Can your friends and perhaps your family forget — abandon . . . . betray you?
The unpredictable thing about ‘Memory’ — it can come and it can go . . . in this week’s parsha, Korach ‘forgets’ what Moses and Israel have done for him — same tribe, same people, same goals . . . . and yet, he says: you have gone too far — you have gone ‘over the top.’ He is family and he is a friend, and he forgets what is right and what is wrong.
Of course, enemies betray: But can your friends and your family forget, abandon . . . . betray you?
What does it mean to be purposefully forgotten and betrayed?
Let’s keep this week’s Torah in mind:
Numbers Chapter 16: 3
וַיִּֽקָּהֲל֞וּ עַל־מֹשֶׁ֣ה וְעַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֗ן וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ אֲלֵהֶם֮ רַב־לָכֶם֒
“They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far!”
I am reminded that no one is ever causally betrayed — betrayal is defined as willful and purposeful and all too often, it is uninkeeping with the truth of our relationships.
____________
We today are now wondering if we are experiencing ‘purposeful amnesia’ — especially when it comes to us, what we, the Jewish people have endured.
Perhaps one of the reasons we traditionally stress truthful (real) memory, especially in the face of all the purposeful distortions and lies said about us and perpetrated against us, is because it serves as a reminder of what we must do in order to survive.
What we continue to witness around us, certainly among enemies and sadly among our so-called ‘friends’, is not just a case of amnesia — as much of it is blatantly willful and purposeful — and to allow this is not just disingenuous, it is a betrayal and it is dangerous to our life.
Let’s look a little more closely at an example of this ‘amnesia’ — especially when it comes to us, the Jews . . . .
We hear: “The Jews had it coming” — and then when the Jews respond — ‘their response is ‘over the top’ (here we can sense the echoes of the Merchant of Venice).
If you think that any of this is simply just a case of Israel/Gaza spinoff — perhaps it has come time to pay attention a little more closely — and remember a little more truthfully.
What we have been able to discern with clarity is that Israel is but a mask, and what we have witnessed since October is that this is much more than Israel as a country, it is about the Jews as a people and Judaism as a culture and a civilization.
The truth is, that this is not simply a case of amnesia on the part of the world — unless of course, it is a forced agenda-laden amnesia. In other words, here ‘to forget’ has the appearance of being ‘purposeful and intended’ and it amounts to nothing less than an age old malice towards the Jewish people. Jewhate writ large as the newest iteration of antisemitism fro time immemorial.
Let’s look more closely at Amnesia in the service of Jewhatred . . . from the WSJ (unlocked):
Israel Struggles Against Global Amnesia
Even friends of the Jewish state press it to forget the lessons it learned from Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
By Elliot Kaufman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-struggles-against-global-amnesia-hamas-oct-7-massacre-b3757cec?st=z30kgfmj4glgmrr&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Excerpts:
Is this ‘forgetfulness’ — memory loss — or an expanded agenda of demonization:
* But aren’t more people dying in Gaza? The media is happy to obscure the relevant distinctions. Activists promoted the “genocide” lie even before the war. Eylon Levy, until recently Israel’s government spokesman, explains, “The slanders of Israel today are preparing the response to the next Oct. 7: ‘The Jews had it coming.’ ”
* The world is unwilling to bear the weight for long. While President Biden made clear after Oct. 7 that Hamas must not remain in power, by February he wasn’t so sure. He called Israel’s counterattack “over the top.” At a Holocaust remembrance event in May, he urged the world to “never forget” Oct. 7 while withholding arms from Israel to prevent an attack on Hamas’s stronghold.
Here again, my note regarding: “Over the Top” — is this a case of forgetfulness, or something a bit more sinister: ‘over the top’?
. . . וַיִּֽקָּהֲל֞וּ עַל־מֹשֶׁ֣ה וְעַֽל־אַהֲרֹ֗ן וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ אֲלֵהֶם֮ רַב־לָכֶם֒ כִּ֤י כׇל־הָֽעֵדָה֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם קְדֹשִׁ֔ים וּבְתוֹכָ֖ם יְהֹוָ֑ה וּמַדּ֥וּעַ תִּֽתְנַשְּׂא֖וּ עַל־קְהַ֥ל יְהֹוָֽה׃
They spoke against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far!
* The truth is darker. Much, perhaps most, of the world didn’t condemn Oct. 7 or repudiate Hamas. Qatar and Egypt, the mediators, both blamed Israel on Oct. 7. On Oct. 8, China called on Israel to “immediately end the hostilities.” Russia still hosts Hamas delegations. None of Hamas’s patrons have abandoned it or been seriously pressured to do so.
The big human-rights groups equivocated on Oct. 7 about “civilians on both sides.” Ever since, they have pretended the war began on Oct. 8, representing the Israeli effort as pure malevolence. The campus left cheered the attack. The United Nations General Assembly still hasn’t condemned it.
* By January the Biden administration was pressing hard for a Palestinian state, which it described as the only real solution, just as it had thought on Oct. 6. Never mind that polls show two-thirds of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 attack.
* Over hummus in Tel Aviv, the right-wing intellectual Gadi Taub puts it provocatively: “Biden’s plan to end the war is for Netanyahu to fall and Sinwar to stay.” The U.S. president has spent months pushing a deal to end the war, and his deputies insist Israeli troops leave Gaza afterward. Since no one else but Israelis will fight and die to keep Hamas down, Hamas rule would quickly be restored.
* “Oct. 7 killed not only the dream of peace,” says Mr. Levy, the former Israeli spokesman. “It killed the dreamers” of the border kibbutzim. But Mr. Biden and his team, the none-too-quiet Americans, are still dreaming. They call it a peace process, but an Israeli withdrawal that returns Gaza to Hamas is the first step to the next massacre, the next war.
* Eran Massas, an Israeli lieutenant colonel in the reserves, says, “Hamas are not people, they are animals.” In response, the liberal Western instinct is to worry about dehumanization. When Mr. Massas tells of how he rescued civilians on Oct. 7, and how he remains haunted by one woman he found, her green clothing left beside her butchered corpse, the same Western instinct is to look away—anywhere but his eyes.
________
Our future will be in remembering — and disallowing the intentional memory loss of the world around us. We are all too often excoriated when we bring up the past, “so tired of . . . , “so worn out” they say (‘exasperation’ lurking shallow beneath under their breath).
Would not a new heaven and a new earth be so welcome . . .
Let’s keep this week’s haftara (Prophetic reading) in mind:
Isaiah 66: 23
For as the new heaven and the new earth
That I will make
Shall endure by My will
—declares GOD—
So shall your seed and your name endure.
כִּ֣י כַאֲשֶׁ֣ר הַשָּׁמַ֣יִם הַ֠חֲדָשִׁ֠ים וְהָאָ֨רֶץ הַחֲדָשָׁ֜ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אֲנִ֥י עֹשֶׂ֛ה עֹמְדִ֥ים לְפָנַ֖י נְאֻם־יְהֹוָ֑ה כֵּ֛ן יַעֲמֹ֥ד זַרְעֲכֶ֖ם וְשִׁמְכֶֽם׃
Our memories are but the foundation of our future . . .
And as a result, we will live — we have no other choice.
