Why the world needs to remember catastrophes

Catastrophes happen suddenly, without warning;

The 17th century philosopher Pascal saw Nothingness as a possibility that lurked, so to speak, beneath our feet, a gulf and an abyss into which we might tumble at any moment. (irrational man p.116 Kindle)

one minute a group of people are shopping happily in a market; the next, some lie dead and bleeding on the ground; their lives and the lives of people dependent on them changed forever because of an explosion which happened indiscriminately, without warning.

Only yesterday, I heard about a young man walking vigorously to the synagogue to pray - now he lies, unable to speak, because of brain damage caused by a bomb thrown casually in his path and blowing away half of his brain.

Unfortunately, the suddenness of catastrophes is matched by the suddenness with which they are forgotten. Nobody, except the family and other loved ones, spends time remembering the catastrophe and the people injured and killed by it.

This is natural, as the writer E.M. Forster points out in his masterpiece novel, A Passage to India:

"outbursts of grief could not be expected from them over a slight acquaintance. It’s only one’s own dead who matter. If for a moment the sense of communion in sorrow came to them, it passed. How indeed, is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals and plants, and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand, she retreats to the permanent lines which habit or chance have dictated, and suffers there."

Catastrophes are indeed recorded in the annals of history. Still, human beings don't hold daily memorial services for the dead, even though there are annual memorial days commemorated by family members and, in the case of a national catastrophe, like the holocaust and an entire nation celebrates a memorial day.

Some nations, however, like the Jewish Nation, have suffered a catastrophe so great that practically every day a memorial service is held. For example, a service is held every day in the hall of memorial at Yad Vashem, Israel's national memorial to those who perished in the holocaust.

Memorial Day brings all those who celebrate it into the warm, comforting circle of the family. The catastrophe that struck some of us now becomes the glue that sticks us together if we celebrate Memorial Day.