Rosh Hashanah 5787: Remember Me

What Zichronot Teaches Us About Being Fully Known

Introduction

There are moments from a year that remain with us long after they have passed. We may think about a decision we wish we could make again, words we would take back if we could, or a time when we knew what was right and still chose differently. Other memories involve what we failed to do: something we avoided, someone we disappointed, or a commitment we made but did not keep. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, some of these memories return with a clarity we might have preferred they did not have.

It is easy to allow what went wrong to shape how we understand the entire year. One failure can assume greater significance than months of effort, and a painful period can affect how we understand everything that preceded it. We can begin to understand ourselves primarily through the moments in which our choices fell furthest from the people we wanted to be.

Zichronot confronts us with a very different kind of memory. Before Hashem, nothing needs to be reconstructed and nothing has faded with time. Our actions remain known, together with thoughts and intentions that no one else may have known. The tefillah states this without qualification: כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ — “for there is no forgetfulness before Your throne of glory.” On a day of judgment, that would seem to make Divine memory something to fear rather than something to request.

And yet Chazal teach precisely the opposite. We recite Zichronot כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה זִכְרוֹנֵיכֶם לְפָנַי לְטוֹבָה — so that our remembrance should rise before Hashem for good. We do not ask Hashem to remember selectively. We ask the One before whom there is no forgetting to remember us.

That request contains one of the deepest tensions of Zichronot. If everything is already known, what does it mean to ask Hashem to remember us? And if everything is remembered, including what we most wish we could change, why should being remembered be לְטוֹבָה? The pesukim Chazal chose for Zichronot invite us to understand what Divine remembrance means, and why a people standing in judgment would ask that their remembrance rise before Hashem לְטוֹבָה.

I. זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה: The Sound That Brings Us Before Hashem

When the Torah introduces the first day of the seventh month, it gives the day an unusual description: "בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם שַׁבָּתוֹן זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ" — “In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be for you a day of rest, a remembrance of teruah, a sacred occasion” (Vayikra 23:24). The Torah does not explain here what requires remembering. It places two ideas beside one another: זִכְרוֹן  and תְּרוּעָה.

Chazal give that connection greater definition. In describing the three central blessings of Rosh Hashanah Mussaf, the Gemara teaches: "אמרו לפני בראש השנה מלכיות זכרונות ושופרות... זכרונות כדי שיעלה זכרוניכם לפני לטובה, ובמה? בשופר" — “Recite before Me on Rosh Hashanah Malchuyot, Zichronot, and Shofarot... Zichronot, so that your remembrance should rise before Me for good. And through what? Through the shofar” (Rosh Hashanah 16a). Chazal describe something more specific: that our remembrance should rise before Him לטובה, and they connect that remembrance to the shofar.

Ramban develops that connection in his commentary on זכרון תרועה, describing Rosh Hashanah as יום דין ברחמים, a day of judgment within mercy. The shofar belongs within both dimensions of the day: we stand before Hashem in judgment while asking that our remembrance rise before Him for good.

The nature of the teruah makes that connection more significant. Elsewhere, the Gemara seeks to understand its sound and turns to the description of Sisera’s mother waiting at the window for a son who will never return: "בְּעַד הַחַלּוֹן נִשְׁקְפָה וַתְּיַבֵּב אֵם סִיסְרָא" — “Through the window she looked forth, and the mother of Sisera cried” (Shoftim 5:28; Rosh Hashanah 33b). From the word וַתְּיַבֵּב, Chazal derive the character of the teruah. The sound through which our remembrance rises before Hashem is associated with a human cry, expressing what a person is experiencing without requiring it first to be organized into words.

That matters on a day when we are asked to account for ourselves. There are parts of a year that we can articulate clearly. We can name what we regret, identify what needs to change, and recognize choices for which we must take responsibility. Other experiences are more difficult to explain. We may carry disappointment without knowing what to do with it, or regret whose causes we do not fully understand. We may know that something within us needs to change without yet understanding everything that brought us to where we are.

