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Rabbinic Insights:  Re-member

San Diego Jewish Times, November 4, 2005

By Rabbi Wayne Dosick

The historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, in his haunting book, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, says that only for the Jews is "the injunction to remember a religious imperative to an entire people."

Just think of how often we are enjoined to remember: "Remember the moment of creation." "Remember the exodus from Egypt." "Remember what Amalek did to you." “Remember the merit of your ancestors." Remember Haman, and the Babylonians, and the Romans, and the Crusaders, and the Inquisitors, and the Czar, and Hitler, and Stalin. Remember the six million. Remember 1948, and 1967, and 1973.

And we ask God to "remember us for life." And God replies, "I remember the love of your youth."

When the great Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal recently died, the press reported a story about how a friend had once asked him why he had become a searcher of Nazi criminals, rather than resume his successful and profitable career as an architect, the work he had done before the war.

Wiesenthal replied, "You are a religious man. You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps, and they ask us, 'what have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I became a tailor.' Still another will say, 'I built houses.’ But, I will say, 'I did not forget you. I remembered.'"

For every human being, the message of this in every lifetime is the same: remember. Remember what it is in the Heavens with God. Remember what it was on Earth, when Earth was Eden. Remember what it was at Sinai, when all souls came together for the same purpose. Remember what can be — if you only remember.

What does God want us to remember? The construction of the English word "remember" gives us the clue: re-member. We are to call in all our members, to pull together all our members, to re-unite all our members.

Who are our members? Every person on Earth. We are all members of the same human race. We are all members of the same family. So, re-membering is acknowledging and celebrating all the members of our group of human beings — everyone — and bringing us all together, so that no one is missing, so that we are whole in our Oneness. Re-membering is weaving together all God's children, regardless of place, or purpose, color or creed, religion or faith, male or female, rich or poor. Re-membering is the hugeness of who we are — as family, community, nation, world.

Then, God wants us to remember that despite all the difficulties of life, despite how sometimes our words and our actions diminish our beings, despite how sometimes we are broken and shattered, despite how we sometimes feel lowly and unworthy, in the words of Rabbi Burt Jacobson, in a modern English version of Yom Kippur confessional, Ashamnu. "We are Light and Truth, and Infinite Wisdom, Eternal Goodness." We are children of God.

God's message is a profound as it is simple. This is what God wants us to remember: All is One. One is All. All is Love. Love is All.

There is unity in the universe. Now, unity does not mean sameness. There are clear and wonderful differences between men and women; between youth and elder; between sage and prophet. There is great richness in diversity of color, and creed, and geography and culture; language and literature; heritage and tradition. There is great beauty in the kaleidoscope of faith and reason; belief and practice; contemplation and action.

But, there is only One God; there is only One humanity; there is only One world. All is One. One is All. All is Love. Love is All.

In unity, there is no place for separation, no place for bigotry and discrimination; for intolerance and injustice; for hatred and war. There is only place for decency and dignity; for righteousness and goodness, for grace, unconditional love, and compassion, for peace.

How do we remember? How do we keep the vicissitudes of life, the niggling daily irritants that get in the way — the demands of making a living, and paying the mortgage, and driving carpool, and keeping track of the investments, and going to all the appointments and meetings, and doing the shopping, and eating right, and staying healthy, and finding a few minutes to exercise, and reaching out to those who need us; and opening our hands to the poor; and rooting for the home team, and taking care of children and parents, and sending every grandchild's birthday card on time — how do we keep the day to day from overwhelming us, so that we have a few moments for ourselves, a few moments for the transcendent, the spiritual; a few moments for God, a few moments to pray, to meditate, to dream, to envision; a few moments to remember what we once knew; to remember who we are, and what our mission on this Earth is; to remember what God wants us to remember.

Here is way to help you remember. I invite you to find 10 seconds — just 10 seconds — every day to say it. This little statement may, at first, seem unfamiliar, perhaps a bit uncomfortable, even a little strange. But, as you say it, over and over again, it will become more and more comfortable, more. and more familiar, for it will help you to remember, and, as you remember, you will feel more and more at home, in this world, more and more connected to God, who wants you to remember.

Stand, with your arms at your sides, palms facing forward, and say: "We now have 100% desire that we are open and clear, to receive the wisdom we have lived, in all times and spaces." Now, touch your wrists together, and spread your hands slightly apart, and say, "In Sacred Light."

And what is the purpose of remembering? What is the purpose of being continually and constantly aware that All is One. One is All. All is Love. Love is All?

"On that day," throughout the whole world, God will be recognized as One; God's Name will be One; all God's children will be One; the entire world will be one.”

What happens on that day? Masheach is at the gates. Eden returns to Earth. Paradise is not just a dream.

The vision of a world of One can be the reality of our lives, the lives of our children, the life of our world, as it was for the souls of those who came before us, and who dedicated their sojourn on this Earth to bringing tranquility and harmony, balance and transformation; who prayed and worked every day for peace.

When we remember those whose lives formed the foundation of our own, when we envision the lives of our children's children in faraway places not yet even imagined, let's tell them that we remember and envision them not just because we love them, not just because we were related to them through love and life, not just because we share the same peoplehood, or heritage, or faith.

Let's tell them that their dreams for this world are not a far-off vision. Let's tell them that we are committed to remember what God wants for us, and which they — those who have already been in body on earth, and those souls yet unborn — who are all in the Heavenly realms, under the wings of Shechinah, bathed in the Light of God's holy presence, know so well: All is One. One is All. All is Love. Love is All.

We thank God, for thinning the veil; for making us the generation that is beginning to know beyond knowing, hear beyond hearing, and see beyond seeing; for opening our souls to memory.

We thank God for guiding us to hold onto God-memory; to remain in God-consciousness; and to keep aflame the God-spark that is within us; and, most of all for giving us the privilege of remembering — and transmitting — the Divine message of Oneness and Love for us and the world with us.

We will remember. This is our pledge and our promise, and our greatest merit.

Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Ph.D., the spiritual guide of the Elijah Minyan, an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego and the Director of the 17: Spiritually Healing Children's Emotional Wounds. He is the award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books, including Golden Rules; Living Judaism; and Soul Judaism: Dancing with God into a New Era.