{"id":42056,"date":"2018-10-16T09:22:03","date_gmt":"2018-10-16T06:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=42056"},"modified":"2022-05-08T02:01:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-07T23:01:34","slug":"write-down-as-a-memory-in-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/write-down-as-a-memory-in-a-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Write Down As A Memory, In A Book"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[405,644],"acf":{"old_id":"42056","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36663,"related_cahpter":"67","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Writing gives us the ability reinterpret and reshape memories in a renewed way","content":"

\u201cWe just don\u2019t see books as the most effective delivery mechanism for Jewish wisdom.\u201d \u00a0This line was delivered, with utter seriousness, by a grants officer at a foundation devoted to spreading such wisdom to explain why my grant proposal for a project to help rabbis write books was not funded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exodus 17:14 and most of Jewish history, are testaments which contradict the grant officer\u2019s claim. In this verse is the instruction to write down in a book the events that occurred in the battle with Amalek. <\/span><\/p>\n

Memory is about defining and shaping a past and life events. \u00a0It seems no coincidence that it is only after the cataclysmic event of the crossing of the Sea of Reeds that written memory is first discussed in the Torah. Writing something down shapes it and enables others to access. \u00a0Once we see the past, we are able to shape it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historian Frances Yates\u2019 1966 classic<\/span> The Art of Memory<\/span><\/a><\/em> details how information was memorized and preserved in a world before writing and printing was widely accessible. Yates wrote, \u201corderly arrangement is essential for good memory.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Memory is a kind of deliberateness, that enables us to recall specific things people and places, and events. \u00a0When memories are written down, as God asks Moses to do here, those who read the memories are able to ascribe meaning to them in a way not possible when they are a jumble of details devoid of purpose or meaning. <\/span><\/p>\n

The act of writing something down imposes an order upon it, a plan in which it is possible to divine a meaning from that event. It is utterly in contradiction to a theory of the world as being in chaos, without order, that Amalek represents as a civilization utterly lacking a moral compass of any sort. This lack is depicted in the fact that, in a later description of the event, Amalek \u201cchance\u201d upon the Israelites (Deut 25:18) meaning they don\u2019t believe in any kind of divine arrangement or causality, only in chance.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ability to interpret a memory, and understand it differently than it had been in the past, is the key to Jewish wisdom. \u00a0We are so concerned with written texts, as rabbinic Jews, because they allow us to reinterpret and re-access memories in a renewed way, differently in each generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

God tells Moses to \u201cwrite this as a memory in a book\u201d (Exodus 17:14) for good reason. \u00a0Writing is one of the lasting keys to Jewish wisdom, the repository of both the memory itself and our ability to read, reinterpret and reshape that memory.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":71654,"id":71654,"title":"jer36-heads-books","filename":"jer36-heads-books.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/jer36-heads-books.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/preserving-texts-and-truth\/jer36-heads-books\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer36-heads-books","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":71651,"date":"2020-03-14 20:39:07","modified":"2022-05-07 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