Jewish Reflections on Memorial Day

In a famous speech known as the Lyceum Address, a 29-year-old Abraham Lincoln issued a warning to his fellow Americans.

 Half a century had passed since the Revolution, and Lincoln worried that his countrymen had already forgotten the Patriots who bled and died for the basic freedoms that Americans of his generation were taking for granted.

 After the Civil War, Congress authorized the establishment of a new national holiday, to be known as Decoration Day, that would commemorate the heroism and sacrifices of those who had fought and died to preserve the Union. As time went by, the veterans of other wars were included in the observances, and in 1967 the holiday was renamed Memorial Day.

 My father, my uncles and just about every other adult male I knew when I was growing up had served in the US military during World War II. As I matured, I came to appreciate what it meant for them, and for me, that these brave men were willing to put their devotion to country first, and assume the risks and burdens of fighting for everything we value as Americans. But I fear that Lincoln’s warning needs to be reissued. For most Americans, Memorial Day seems to mean little more than sales at department and appliance stores, a weekend at the beach and barbeques. We have fallen into a state of national amnesia whereby we pay lip service to those who placed their loyalty to their country above everything else, but we don’t truly remember them.

 This obligation to remember is especially incumbent upon us as Jews. Had it not been for the freedom that America provides for us, then living a Jewish life would be far more problematic. Maintaining a strong American republic ensures our security as Jews. Judaism itself is a religion of memory. So many of our holidays enjoin us to relive the moments of deliverance and redemption that God had availed us throughout our troubled history. To forget our fallen heroes would thus be a betrayal to ourselves as Jews and as Americans.

 Let us try, then, to avoid the amnesia that seems to tempt us as our wars slip farther into the historical past. Perhaps by watching Saving Private Ryan, Glory, and other film classics about the struggles of earlier generations, we can redeem the memory necessary to keep us a free people, and help restore our commitment to the democratic principles that maintain the United States as a republic of liberty. Once these principles are forgotten, the wisdom necessary for democratic self-governance may be lost forever and, as happened to ancient Rome, our republic may collapse into dictatorship and tyranny.

Lincoln noted in the Lyceum Address that if the United States were to perish as a free and independent nation, the cause would not be due to some foreign invasion, but would lie within ourselves because we had forgotten how to remember. Memorial Day challenges us to wake up from this amnesia and to stop taking our liberty for granted.

by Mark Packer, President