Vayeshev: Forgetting and Remembering

Parshat Vayeshev:  Forgetting and Remembering

What is the earliest memory we can recall?

(Examples?)

For me, the earliest memories I have are of my nursery school classroom at Temple Israel in Great Neck, New York.  The corner where we built with blocks.  The aquarium with the turtle.

It was a warm and caring place, and I believe that is one of the main reasons I still remember that classroom. 

It was not all smooth though, as I recall pushing my friend Adam Mazur in a wheelbarrow in the hallway and crunching into the safety glass at the side door.

While we may not remember what we wore or had for lunch as recently as yesterday, powerful memories of goodness and of pain remain with us for a long time, though the impact of these memories may fade, they are not simply part of our brain’s architecture, they are a lens through which we perceive ourselves, the course of our lives, and our place in the world.

For Yosef, for Joseph, a defining moment in his journey from the pit where his brothers tossed him to becoming Pharaoh’s right hand man is a moment of forgetting, intentional forgetting.  Once again, Joseph remains in a pit, the jail where Potiphar put him is called a ‘bor’ in Hebrew, a pit, the same word for where his brothers tossed him.

The cupbearer washed Joseph completely from his conscience, from his priorities, despite the good Joseph had offered him.

Velo zachar sar ma’mashkim et Yosef, va’yish’ka’che’hu.

At least his brothers pulled him up into the light.

The Ktav Sofer, R. Shmuel Benyamin Sofer, reminds us that Joseph is a man of great ability, a prophet, and so the cupbearer had every reason to keep him in mind, but did not.

A Hasidic tale – there was the story of a Rebbe walking with his students, when they encounter a little girl whose face is red with tears.  The Rebbe asks her, “Why are you crying my dear?”  The little girl replied, “My friends and I were playing hide and seek.  I’m hiding for so long.  I’m crying because no one is looking for me.”

The Rebbe heard in the little girls’ words the overtones of God’s yearning for us to seek God’s Presence through prayer, through mitzvot.

We hear this week in the story of Joseph that memory is not only retaining information, images, and feelings, but there is an ethics of memory, a responsibility to hold our community together by keeping everyone in mind. 

Is there a person who has not been coming to shul lately who once was a regular?

Is someone sitting alone at Kiddush or is someone sitting silently amongst others for a long time?

Is there a student in a class whose voice we have not heard?

Is there a person who was connected to our community for a long time and has since moved away?

All these people need us to keep them in mind, to remember them by engaging them, opening up conversation, actively bringing them forward back into the room, into the active life of the community.

When in next week’s parsha the cupbearer knows he must connect Pharaoh to Joseph for help, he exclaims, “Pharaoh, I must make mention of my offenses today.”  And then he tells Pharaoh of Joseph. 

The Rabbis criticize the cupbearer for being self-serving, they say he believes Pharaoh may die due to the terrible dreams, and he wonders whether the new Pharaoh will keep him in his important post.

Still, he finally remembers Joseph, who comes out of the jail, out of the pit, and into the light again, the same way God remembers Noah and causes the floodwaters to recede, the same way on Rosh Hashanah we pray for God to remember us so that we might merit the opportunity of a new start.

A synagogue (our synagogue) is a place, and must strive always to be a place, where our first priority is our fellow Jews, friends, and others who share our sacred spaces.  Here, we help to hear and remember people who elsewhere may have been forgotten.  Here in the Jewish community we listen to people, we celebrate their contributions.  Every person counts.

May our earliest memories remind us not only of fond moments as children or at other points in our lives, may they remind us to be sensitive and connected to our neighbors.  Perhaps this is at the heart of the Torah’s lesson, ve’ahavta le’ray’acha kamocha, love your fellow human being as yourself.