The teruah does not resolve that uncertainty, nor does it excuse what we have done. Teshuvah requires honesty and responsibility, but neither requires us to possess a complete explanation of ourselves. There are things about ourselves that we understand clearly and others that we understand only partially. The teruah allows all of that to come before Hashem. We come with words where we have them and with a broken sound where words are insufficient.

That distinction prepares us for Zichronot itself. Our account of ourselves will always be incomplete, but Hashem’s knowledge is not. The question is therefore no longer whether we can explain everything that has happened within us. It is what it means to stand in judgment before the One who already knows it completely.

II. כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה: The Completeness of Divine Memory

Zichronot begins by describing a kind of memory unlike anything available to us. "אַתָּה זוֹכֵר מַעֲשֵׂה עוֹלָם וּפוֹקֵד כָּל יְצוּרֵי קֶדֶם... כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ" — “You remember the deeds of the world and recall all creatures from the beginning... for there is no forgetfulness before Your throne of glory.” Nothing needs to be recovered before Hashem, and nothing has become less accessible because years have passed. What was once known remains known.

The tefillah then becomes more personal: "כִּי זֵכֶר כָּל הַיְצוּר לְפָנֶיךָ בָּא, מַעֲשֵׂה אִישׁ וּפְקֻדָּתוֹ, וַעֲלִילוֹת מִצְעֲדֵי גָבֶר, מַחְשְׁבוֹת אָדָם וְתַחְבּוּלוֹתָיו, וְיִצְרֵי מַעַלְלֵי אִישׁ." Our actions come before Hashem, but the list does not end with our actions. It includes our thoughts, plans, inclinations, and the internal processes that contributed to the choices we eventually made. The tefillah describes not simply a record of what occurred, but knowledge of the person from whom those actions emerged.

We are accustomed to being judged by what other people can observe. They may know what we said or did, but much of what occurred within us remains unknown to them. Before Hashem, that distinction does not exist. He knows the generosity nobody noticed, but also the motive that made an apparently generous act less pure. He knows the struggle behind a failure, but also the occasions when we could have struggled harder. Complete knowledge does not necessarily work in our favor.

Zichronot therefore cannot become an appeal for Hashem simply to look beyond what we have done. כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה means that nothing is omitted. At the same time, complete memory means that the visible act is never all that is known.

This is where Divine judgment differs fundamentally from human judgment. Human beings necessarily work from partial knowledge. We witness a choice, hear a statement, experience a hurt, and then try to understand the person responsible for it. Even when we know someone well, we are often reconstructing what happened within them from what became visible to us. We may know the act without knowing the fear that preceded it, the desire that competed with better judgment, the pattern that had developed over years, or the moment when a person could have chosen differently and did not.

Hashem does not have to reconstruct the person from the act. מַעֲשֵׂה אִישׁ, מַחְשְׁבוֹת אָדָם, and יִצְרֵי מַעַלְלֵי אִישׁ  are all before Him. The action and what produced it are known together. This does not mean that circumstances become excuses or that intention replaces responsibility. It means that Divine judgment never has to decide who a person is on the basis of only the part of him that became visible.

The words כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ  therefore leave us with an unresolved question. Nothing we have done disappears from Hashem’s memory, but neither does anything else He knows about us. Whether being known this completely is ultimately a source of fear or hope is something the pesukim that follow will begin to answer.

III. וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקִים אֶת נֹחַ: Remembered Before the Waters Recede

The first pasuk Chazal place into the sequence of Zichronot takes us back to a world still covered by water. "וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקִים אֶת נֹחַ וְאֵת כָּל הַחַיָּה וְאֵת כָּל הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ בַּתֵּבָה, וַיַּעֲבֵר אֱלֹקִים רוּחַ עַל הָאָרֶץ וַיָּשֹׁכּוּ הַמָּיִם" — “Hashem remembered Noach and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark; Hashem caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided” (Bereishit 8:1).

The word וַיִּזְכֹּר  cannot mean that Noach had somehow been forgotten. The teiva had survived because Hashem had commanded it to be built, and Noach’s survival had unfolded under Divine direction. Rashi explains this remembrance as Hashem recalling Noach’s merit in caring for the animals throughout the flood, while Ramban understands it more broadly as a remembrance of Noach’s righteousness and the covenant through which Hashem had promised to preserve him.

