In an era where our understanding of the universe is growing at an unprecedented pace, one area remains elusive.
In neuroscience and artificial intelligence, it has so far proven nearly impossible to explain why and how humans and other creatures have the subjective experience that we call consciousness. While some have historically suggested that this is equivalent to the concept of the soul, that’s just another label rather than any kind of explanation.
The philosopher John Locke suggested that consciousness is the continuous collective experience that forms your personal identity. This idea is useful because it is tangible and focuses more on psychology and our experiences rather than anything metaphysical. In other words, what makes you the same person over time is your ability to remember past experiences; or, to put it even simpler, your conscious identity of who you are is a function of where you’ve come from. This continuity of consciousness forms the essence of personal identity; the memories of your past funnel together to tie your present self to your past self.
For some time now, great thinkers have linked the concept of identity with memory and experience. Intuitively, then, the Baal Shem Tov teaches that exile means forgetting.
We know this when we see it; the infamous signature of dehumanization in the Holocaust was erasing people’s names and replacing them with serial numbers. Similarly, we can sadly recognize in cases of dementia that the person before us is experiencing a heartbreaking disconnect from the person that once was.
Exile means forgetting; it’s true of individuals, and it’s also true of nations and societies.
In an era where traditional narratives are often questioned, the loss of a common culture invites fragmentation and can often leave individuals with a sense of feeling adrift. Chaos soon follows when individuals or societies lose touch with the structures and stories that give their lives meaning and direction. In the context of immigrant families, the gradual fading of ancestral languages and traditions is predictable, and the third generation rarely speaks the language of their heritage. This phenomenon is not unique to any one culture; it accurately describes Jewish Americans as much as Korean Americans.
The notion of narrative identity is at the heart of how the Torah frames the Jewish People’s story in Egypt. In the depths of despair, they begin to lose their connection to the past. Our sages imagine a heavenly courtroom drama where the prosecutor questions the value of saving the Jewish People from the Egyptians – if they worship the same idols, what’s the difference? When the Torah describes God’s intervention with imagery of an outstretched arm, it suggests the Jewish People had fallen off a cliff and were saved at the very last moment from the point of no return, the cusp of total assimilation – מ”ט שערי טומאה.
Our sages teach how the Jewish People retained their language, clothing, and names. This teaching is sometimes characterized as praise that they didn’t integrate into the dominant culture and that they retained a connection to their past throughout their exile. But in fact, this teaching highlights the opposite, how they adopted literally everything else. When Moshe himself went to Midian, the locals called him the Egyptian fellow! The Jewish People had forgotten and lost so much that they couldn’t even listen to the man sent to save them; there could be no deeper exile.
But if exile means forgetting, then redemption means remembering; memory is intimately linked with redemption throughout the entire Exodus story, not just on a human level but also at the Divine level.
After the introduction to the setting of the enslavement in Egypt, the Torah describes how God is stirred by memory, specifically, memory of the ancestors – וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקים אֶת־בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת־אַבְרָהָם אֶת־יִצְחָק וְאֶת־יַעֲקֹב.
When the Creator reveals Himself to Moshe, He introduces Himself as the God of his ancestors, establishing a continuity of Divine engagement with the Jewish people – אָנֹכִי אֱלֹקי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹקי יַעֲקֹב.
It’s also how the Creator instructs Moshe to identify Him to the Jewish People as well – ה־תֹאמַר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל ה אֱלֹקי אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק אֱלֹקי יַעֲקֹב שְׁלָחַנִי אֲלֵיכֶם זֶה־שְּׁמִי לְעֹלָם וְזֶה זִכְרִי לְדֹר דֹּר.
We must remember that God is timeless; God cannot remember or forget. These are words we use when we talk about people; they are anthropomorphic metaphors. When we talk about remembering that someone was hurtful, we mean that the memory will prompt a different action or behavior than one might otherwise expect; God “remembers” in the sense that God acts differently than might reasonably be expected in response to something, in this case, the ancestors. For this reason, the Chizkuni suggests that this self-introduction as the God of our ancestors is the source of our daily prayer – אֱלקינוּ וֵאֱלֹקי אֲבותֵינוּ אֱלֹקי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹקי יִצְחָק וֵאֱלֹקי יַעֲקב.
Physical freedom was never enough; true liberation from slavery involved a reconnection with the Jewish People’s historical ancestral and spiritual roots. To revitalize the lost nation, to become the people they were meant to be, and to enter the promised land, they had to reforge their connection to the past. By recognizing the codewords of the past and the God of their ancestors, they would know that their time had finally come.
It’s why the Book of Exodus, or more properly, the Book of Names, begins by listing the names of those who journeyed to Egypt, anchoring the narrative in personal identities.
It’s why the Torah interrupts the story with an exposition of each family and the names of their descendants: the names of the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Kohath, Amram, Yitzhar, Chevron, and Uzziel, and all the rest.
As R’ Hanoch of Alexander teaches, a key part of God’s command is remembering who you are and where you come from; remembering is the catalyst of redemption.
When we speak of our roots, it’s not an empty metaphor. They anchor and ground us; they orient us to where we are. Whatever culture or background, our traditions literally and metaphorically support us; if you want to make it to the promised land, knowing your past is the key to understanding your present and shaping your future.
Life is short, and we barely live before we die. Our narratives do more than recount history; they embed us in a continuum of collective wisdom, teaching us that we are part of a story much larger than our individual selves and that we can be so much more than we are. That’s why knowing your family and your people’s culture and history is so important.
The human connection to family, culture, heritage, tradition, and religion has always been sacred.
Our traditions tell us that we can have the courage to stand up to the existential and metaphysical challenges of life like the heroes of old who walked and talked with the Creator, who would argue and sometimes even win.
Do you know who you are?
You descend from those who wrestle angels and kill giants.