What Are You Doing on Monday?

What comes to mind first when you think of Memorial Day?

Many people respond barbecues, beach, or a long weekend that marks the beginning of summer. This is no accident. In 1971, Congress passed a law to schedule four national holidays on Mondays to give federal workers a three-day holiday weekend. 

While Memorial Day in the US may have morphed into a day more known for parades and pleasure, it has a long history of reflection and commemoration. Did you know that Congress authorized a national moment of remembrance to take place at 3:00 pm?

Personally, I have vivid memories of watching the scenes from Arlington National cemetery including the laying of a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. There is something powerful about the formality, dignity, and gravity that mark these memorial ceremonies. We encounter the sacrifice of those who allow us to live freely, and we have the chance to ponder those events and ideals which are greater than ourselves. Even if we did not serve to defend our country or even know people who did, we are clearly the beneficiaries of their sacrifice.

Such is the power of memory. Memory connects us with the past and unites those with a shared experience or history. Think of a conversation you may have had that brought to mind something from the past. All of a sudden, you are transported back to that place or time to relive a formative experience or reconnect with people who made an impact on you.

As Jews, memory is not only a function of the mind; it is a sacred obligation. We invoke memory in our religious observances and to connect with our past. We recently observed Yom HaShoah and Yom Hazikaron, two modern days of memory and purpose. We channel that exercise in memory to celebrate Israel’s independence more meaningfully on Yom Ha’atzmaut. America would benefit from a more meaningful Memorial Day.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks captures the power and essential role of memory:

“There is a profound difference between history and memory. History is his story – an event that happened sometime else to someone else. Memory is my story – something that happened to me and is part of who I am. History is information. Memory, by contrast, is part of identity. I can study the history of other peoples, cultures and civilizations. They deepen my knowledge and broaden my horizons. But they do not make a claim on me. They are the past as part. Memory is the past as present, as it lives on in me. Without memory there can be no identity.” 

(The Chief Rabbi’s Haggadah, p. 29)

At its core then, Memorial Day is a time to rededicate ourselves to who we are and the values that are important to us.

In the Washington Post, historian Howard Mansfield considers the meaning of Memorial Day, using as an example an “invisible” Holocaust memorial in Germany. The Platz des Unsichtbaren Mahnmals, the Place of the Invisible Memorial, is a memorial to Jewish cemeteries destroyed by the Nazis. Located in Saarbrücken, capital of the German state of the Saarland, the memorial is completely invisible to the visitor. There is nothing noticeable there other than a sign identifying the place.

In April 1990, art professor Jochen Gerz and several of his students began to secretly dig up cobblestones from the plaza in front of the Saarbrücken castle. The underside of the stones was then engraved with the names of thousands of German Jewish cemeteries, and afterwards they were returned to the place with the inscription facing downwards. How exactly, then, is this a memorial?

James E. Young, a Holocaust historian, explained in a talk at Yad Vashem, “[Artist Jochen] Gerz hoped they would realize that such memory was already in them. The visitors would become the memorials for which they searched.”

We are the memorials.

Memorial Day does not require anything external. The parades and ceremonies are meant to reinforce the values and ideals for which those who came before us were willing to sacrifice their lives. Memorial Day is about our commitment to live by those values and not let them be forgotten.

These days, values like truth, justice, and sacrifice have lost their meaning. Instead, protestors, the media, and even international courts of justice forget about the crimes of the terrorists and describe defensive wars as genocide. Last night, I helped our daughter with an assignment relating to “Newspeak” as portrayed in 1984. Orwell describes a society that limits language to control people and their thoughts. I thought a contemporary application of “Newspeak” is how the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been transformed from a declaration to eliminate Jews from Israel into a pithy, catchy slogan of supporting Palestinians by students who don’t know which river or sea they’re even talking about!

We need a true Memorial Day more than ever. We need to become memorials dedicated to the values that built America and sustain the free world. Thank God, we are part of a community that “gets” all this, but it’s not enough. We need to make more friends and allies. We need to speak about this with colleagues and neighbors. We need to stand up for these values as Jews and Americans whenever and wherever we can.

We are blessed to live in the United States. On Monday, we have an opportunity to honor the sacrifice of so many in shaping and maintaining this great country and to reflect upon the need for us to channel and elevate those values to a world so desperately in need of them.

God bless America!