The language of Zichronot itself tells us how this remembrance is understood on Rosh Hashanah: "וְגַם אֶת נֹחַ בְּאַהֲבָה זָכַרְתָּ, וַתִּפְקְדֵהוּ בִּדְבַר יְשׁוּעָה וְרַחֲמִים" — “And Noach, too, You remembered with love, and You attended to him with words of salvation and mercy.” The tefillah does not describe a neutral recollection. Noach is remembered באהבה, and that remembrance is connected with ישועה ורחמים. The first example Chazal choose after describing the completeness of Divine memory is therefore a remembrance associated explicitly with love, salvation, and mercy.

Hashem remembers Noach while he is still inside the teiva. The earth remains submerged, the world he knew is gone, and he does not yet know what conditions will await him when he leaves. The pasuk does not say that the waters receded and Hashem then remembered Noach. וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקִים אֶת נֹחַ  comes first, and only afterward does the wind pass over the earth and the waters begin to subside. Divine remembrance is not the conclusion reached once Noach’s circumstances have improved; it precedes the improvement.

That order matters because our understanding of a person or a situation often changes once we know what happens next. When danger has passed, circumstances have improved, or a person has begun to recover from a difficult period, it becomes easier to understand what came before as temporary. While the difficulty is still unfolding, we do not have that knowledge. The present can appear more permanent than it actually is, and we may begin to define a person by circumstances whose outcome we cannot yet know.

Noach does not know when the waters will recede, what kind of world he will enter, or how life will begin again. His limited knowledge of what comes next does not determine how he is held in Divine memory. Hashem remembers him באהבה while those questions remain unanswered.

Noach therefore gives us the first indication of why complete Divine memory can become a source of hope. He is not yet the example of someone whose own failure has damaged the relationship; the pesukim of בְּרִית  will take us there. But he establishes something necessary first: we do not have to reach the other side of a difficult period before באהבה זכרת  can be true. Divine remembrance can already contain love, salvation, and mercy while the waters have not yet receded.

IV. וְזָכַרְתִּי אֶת בְּרִיתִי: What Failure Does Not Erase

As the pesukim of Zichronot continue, one word appears repeatedly: בְּרִית. Chazal include several pesukim in which Hashem’s remembrance is specifically a remembrance of covenant. This repetition directs our attention not only toward what Hashem remembers about a person or a nation, but toward the relationship within which they stand.

One of those pesukim comes from the suffering in Egypt: "וַיִּשְׁמַע אֱלֹקִים אֶת נַאֲקָתָם וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹקִים אֶת בְּרִיתוֹ אֶת אַבְרָהָם אֶת יִצְחָק וְאֶת יַעֲקֹב" — “Hashem heard their groaning, and Hashem remembered His covenant with Avraham, with Yitzchak, and with Yaakov” (Shemot 2:24). The people crying out in Egypt are not considered only according to their condition at that moment. Hashem’s remembrance includes a relationship that began generations before them. Their present suffering is real, but it is not the only reality that defines their place before Him.

A second pasuk places the remembrance of covenant in a more difficult context. Near the end of the Tochachah, after the Torah has described Israel’s failures and the consequences that will follow them, Israel comes to acknowledge its wrongdoing and its heart is humbled. It is within that setting that Hashem says: "וְזָכַרְתִּי אֶת בְּרִיתִי יַעֲקוֹב וְאַף אֶת בְּרִיתִי יִצְחָק וְאַף אֶת בְּרִיתִי אַבְרָהָם אֶזְכֹּר וְהָאָרֶץ אֶזְכֹּר" — “I will remember My covenant with Yaakov, and also My covenant with Yitzchak, and also My covenant with Avraham I will remember, and I will remember the Land” (Vayikra 26:42). There has been recognition and humility, but the consequences described by the Torah have not simply disappeared. The covenant is remembered within the very passage that has confronted Israel with what its failures have brought about.

