We equate remembering with irrelevance, with guilt, with failure to release ourselves from the bondage of the past, with failure to achieve closure. In a recent book called Kaddish , author Leon Wieseltier reminisced about his father s death and his own observation of the traditional year of mourning afterwards, in which one goes daily to the synagogue to recite the kaddish prayer. Between his prayers and his everyday responsibilities, he wrote his own reflections. Americans really believe that the past is past. They do not care to know that the past soaks the present like the light of a distant star. . .
Closure is an ideal of forgetfulness.
Nothing happens once and for all. It all revisits, it all returns. . . You are connected, Jacob, said God, connected with your ancestors, with the promises I made to your grandfather Abraham and to your father Isaac. And you will pass the promises down to future generations, who will believe, and whose prayers will be like a ladder filled with the saints and angels of all generations, connecting heaven and earth. And Jacob turned, and followed the God of his ancestors.