B’ha’alotkha

Numbers 8:1-12:16

Trying To Remember The Reason I Forgot

Being constantly engaged in learning allows us to guard against the pervasive forgetfulness around us.

By Rabbi Bradley Artson, provided by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, for MyJewishLearning.com

The human mind presents us with both a marvel and a mystery. Capable of mastering a remarkable range of complex tasks, of remembering obscure experiences or facts, that same organ will also forget an important appointment, an acquaintance’s name, or the contents of this morning’s breakfast. Simultaneously able to outperform a computer in our manipulation of data into concepts, each of us also faces the unpleasant reality that we continually forget information we desperately desire or need.

Anyone who has reviewed notes taken in college or remarks scribbled in the margins of books read years ago has admitted to the enormity of what is routinely forgotten. It is not uncommon for authors to report rereading their own writing after the passage of several years with the uncomfortable sense that they are no longer the masters of what those essays or books contain.

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