“Remember Remember”
November seems to be a favourite month for remembrances; but my impression is that they are much less observed than they used to be, and with less sense of their meaning. I feel it in my own personal experience, and it worries me. How many Christians use Sunday to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection? Which makes me think about the Jews.
One of the most remarkable things about the Jews is their existence. No other nation on earth has survived for anything like 1900 years without land, government, or ruler. And now, out of the blue, is the nation of Israel, while all her conquerors are most of them half-forgotten history. So how did they manage it? Well, one of the most significant elements is the fact that the Jewish calendar is laced with ceremonies and symbols, which remind the people of key events in their history. Like it or not, much of our sense of identity, self-respect, community-sense depends on memory – often of shared experiences.
Of course, Jewish memorials are all incurably religious. The Exodus, Hanukkah, Succoth, even New Year, all celebrate events that are seen to be revelations of the power of a loving and merciful God. That is what gives historical memories their meaning, even when change makes the past seem irrelevant.
Our nation has a traditional concept of law in the bible that has uniquely preserved us from the tyranny of church or state, king or demagogue. It was king Alfred who set it up for us, we were save from its being replaced by a system based on Roman Law by the destruction of an Armada when “God blew with His winds and they were scattered”, and the suppression of Guido Fawkes’ attempt at a revolution. The Wesley revival, according to Macaulay, saved us from the horror of a French Revolution, and the strange miracle of unseasonable weather at Dunkirk in 1940, which saved our army till it could overthrow the Nazi scourge. I am biased, of course, but it seems to me that without some kind of faith, all that history hardly merits memorials. But without memories, we shall lose our sense of meaning. If the Jewish experience tells anything, our very survival may depend on it.
Happy Memories
John Peck