Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my father's death (on the Hebrew calendar, which he knew nothing about) and he died late on a Sunday night and this year as well, the anniversary is on Sunday night - Monday. I was with him when he died and officiated at the funeral.
He was abusive and we had a very difficult relationship, so the anniversaries of his death are complicated. I attended a synagogue service this morning and I'm glad I did.
This coming Shabbat (and also the Shabbat after his death and, I suspect, this is true of most years, given how the calendar falls out) is Shabbat Zachor, which has a special short Torah reading read after the weekly Torah portion. The special reading is Deuteronomy 25:17-19. Many people have the custom of reading it daily as part of the Six Remembrances after morning prayers (although I do have a kabblalistic siddur that has Ten Remembrances) - a list of six short Torah passages with things that are commanded to be remembered.
The passage begins "Remember what Amalek did to you" and ends with the curious and contradictory instruction: "you are to blot out the name of Amalek from under the heavens; you are not to forget!" Many, many drashes have been given over the years about this set of contradictory instructions. But in the context of my father's death, although I am not saying he is Amalek, in terms of the abuse, I have to both remember it and the ways I need to grow and change and "go forth . . . from my father's house, to the land [G!d] will show me" (Gen 12:1) AND at the same time blot out the memory so I can not be consumed by it. I think this is the task of survivors of abusive relationships.
I have recently begun to understand with compassion that the very destructive fundamentalist Christian faith that they practiced was a structure they needed to cope with their own chaotic and deeply troubled childhoods filled with abuse, even though it was a religious system that was very damaging and abusive for me.
May they rest in peace.
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