Memory, Forgeting, Music and the Self

I listened to another mp3 program from wnyc.org's program, Radio Lab, on the topic of memory. I have three reflections on the mechanics of memory from that very informative program after listening to the fascinating story of Clive, a musician and conductor who was struck with a disease that took away his ability to remember anything more than 7 seconds in the past. It's an unbelievable story of someone with no past and no memories. All he has is the present. You can listen to that segment of the program here:

First Thought: The Scientists on the program explained memory as the creative act of rebuilding a memory, rather the mere retrieval of memories from a mental filing cabinet. This explains why memories can be added to or subtracted from as they are recalled over and over again. This got me to thinking about how that might relate to the idea of "Zikaron." When we ask Hashem on Rosh Hashana, "Ve'akeidas Yitzchok Lezaro Hayom Berachamim Tizkor!," "Remember the Akeidas Yitzchok for his children with mercy!," what are we really asking? When it says in Shmos 2:23, "וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-נַאֲקָתָם; וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת-בְּרִיתוֹ, אֶת-אַבְרָהָם אֶת-יִצְחָק וְאֶת-יַעֲקֹב," that Hashem remembered his covenant with our fathers, what does that mean? Can Hashem forget anything?

If, however, memory is not simply the mechanical act of retrieval, but the re-creation of the old reality, when we ask Hashem to "remember," what we're really asking is for Hashem to invoke the reality of the past and make it part of the present, but in a much realer way than the mere analogy of re-creative human memory. So when Hashem remembers the Mesiras Nefesh of Yitzchok, He is re-creating that reality now, today, according to Rav Aharon Kahn from Yeshivas Yitzchok Elchonon (pictured to the left).

My second thought about Clive, the man with no memory, is: What am I? A collection of memories? What's the real "you?" I know the neshoma is the real me, but that is such a difficult concept to get one's head around. If I can't remember any of my past Gilgulim, in what sense is that really me? (I suppose that my conscious physical brain, independent of the real me is what can't remember, but still...) If, like Clive, at every moment I felt that I didn't know who I was, where I was, where I came from, what I was doing in that place, I would feel as if I had no "self," no "I." Can anyone out there offer a way to distinguish memory from "self?"

Third: One of the only two things this man with Amnesia did remember was music and his love for music. When people speak to him normally, he knows nothing about music, his life as a conductor, or anything related. However, when they placed his former students in front of him and gave him a conductor's baton, he immediately began reading the music, conducting and leading his students as proficiently as if nothing had every happened. When the piece was over, however, he didn't even remember what had happened. It was exactly as before. What was so deep about music that is is virtually the only thing this man can remember when he can remember nothing else?

In Rav Moshe Weinberger's shiur, "The Power of Music - Tazria-Metzorah," he explains the deep place in the soul that music is connected to. It's unbelieveable but somehow, the soul is deeply connected to music, such that hearing a certain song can evoke feelings from decades ago that had long since been dormant. It can stand out in a person with no memory of anything. It's an amazing koach, and it was very interesting to hear of this Amnesia case, where music was about his only connection to his former self. It is also a mussar haskeil that we have to take very seriously the types of music we listen to and the source of the music we listen to, since it has a very deep connection to who we are.

(Artwork is "Persistence of Memory" by Salvadore Dali)