- "it is not enough" for women to get access to birth control without also getting equal pay, etc., or the venerable Freedom Haggadah, which quotes "the Prophet Allen Ginsberg" for its maggid and has us sing "We Shall Overcome." Or take a hint from the five sages in B'nei Brak, whose story we read at the beginning of the seder. They talked about the exodus from Egypt until it was time for the morning shema, and we all know that they were plotting the overthrow of the Roman occupation in the Bar Kochba revolt. Or take heart from that ancient diversity activist who slipped the reading about the four different kinds of children all sitting together at the seder table into the haggadah.

Events happen to people. Memories are formed and embed themselves in bodies and psyches. But what people draw from them and bring into the present is ultimately the transformative work of their own spirits. Slavery happened. Redemption happened. We remember deep within, because our ancestors kept telling the story, because in some mystical fashion we were there. But what we do with it today is up to us. I offer to you this kavvanah, this intention, for your seder table this year: "May we fulfill the mitzvah to speak of the exodus from Mitzrayim tonight in such a way that good is increased for the world through us today and tomorrow." Have a happy and a blessed Pesach, my dear community!

Copyright 2001 Rabbi Margaret Holub

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