Memory is Practice - The Repetitive Journeys of Parashat Masei

In “Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory,” Michael Lambeck argues that rather than simply being objective or subjective, memory is performative.  In other words, memory is practice.

One sees this in a therapeutic setting working with only-children versus children with siblings, especially siblings close in age. The siblings often recall more specific narrative details of their childhood than do only-children, whereas only-children will have punctuated memories of the main-events. The theory behind this is that the siblings will go into their room at night and recount the day to each other while the only child will be reminded by their parent(s) or guardian(s) of the events with enough impact to be worthy of family discussion.  This is not to try and weigh in on the debate of having one or multiple children, simply to say that if memory is performative, we will have different types of memory development based on those with whom we partner in life to make and then rehearse the memories as we work on creating a cohesive self-narrative.

Midrash, while commenting on Parashat Masei seems to have advanced understanding of this aspect of human psychology. The beginning of Masei is a recounting of all the way-points on the journey through the wilderness, most of the verses consisting of the type of repetitive passages in Torah where we either doze off or at the least ask “What’s the point?”

In Midrash Tanchuma, a loose series of midrashim and homilies bearing the name of Rav Tanchuma but edited between the 8th and 16th centuries, we are offered a much more sophisticated reading into the repetition. Quoting from Numbers 33:2, “Moses wrote down their goings out to their journeys, by the command of the Eternal,” the midrash comments:

This is comparable to a king whose child was ill, and he took him to another place to heal him. On their return journey, the father recounted all their stations: “Here we slept,” “here we caught cold,” “here your head hurt.” By the same token, the Eternal said to Moses: Recount for them all the places where it was that they had angered Me.

Ignoring for this moment the filter by which Moses was to choose locations, there is a beautiful compassion to this rehearsal of memory. The illusion of memory is that we have perfect recall of anything that matters. To put it more bluntly, if we are in an argument, we are sure that our memory that is supporting our narrative is accurate, and if contradictory to our partner in the dialogue, our first reaction is to be sure of our side and doubt the other.

Yet how many times for how many reasons has our life gone on a bit without our conscious presence in our own drama? Days drone on, routine takes hold, and we blink to find years have passed. We have entered the trance of existence that most Jewish ritual attempts to question.

Looking at this a different way, what does it take for us to realize that because of how memory functions, none of us are reliable narrators of a purely objective life? The Midrash is suggesting that each of our stopping points out of slavery on the way to redemption included moments where at best we moved without consciousness of the movement and at worst we chose to remember differently or not at all because we were not the heroes of the narrative-- we were the ones that disappointed.

Part of the “truth” of Torah and the deeper message of Masei is to remember that we as well rehearse the moments when we have not acted heroically. The month of Elul and our process of asking forgiveness approaches soon, and Masei reminds us to recount even the points of our path where we fell.