Rashi, following the Sifra, draws attention to the order in which the Avot appear. Yaakov is mentioned first because his merit may itself be sufficient; if not, the merit of Yitzchak is joined to his, and then that of Avraham. Rashi also explains why the Torah does not explicitly use the language of remembering in connection with Yitzchak: the ashes of Yitzchak, as it were, remain before Hashem upon the mizbeach. Even after Israel’s failures have been described, the covenant with the Avot and the zechut associated with them remain present before Him.

That tells us something important about what בְּרִית means in Zichronot. Covenant is not simply a favorable memory placed on the opposite side of the scale from Israel’s failures. It is part of the relationship within which those failures have meaning in the first place. The Tochachah is possible because covenant carries obligations, and violating those obligations has consequences. When Hashem says וְזָכַרְתִּי אֶת בְּרִיתִי, He is therefore not suspending the seriousness of judgment. The same relationship that makes the failure consequential remains present within the judgment of that failure.

Zichronot brings this idea into an even more severe context in Yechezkel. After an extended rebuke describing Yerushalayim’s betrayal, Hashem says: "וְזָכַרְתִּי אֲנִי אֶת בְּרִיתִי אוֹתָךְ בִּימֵי נְעוּרָיִךְ וַהֲקִמוֹתִי לָךְ בְּרִית עוֹלָם" — “I will remember My covenant with you from the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant” (Yechezkel 16:60). By the time these words are spoken, the betrayal has already been named in uncompromising terms. Hashem does not need to soften the description of what Israel has done in order to remember the covenant. Both remain true at the same time.

There is an important difference between saying that a relationship has survived failure and saying that the failure has not mattered. The pesukim from Vayikra and Yechezkel leave no doubt about the seriousness of Israel’s conduct. What they refuse to allow is a different conclusion: that because Israel has violated the relationship, Israel can now be understood only through the violation. Hashem remembers the betrayal together with the בְּרִית in which the betrayal occurred.

This takes us beyond the question raised by Noach. Noach showed that Hashem can remember a person באהבה while his circumstances remain unresolved. The pesukim of בְּרִית  address something more difficult: what happens when the problem is not only what has happened to us, but what we ourselves have done. Zichronot does not answer by making the failure smaller. It establishes that failure, even when fully known and judged, does not become the entirety of the relationship.

V. זָכַרְתִּי לָךְ חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ: What the Present Cannot Rewrite

The covenant is not the only thing Zichronot asks Hashem to remember. Among the prophetic pesukim chosen by Chazal is one that recalls an earlier period in Israel’s relationship with Hashem: "זָכַרְתִּי לָךְ חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ אַהֲבַת כְּלוּלֹתָיִךְ לֶכְתֵּךְ אַחֲרַי בַּמִּדְבָּר בְּאֶרֶץ לֹא זְרוּעָה" — “I remember for you the devotion of your youth, the love of your early days, when you followed Me into the wilderness, into a land that was not sown” (Yirmiyahu 2:2).

Yirmiyahu is not speaking to a generation whose conduct resembles the devotion being remembered. The prophecy develops into a sustained rebuke of a nation that has moved far from its earlier loyalty. The memory of חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ  therefore appears not after Israel has returned, but as Hashem begins confronting its failures.

There was a time when a newly formed nation followed Hashem into the wilderness without knowing how it would sustain itself there. That is the period Hashem now recalls as חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִך ְ and אַהֲבַת כְּלוּלֹתָיִךְ, even as Yirmiyahu prepares to speak about how far Israel has moved from that earlier devotion.

Human memory can work differently. Later experiences often influence how we interpret what came before them. When someone disappoints us, we may reconsider qualities we once admired or question whether an earlier closeness was as genuine as we believed. Sometimes new information properly changes our understanding of the past. But there are also times when what we know now becomes so dominant that we begin to reinterpret what was once genuinely present.

Hashem’s words therefore preserve something that human memory can easily lose. The One who says זָכַרְתִּי לָךְ חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ  is not remembering Israel’s early devotion without knowing what will follow. Hashem knew the wilderness complaints, the rebellions, and the disloyalty that would come afterward, and still the earlier act is called חֶסֶד  and אַהֲבַת כְּלוּלֹתָיִךְ. Later failure does not reveal that the earlier devotion was meaningless. What was genuine then remains genuine even in the presence of everything Hashem knows came later.

