Memories
A Message for Parashat Yitro 2018
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Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living. (Daniel
Kahneman)[1]
The Hakhamim noticed a peculiar
wording in the initial description of Ma’amad Har Sinai:
In the third month from the Exodus of Bnei Yisrael from Egypt,
on this day, they arrived at Midbar Sinai. (Shemot 19:1)
Am Yisrael’s arrival “on this
day” is difficult to understand. The Torah seemingly addresses its future
readers by stating that the arrival took place on the very day that they are
then experiencing. But how is that possible? After all, the text can be read on
any day of the year! The Rabbis therefore suggested that these words
teach the important principle that, “The words of Torah should be new to you as
if it was given today.”[2]
The Hakhamim detected a similar
message in keriat shema’s command, “And these words that I command you today
shall be upon your heart” (Devarim 6:6). They explained: “They should not be in
your eyes like an old edict…but rather like a new one towards which everybody
runs.”[3]
There exists, however, a significant difference between these two statements of
the Rabbis. Whereas “these words” of the shema refer to the content
of Torah (“these words”), the verse relating to Har Sinai specifically refers
to the arrival at the mountain.[4]
What is the importance of the “arrival at Midbar Sinai”? And why must we
continuously reexperience it?
I believe that the findings of the well-known
psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman may lay the necessary
groundwork for understanding this passage. Kahneman distinguished between our experiencing
self and remembering self. He explained that in the context of a
painful experience, the experiencing self provides the answer to, “Does
it hurt now?” while the remembering self can retrospectively answer,
“How was it, on the whole?”
Kahneman found that our memories of
events often redefine the detailed experience. He demonstrated how our
“takeaway” from an extended experience is often distilled to a single moment of
supreme importance. And although that instant might run counter to the rest of
the experience, it will nonetheless define the memory. He recalled, for
example, when someone once described listening to a long symphony on a disc
that was scratched near the end. The person remarked that the shocking sound at
the close of the symphony, “ruined the whole experience.” Kahneman noted the
mistake: “The experience was not actually ruined, only the memory
of it.” The listener had allowed his memory – defined by a single moment
– to drastically redefine a 40-minute experience of musical bliss.[5]
The demand that we constantly relive the arrival
at Sinai wrestled with the difficulties entailed in recalling the many details
of an experience. Our attempt to remember every aspect of Ma’amad Har Sinai would
inevitably lead us into the trap of fixation on a specific commandment or a
particular emotion that we felt at that time. The demand therefore guides us
towards an appropriate memory of receiving the Torah.
The implicit instruction of “On this day they
arrived at Midbar Sinai” divorces the memory from the words spoken and messages
imparted, and allows us to singularly focus on Am Yisrael’s rendezvous
with God at that time. It enables us to hone in on the defining moments
of intense anticipation leading up to the event and to appreciate the ensuing
bond that was established between God and His people at that time.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Avi Harari
[1] Thinking, Fast and
Slow (New York, NY, 2011), pg. 381.
[2] Tanhumah Yashan 7:13.
Cited by Rashi to Shemot 19:1, s.v. ba-yom.
[3] Sifrei 33. Cited
by Rashi to Devarim 6:6, s.v. asher. See, as well, Commentary of
Rashi to Devarim 26:16 s.v. ha-yom.
[4] Noted by R. Yeruham
Levovitz z”l in Daat Torah: Shemot (Jerusalem,. IS, 2001),
pg. 183-4.