Don't Remember, Rest.
Tal Mashiach will be our musical guest this evening. https://youtu.be/f7QTRChIl1g?si=muEvEepDNls7_dWa
Dear friends,
In 1967 The psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion wrote a short paper that rocked the psychology world, and continues to confound and inspire therapists today. “Memory is always misleading as a record of fact,” he opens, “since it is distorted by the influence of unconscious forces.” He goes on to write that a therapist “must cultivate a watchful avoidance of memory.”
“The purest form of listening,” Bion said, “is to listen without memory or desire.”
When I heard this formulation from Susan B. this week, it struck me as a lofty ideal for everyday behavior. “Goals,” I noted.
Memory is one type of alertness, which prevents other forms from surfacing. “An analyst needs to be able to listen not only to the words, but also to the music,” Bion is known to have said. The type of thinking that cerebral remembering offers is a form of being present which is absent to much of the experience in front of you.
I am most familiar with the attempt to avoid remembering from meditation. As I have been taught to practice, any thoughts, including memories that come during meditation are best treated as objects of observation, since they are a distraction from the simpler reality of sitting in silence. Working the muscle of your mind toward memory or thinking of any kind takes you away from the moment, rather than allowing you to rest in what is.
Acting is similar. It’s when the words and blocking are no longer a mental effort that the true intuitive sparks emerge from the actor. One of the most powerful moments I’ve ever had on stage was when in front of a full Off Broadway house I completely blanked on my lines in the middle of a monologue. For what felt like two minutes but was in fact five seconds I was completely panicked, and deeply present. The words then rolled out of my throat like a wave.
Both meditation and acting, and many other dream-like experiences, can sometimes seep into your “waking life” and help you live with less attachment to your brain. These days, that can be a real gift.
Our Parasha this week, Bo, seems to be obsessed with remembering. We have to remember the exodus from Egypt every single day, and go all out on memory each Passover, we are told. But there are hints toward a different kind of remembering scattered through it like breadcrumbs leading the lost children that we are home from the woods.
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם֮ אֶת־הַמַּצּוֹת֒ כִּ֗י בְּעֶ֙צֶם֙ הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֔ה הוֹצֵ֥אתִי אֶת־צִבְאוֹתֵיכֶ֖ם מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֞ם אֶת־הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּ֛ה לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶ֖ם חֻקַּ֥ת עוֹלָֽם׃
"You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observethis day throughout the ages as an institution for all time."
The phrase “be’etzem hayom hazeh,” “on this very day,” or more literally “in the bone, or essence of this day” whispers to us that the liberation is none other than the one possible right now. How shall we remember the exodus? By remembering to forget everything other than what is here right now.
This evening we will try to summon that liberation with the aid of Tal Mashiach’s music. Tal is an incredibly talented guitar and bass player, and a good friend, and is just the right person to keep us warm this evening.
Kabbalat Shabbat will start at 6:30, and if you can make it by 6pm Michael, Daphna and me will be leading a study and singing of one of our central Shabbat piyyutim. I hope you can join us.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha