"Jews have six senses: touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing...memory"
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated
This was one of the fragments that the principal of L’s high school used in a special class he prepared for parents of the school/community.
The topic of the class was not memory but rain – or to be more exact, the prayer for rain that is added starting today, two weeks after the end of the High Holidays, and how it contrasts with the more simple “reminder” towards the rain that is added starting Simchat Torah, a holiday that we will never be able to celebrate in the same way after that Black Saturday.
The Hebrew root of the word memory, zecher, he explained, is similar to the word secher, “dam.” One of the functions of memory is to serve as a dam, a framework or barrier to retain something specific from the person or people no longer with us. We rush to build a dam, to choose the memories to keep, before they flow out into the sea.
These days Israel is constantly searching for ways to remember, to maintain something of the memory of the fallen. It is still too early to think about notional memorials or other large projects, but it’s common to come across initiatives like the Instagram page Mesaprim (“we tell”) or the dedicated websites by newspapers or other organizations where they keep the stories about each of the victims.
Ray of light: a client from Brazil (from the company I stopped working for almost 3 years ago) sending a message to ask how we are.
Ray of light: a “selfie” that B sent us from his base.
Ray of light (and sadness): the 1,400 candles in honor of the Israeli victims that were lit yesterday outside the Vilnius city hall.
