The blessing and curse of remembering

My grandmother of blessed memory lived to 103. I’d like to think we had a special relationship. For years, since my grandfather died, I phoned her every day. Sometimes we’d speak for a while, sometimes for just a few minutes, but we always spoke. And although as the years went by, the conversations became increasingly one-sided, overall she knew what was going on.

So you can imagine the shock I had after visiting her in a nursing home during one visit to Sydney. I had just left a few minutes earlier when I remembered I’d left something behind. When I returned, for just a moment, she looked at me with a completely blank expression and I realized that she didn’t know who I was. And just like that, her eyes lit up again and she returned to herself. It was a stark reminder of the frailty of age and our memory’s role in maintaining who we are.

This past Friday morning, as I was driving around looking for good bakery to buy a yeast cake for Shabbat (cinnamon, if you want to know), I was listening to an interview on the radio about how people were coping during wartime while caring for a family member with dementia. The interviewer posed a question to the expert as to whether the condition might actually be a blessing for the sufferers and their families. After all, for an elderly person, what good can could come out of retaining knowledge of everything coming out of the media? Many of them would have been directly affected in one way or another, with friends or family members who were killed, injured – or still kidnapped in Gaza. The expert agreed, that for these people, not remembering probably is a blessing.

Just a few minutes ago, my step daughter mentioned she’d heard accounts of survivors from the October 7 massacre who had committed suicide. Ostensibly, due to an inability to reconcile being alive with the horrors that befell those around them. It’s just another tragedy that will never make the newspaper headlines in a world obsessed with blaming Jews for troubles that befall us.

But the point is that for these people, forgetting is a luxury they knew they would never have. One can only imagine what for years to come will plague the memories of those who choose to live and start their lives anew. On Facebook, I just watched part of a session between a psychologist and children from one of the kibbutzim who survived the massacre. One girl aged around 8 talked about witnessing things that "children shouldn't ever see." And what about those who with G-d’s help will be released from Hamas captivity, or those who have been permanently injured defending our country, or friends and relatives of those who were killed in battle?

Increasingly, pressure is mounting on Israel to commit to a ceasefire. More often than not, such calls are accompanied by racist, antisemitic chants that have nothing do with reality on the ground. We’re well aware that we’re alone in this battle and the fight for our survival is in our hands and our hands alone.

But fortunately for us, there are people around the world who accompany us in not forgetting the lessons learned from our difficult history. Similarly, I call on you to join us in committing to memory the events of October 7 – even as the world moves on and conveniently fools itself that a cease-fire will put an end to all this madness.