ABSTRACT
The key word and key concept in the representation, memorialization, and reaffirmation of sacred Jewish purposes is the word mitzvah and the ideas it signifies. The notion of the mitzvah has also come to include those acts that carry the spirit of the law “beyond mere legal duty,” endowing deeds with a surplus of affect that makes knowing what is right feel right too. Although forbidden any knowledge of the future, Jews performing mitzvah fetch the history of Jews into a present moment of their lives that is suspended between what has happened, is happening, and may happen. The Jewish mitzvah of tending caringly and lovingly to the remains of the departed also extends to the disposal of books that inform, enliven, and inspire Jews by performing the complexity and vibrancy of Jewish life. A plaque outside the former Polish Jewish shtetl of Nasielsk, just 35 miles outside of Warsaw, records the total absence of its former Jewish population.
