The Torah Is Bound to Be Forgotten: A History of an Ahistorical Trope

This paper argues that the rhetoric of forgetting was central to the early rabbinic movement's self-conception. Earlier interpretations of the saying that »the Torah is bound to be forgotten« were guided by the »retreat from history« hypothesis. On this account, the rabbis promoted their efforts at preservation and consolidation of the Torah as a timely solution to the vicissitudes of real events. Balberg, however, stresses the specific connection between this motif of forgetting the Torah, and Ezra the scribe, a prior promulgator of the notion of a »second Torah.« Rabbis styled themselves as Ezras, expanding and blurring this older idea so as to encompass a wider range of forgettings. In the process, they redefined what it means not to forget the Torah. Not only the giving and interpretation of the Torah, but also its perpetual renewal, became a recurring pattern of rabbinic thought. Thus one cannot distinguish historical from ahistorical or traditional rabbinic uses of the past; all are textually mediated.