This does not necessarily make judgment easier. Remembering חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ  can make Israel’s later disloyalty more painful, because it establishes that another way of relating to Hashem was once possible and had once been chosen. Earlier goodness is therefore not introduced as an argument that present failure should be ignored. It remains part of the truth about the people whose present conduct is being judged.

The movement from בְּרִית to חֶסֶד נְעוּרַיִךְ deepens the argument. The previous pesukim established that the relationship itself is not erased by failure. Yirmiyahu now establishes that neither is the goodness that once existed within that relationship. The final prophetic pasuk takes the question one step further. After remembering the covenant and remembering what was once good, Hashem speaks about the one who has strayed: הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם?

VI. הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם: The Person Within the Judgment

The final prophetic pasuk chosen for Zichronot brings the question of memory into the language of a parent and child. "הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם אִם יֶלֶד שַׁעֲשֻׁעִים כִּי מִדֵּי דַבְּרִי בּוֹ זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד עַל כֵּן הָמוּ מֵעַי לוֹ רַחֵם אֲרַחֲמֶנּוּ נְאֻם ה'" — “Is Ephraim a precious son to Me, a cherished child? Whenever I speak of him, I continue to remember him; therefore My innermost being yearns for him, I will surely have compassion upon him, says Hashem” (Yirmiyahu 31:19).

The pasuk comes only after Ephraim has recognized how far he has strayed. Immediately beforehand, Yirmiyahu describes him saying: "הֲשִׁיבֵנִי וְאָשׁוּבָה כִּי אַתָּה ה' אֱלֹקָי" — “Bring me back and I will return, for You are Hashem my God.” Ephraim does not describe himself as someone who simply made a mistake and can now correct it. He asks Hashem to enable the return itself. The Ephraim whom Hashem remembers is therefore someone who has come to recognize both his distance and his need for help in returning.

It is in response to this Ephraim that Hashem speaks the remarkable words: הֲבֵן יַקִּיר לִי אֶפְרַיִם אִם יֶלֶד שַׁעֲשֻׁעִים? The language places Ephraim’s failure alongside the continuing language of a precious son and cherished child. Ephraim has strayed, experienced the consequences of that distance, and now seeks to return. The pasuk does not need to erase any of that before speaking of him in the language of closeness.

Hashem then says: כִּי מִדֵּי דַבְּרִי בּוֹ זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד — “Whenever I speak of him, I continue to remember him.” Radak explains that whenever Hashem speaks of Ephraim, He remembers him באהבתי הקדומה לו, with the earlier love He has for him. Malbim develops the idea further, understanding מִדֵּי דַבְּרִי בּוֹ as including the very moments when Hashem speaks critically of Ephraim. Even while his failings are being discussed, what is worthy in him remains present in Divine memory.

Here Zichronot moves from what Hashem remembers to whom He remembers. Earlier, Hashem remembers Noach, remembers the covenant, and remembers Israel’s earlier devotion. Here the language becomes intensely personal: אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ — I remember him. After everything that can be said about Ephraim’s conduct, Hashem’s remembrance still reaches the person himself. The failure can be fully known without becoming everything that is known.

This does not place Ephraim outside judgment. The preceding verses make clear that he has strayed and must return. Responsibility has not disappeared, nor has the distance he created become insignificant. What the pasuk refuses to do is allow that distance to become the only truth about him. The one who must return is still spoken of as הַבֵּן יַקִּיר, and his responsibility for what he has done remains alongside his place within the relationship.

The conclusion of the pasuk then makes the connection to rachamim explicit: "עַל כֵּן הָמוּ מֵעַי לוֹ רַחֵם אֲרַחֲמֶנּוּ" — “Therefore My innermost being yearns for him; I will surely have compassion upon him.” Radak connects this compassion to Hashem’s continued remembrance of His earlier love for Ephraim, and Metzudat David similarly understands עַל כֵּן as linking the remembrance directly to the rachamim that follows. The pasuk does not move from forgetting Ephraim’s failure to having mercy upon him. It moves from remembering Ephraim to rachamim: זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד; עַל כֵּן... רַחֵם אֲרַחֲמֶנּוּ.

