posted
A passage from the novel "Everything is illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer:
"Jews Have Six Senses
Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing...memory. While Gentiles experience and process the world through the traditonal senses, and use memory only as a second-order means of interpreting events, for Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver glimmer, or the taste of the blood it pulls from the finger. The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks -when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather's fingers fell asleep from stroking his great-grandfather's damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain- that the Jew is able to know why it hurts. When a encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?"
In this semester, I've had a lecture about the different forms of memory in literature. Among other things, for example the movie "Memento" and some of Li Young-Lee's poems, we read "Patrimony" by Philip Roth, "Barney's Version" by Mordecai Richler and "Everything is illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer.
The semester is over by the end of this week, but there is still an essay due to the 14th of March. (approximately 3000 words) It is a remarkable coincidence, that we only read books written by Jewish authors (that was not at all the intention of the lecturer), so I think about writing an essay which is roughly about the importance and outward forms of memory in Jewish culture and its connection to and representation in the life of the inhabitants of the little shtetl Trachimbrod in "Everything is illuminated" (instead of "only" giving an interpretation of one of the texts).
Certainly, I already did some research, but the majority of the books I have found by now wasn't very helpful, so I need a little bit help to substantiate this theory. For example informations about the history of Judaism. Do I have to distinguish between different denominations within the Jewish faith, regarding the high esteem of knowledge and memory in Jewish culture? What are the origins of this esteem? Do you know some works to this theme that I can read and eventually cite? Even if you don't, I would be grateful for your opinions. Brainstorming is welcome!
posted
Plato, as Socrates, as Amon complaining to Toth about the invention of writing:
quote:this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your desciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. . . . I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question, they preserve a solemn silence, and the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer.
posted
Wow, THAT was fast! Thank you, Scott R. I really hope that I can figure out a way to integrate this passage in the essay, too.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:I have read your post several times, and I still am not clear on what you are looking for.
Some kind of Jewish UberGroupMemory? A reverence for tradition, and a tendency to look for patterns relating current experience to that pattern?
Something entirely different?
Well,...it is a bit hard to specify the questions. I can't say what information will probably be useful, yet. I think, I need to know more about Collective Memory and Cultural Memory in Jewish culture and religion, especially about their TRADITIONS and holidays.
The main questions are probably: WHAT is special about memory in Jewish culture? Why does memory seem to be more precious for them than for, let's say, Christians? Or isn't it? The thing is, ANYTHING you know (or think)about Jewish culture, its origins, traditions and values could be valuably.
I'm principally interested in this topic, but you know, in an essay it is not enough to assert something. I must be able to tell WHY I think the thesis is possibly true and cite sources, too. It might also be helpful just to get to know some different opinions, points of view and impulses from other people.
I hope, it's clearer, now. Is it? (Thank you for asking me, instead of ignoring the thread, because it was not understandable.)
P.S.: If you know "Everything is illuminated" (the book, not the movie), what do you think about the events and characters in the "Trachimbrod"- plot?
posted
So this is how Reverend Mothers actually began. Makes more sense than the KJA way... Other Memory FTW! Seriously though, the excerpt read like something from Dune or Emporer of Dune, just citing different examples.
I do believe memory is perfectly capable of acting as a psuedo-sense, though I hardly believe it's restricting itself along a Jewish / Gentile line. Racial memory is something that's always fascinate me. One thing I would suggest is that if you're considering written texts in this context, don't overlook oral histories as well. There some fairly powerful implications in that area as well. It could be coincidence that all the books you have read in the semester are by Jewish authors. I'd suspect some books by (or about) Nordic as well as Native American cultures (just to name two) would have some interesting thoughts on the subject of communicating with ancesters or spirits from your hereditary past.
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posted
I'm Jewish, and I was never aware that I had some kind of extra memory sense.
I can barely remember where I set down my purse when I came into the house.
Jews are commanded in Torah to remember, as in "Remember the Sabbath Day...", and that each one of us is to remember the Exodus from Egypt as if it had happened to us personally.
But some super sixth sense? Not that I recall.
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posted
I'm with Tante on this one. I still have no idea why it is that someone has concluded that Jews have an extra-sensory memory enhancement.
Certainly memory and remembering are important; the mitzva Tante cited is one of many. Many things are commanded ". . . in order that you remember X," where X is one of 5 or 6 things.
And certainly Jews consider tradition very important. (Go watch Fiddler. ) But IME, we are not unique in this.
So I'm still not sure what I can offer as sources. Perhaps in part because I am not convinced that your thesis is valid.
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quote:Jews are commanded in Torah to remember, as in "Remember the Sabbath Day...", and that each one of us is to remember the Exodus from Egypt as if it had happened to us personally.
That's what I mean. This ATTITUDE towards the past, the history... WHY are you to remember the Exodus as if it had happened to you personally? I already know that there IS secondary literature which deals with this emphasis on Collective and Cultural memory in Jewish life, in which someone analyses the "WHY" of those commands. Only, it's hard to find, and I don't want to "incommode" the rabbi here in Freiburg already in this early stage of research... And I don't know any other people, but you, I could ask about that.
Do you have any theories about the "WHY"?
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posted
Thanks for the links, Rivka. I haven't checked them all by now, but I think about devoting the essay to you... Posts: 262 | Registered: Feb 2006
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) But IME, we are not unique in this.![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
