The right to forget and be forgotten, and the responsibility to remember

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "O direito de esquecer e de ser esquecido e a responsabilidade de lembrar")

Our memory has the interesting ability to smooth over the rough patches in our lives. Like coarse sandpaper smoothing the texture of a rough piece of furniture, over the years we come to remember milder versions of conflicts, amplifying the roles played by those we love and diminishing our own failings. It is an important tool that allows us to carry on living after we have been through particularly difficult episodes, without it, we would continue to recall traumas, dwell on grudges, and live in regret. Much like a literary work or a film “based on a true story”, our memory keeps one foot in what actually happened, but with the other, it seeks to ease the burden of living permanently with these recollections.

For some time now, however, this characteristic of our memory has been hindered by the sheer volume of records we leave of our experiences and interactions. What good is it for memory to soften a conflict if a quick look at a messaging app is all it takes to remember the exact pain we felt? When we make a slip-up, the records on social media prevent our memory from registering it in softer tones than it originally had. Everything we write, photograph, and film is indexed by search engines and is a click away for anyone seeking to know who we are, even if we are no longer the same person who produced or appears in those records. Everything we write, whether an article or a status update, becomes permanent.

Who can live with perpetual responsibility for every thoughtless act? Who can sustain relationships when past failings endlessly return to haunt us like ghosts?

A passage from this week’s parashah, Ki Tetze, states:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt, how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march when you were hungry and tired, and cut down all the stragglers at your rear,”

And it ends with the command:

“Therefore, when ADONAI your God gives you security from all your enemies around you, in the land that ADONAI your God is giving you as a heritage to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”[1]

The tension between remembrance and forgetting is palpable in these lines. Here, it concerns the memory of an act that has crystallised in Jewish tradition as the paradigmatic expression of cowardice and evil. In such situations, where the trauma of those who lived through them is evident, where does our duty lie: do we strive to remember and ensure that similar actions never happen again, or do we ensure they are forgotten, sparing the victims from reliving those terrible moments?

As with so many other issues, there are no absolute answers that cover every situation. In a world that records ever more details of what we say, what we do, and where we go, the allure of moments when we can truly forget, and be forgotten, is tempting. On the other hand, there is the ethical obligation to remember so that we may learn from our experiences, ensuring that, individually and socially, we do not repeatedly fall into the same traps.

May we, from the convergence of our right to be forgotten and our responsibility to remember, build situations where we can grow without permanently carrying the weight of the world and of our memories on our shoulders.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Deut. 25:17–19