Abstract
[full article and abstract in Lithuanian; abstract in English]
 This article discusses the relationship between the development of individual identity and the culture of social memory. The starting point of the analysis is the hermeneutics of biblical texts referencing the postulate to remember and commemorate specific events in the history of the people of Israel. Such remembrance, however, is not understood solely as a memory of the past, but instead becomes the point of reference for the present and the future. The results of the analysis of the biblical texts are then referenced to education in contemporary social and cultural settings. The author points out that breaking with the past causes confusion and disorientation with regard to the reference points in the future and ultimately affects the meaning of the present, which – deprived of perspective – acquires its own autotelic value. The lack of the culture of memory also results in reducing the past to an idyllic form, illusionary rather than authentic, thus becoming a mere object of longing. It also reduces the future to the merely incidental, uprooted from the past events and thoughtlessly independent of the human being.
Highlights
The name of the Wailing Wall – the Western Wall in Jerusalem – comes from the Jewish “habit” of mourning the ruined temple of which it was part, a temple that still awaits reconstruction. This name seems to signal some important feature of memory cultivation
It is not in reference to one’s own experience that this command is uttered, but to a shared memory meant to constitute a particular foundation that underlies the formation of the community
How often does one find in the Torah or in the Old Testament references to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, or Solomon? This is a special kind of symbolism of tradition, which is simultaneously an ongoing living source
Summary
The tradition of remembering concerns one’s roots in the past, but certain community obligations in the present, which are a unique and vital bedrock for the future. It happened in the past, but it has a dimension of the future, because it is associated with a long journey to a destination that was promised but difficult to reach. It is not difficult to see that the present does not create the conditions for maintaining fidelity to memory, for reproducing the psychological truth and the authenticity of the experience of time.
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