Ephraim therefore brings the question of Divine memory to the person himself. Hashem does not have to reconstruct him from the evidence of his conduct. He knows what Ephraim has done, the distance he has created, his desire to return, and the person who stands within all of it. זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד  does not make any part of that record disappear. It establishes that even while Ephraim’s failure is remembered, Ephraim himself is remembered as well.

Parenting Reflection: Remembering the Child Within the Struggle

One of the hardest things about parenting a struggling teenager is that the struggle can gradually become the primary way we understand the child. This rarely happens because parents stop loving their children, but because the problems demand so much attention. There may be choices that frighten us, behaviors that require a response, conflict that has changed the atmosphere of the home, or a distance from values that once seemed secure. When these concerns continue long enough, it can become difficult to encounter the child apart from them.

Something subtle can then happen. What our child is doing begins to influence who we believe our child has become. The teenager who is angry becomes an angry teenager. The child making choices we never imagined becomes defined by those choices. We may still remember who he once was, but those memories can begin to feel less relevant than the person standing in front of us now.

Zichronot challenges that narrowing without asking us to deny reality. A child’s behavior may require boundaries, consequences, professional help, or difficult decisions. But responding seriously to behavior does not require us to make the behavior the definition of the person. The teenager who is angry may also be frightened. The child who appears indifferent may still care about things he no longer knows how to approach. Qualities, attachments, and longings that are difficult to recognize right now may still be present even when we cannot access them.

This is especially difficult when the struggle has lasted a long time and there is little evidence that things are improving. Parents naturally search for signs that something is changing. When those signs do not appear, discouragement can shape not only what we expect from the future but how we relate to our child in the present. We do not have to pretend that improvement is around the corner. We can simply refuse to give today's difficulty the authority to tell us everything about the person we love.

And when even that becomes difficult, there is comfort in remembering that our knowledge of our child has limits while Hashem’s does not. We may not know what is happening beneath the behavior, what remains alive from earlier years, or what may emerge much later. We can respond responsibly to what is in front of us without assuming that it is all there is. Our child remains fully known before Hashem even during the years when we are struggling to understand him ourselves.

Conclusion

When we stand on Rosh Hashanah and say אַתָּה זוֹכֵר מַעֲשֵׂה עוֹלָם, we are not asking Hashem to overlook the year we have lived. Zichronot does not offer that possibility. כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ  means that the choices we regret remain known, together with the opportunities we missed and the times we knew what was right and chose otherwise. Nothing about judgment becomes less serious because Hashem remembers completely.

But this is no longer the same כִּי אֵין שִׁכְחָה with which we began. Chazal teach that we recite Zichronot כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה זִכְרוֹנֵיכֶם לְפָנַי לְטוֹבָה. We might have imagined that our hope on a day of judgment would lie in Hashem remembering less: that something might be overlooked, softened, or allowed to recede. Zichronot asks us to place our hope somewhere else. Hashem remembers completely, and therefore the most difficult part of a person's life never becomes the only part that is present before Him.

There are years when we come to Rosh Hashanah with parts of our lives that remain unresolved, with people we love still struggling, and with questions for which we have no answer. Noach was remembered באהבה  while he was still inside the teiva; the waters did not have to recede first. Zichronot does not promise us that our own waters will recede when or how we hope they will. It gives us something else to hold onto: the uncertainty that limits what we know does not limit what Hashem knows, and the difficulty of the present does not determine how a person is held before Him.

We therefore come before Hashem with the teruah, carrying what we can explain and what we cannot. We take responsibility for what is ours, ask for help in returning where we have become distant, and entrust to Hashem what remains beyond our understanding. When we ask that our remembrance rise before Him לְטוֹבָה, we are not asking Him to forget part of the truth. We are placing ourselves, and those we love, before the One who knows the whole truth—and who can still say of a child who has wandered, זָכֹר אֶזְכְּרֶנּוּ עוֹד... רַחֵם אֲרַחֲמֶנּוּ.

Yaakov Lazar

Founder, Kol HaNeshamot