Philosophical Reflections on Memory (Column 68)
Why memory takes the form of reposting here
The column opens with a personal explanation: because of a class that prevents him from going to the cemetery, the rabbi chooses to publish these words again in memory of his friend from youth, who was killed in a tank exercise in Sinai on the eve of Hanukkah 5740. The very reposting is presented as an act of active memory, not merely a ritual mention.
The name on the gravestone, Rami bar Hama, and Ephraim’s continuing presence
The column dwells on the fact that the gravestone says Ram even though his real name was Rami. From there it moves to the story of how his parents chose the name after the amora Rami bar Hama, as his father Ephraim recounted, and to the memory of studying the sugya of This one benefits and that one does not lose, where that amora appears. In this way, the personal memory is tied both to the world of Torah learning and to Ephraim’s figure, which also remains present within the memory.
Friendship with a boy from Kiryat Yam who shattered stereotypes
The rabbi returns to his first meeting with Rami at the beginning of ninth grade in the yeshiva high school: a boy from Kiryat Yam, a development town, who immediately proved to be an extraordinary personality — talented, charismatic, mature, responsible, educated, deep, and a social leader. This description is not only personal praise; it is also testimony to how Rami shattered quite a few stereotypes for him.
From grief to an ongoing partnership in life decisions
The column describes the news of Rami’s death as the feeling that his world had been destroyed, and stresses that to this day Rami accompanies the rabbi on Memorial Day and on other days as well. At different crossroads in life, the rabbi asks what Rami, and also Ephraim, would have said, and makes decisions as if together with them. The closing ties this back to the philosophical idea of the original column: perhaps this memory really is a kind of actual presence.
With God’s help
I am reposting here a column I wrote last year, in memory of my boyhood friend Rami Buchris, of blessed memory, who was killed in a tank exercise in Sinai on the eve of Hanukkah in 1979. Unfortunately, I have a class today and cannot make it to the cemetery, and so I decided to post these words again in his memory.
On Rami’s gravestone at the military cemetery in Haifa it says Lieutenant David Ram Buchris, but his real name was Rami, not Ram. His father, Ephraim, of blessed memory—a remarkable figure in his own right (I knew him very well even before we met, from the stories; afterward we maintained a close bond until his passing)—recounted that, after consulting a supervisor of Talmud studies in the Ministry of Education, he and Dvora, Rami’s mother, decided to name him Rami after the Talmudic sage Rami bar Hama. At a panel in which I participated at the National Library together with another friend of Rami’s, Dr. Meir Buzaglo, we studied the passage dealing with one benefits while the other loses nothing (one benefits while the other loses nothing), in which Rami bar Hama appears. I believe that was the passage because of which his name was chosen.
When we arrived at the Midrashiya at the beginning of ninth grade, I met Rami, a young boy from Kiryat Yam, a development town in Haifa Bay. Very quickly it became clear to me that he was an extraordinary person, head and shoulders above all of us. Talented, charismatic, mature and responsible, learned, profound, and a social leader—truly not in my league. That in itself was instructive, and it shattered quite a few stereotypes for me. From then on my soul was bound up with his, and we became very close friends until his death. When the news reached me that Rami had been killed, I felt that my world had collapsed, and to this day, on Memorial Day (and on other days as well), he walks closely beside me. Many times, at various crossroads in my life, I have asked myself what Rami would say (and what Ephraim would say as well), and I made decisions together with them. In light of what I wrote in that column, perhaps it really was together with them.
May their memory be blessed.