George Orwell, in 1984, said, “He who controls the past commands the future, and he who commands the future controls the past.” Orwell is not simply restating the truism that history is written by the victors. He is pointing to the claim made by contemporary scholars of memory: that the memory of the past alone is insufficient for identity formation. Our identity is formed not only by our narrative of the past; it is also shaped by the way in which we understand its consequences and commands for the future.
Our Jewish narrative of liberation from slavery in Egypt was accompanied by the command given thirty-six times in the Torah: You must not oppress the stranger, you must care for, love the stranger “because you were strangers in the land of Egypt and you know the heart of the stranger.” Our identity is not formed on the basis of a narrative of victimhood or even of privilege. Jewish identity is formed on the basis of a narrative of consequences and commands that shape our narrative of the past into a narrative of obligation for the future.
In Jacob’s blessings to his sons in Genesis 49 we have the first biblical text that establishes the identity of the tribes and characterizes them both individually as personalities and collectively as a nation. And while he starts out telling them what will happen in the future, that vision eludes him. Rambam explains that his inability to see into the future is due to his depressed state—“prophecy does not rest in the midst of melancholy, but only in the midst of joy.” But perhaps the Torah is giving us the message that we can never predict the future based on our knowledge of the past alone. What Jacob is giving his sons is a “blessing” that can transform their past into something new and different.
The Maor Va-Shemesh illustrates this in his interpretation of Shimon and Levi who are “blessed”: “Let me not be included in their council, let my being not be counted in their assembly….cursed be their anger… their wrath. I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.” Drawing upon the Talmudic teaching, “when a scholar is hot –tempered, it is the Torah that boils in him” (Ta’anit 4a) he observes that when a righteous person feels inadequate in his learning or his deeds, his self-criticism results in anger directed towards others as well as himself. He is unable to be with people and mingle pleasantly with them. He remains in solitude with himself, thinking that speaking about mundane matters is a distraction form serving God. But in truth, it’s necessary to serve God in all the ways of the world. As it says in Proverbs (3:6), “know God in all your ways.”
When Jacob said, “let not my being come to their council,” he meant their exclusive behavior is not my desire because it stem from dark bitterns. “Let not my being be counted (teihad) in their assembly.” Teihad has the connotation of rejoicing, as in Jethro rejoiced (yihad). In other words, I am not happy when I am with them. Therefore he said, “I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.” That is, their consciousness should be to mingle more pleasantly with people, whether with people who are on a lesser spiritual level, the level of “Jacob,” or with those on a higher level, “Israel.”
This is the hopeful message as one generation seeks to transmit its wisdom to the next. For the sake of your own individual identity and that of collective well-being of your nation, learn to transform your narrative of the past in to a blessing for the future.
RABBI RON AIGEN 