TORAH 4 TEENS BY TEENS NCSY ISRAEL Asher Manning, Gush Etzion Chapter Director Remembering the Future Memories. They come and go. We remember and forget. Reminisce and regret. We try to remember all sorts of things - important occasions and dates, facts and ideas, names and faces. It’s a constant never-ending battle against the creeping encroaching fog of forgetfulness and oblivion. In Hebrew the official word for remembrance is Zikaron. Our recent generations know all too well the haunting presence and memorium evoked by the somber word – Yizkor. Parashat Zachor likewise, is a small island of sobriety and solemnity, nestled between the festive lightheartedness of Purim and Chodesh Adar. We are commanded to remember, to actively reopen the scars of old and stop them from healing or fading away. Even today, when Amalek has been consigned to the pages of our distant history and all that is left of it is a disembodied spiritual ideology of evil and despair, we are the ones keeping its memory alive. We remember. In Jewish tradition Zachor has a partner 58
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– Shamor. Shabbat is blessed by the twin lights of memory and preservation – Shamor veZachor Bedibur Echad. Although they may appear to be different terms, at their root they are the same. My Rav, Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun once pointed out to me that when saving a document on the computer we click on the save icon. In Hebrew that icon is called Shmor. In essence what we mean by that is that we want the computer to remember what we were doing and to keep it as it is for future use. Shamor then means Zachor. Our people preserve time though the medium of collective memory. We build and form our future with the material of our past. Ultimately, through remembrance and preservation of our history – ""כתוב זאת זיכרון בספר, we are able, Be”H, to formulate and determine our own destiny for generations to come -
"ה מלחמה בעמלק מדור דור-"כס יד על כס י.
Yosef Zinger, 10th Grade, Efrat Appreciating Everything Why do we celebrate the miracle of Purim? What sets the miracle of Purim above other miracles? Of all the miracles that Hashem has done for us in our history
