What is the deeper meaning of memory?
Memory CONNECTS THE DOTS!! If not for memory - every moment would be a disjointed, disjuncted, meaningless point in time. There would be no relationship between one second and the next. You go to the kitchen but you have no idea why. You see your mother there and you haven't the FOGGIEST IDEA who she is. You see a big box but without memory, you don't know that it is a refrigerator and what it's purpose is [i.e. to enable us to get fat]. Life would be completely unmanageable. You wouldn't understand a word of what is being said to you because all of our understanding is based on our memory of what words mean. We wouldn't be able to get dressed in the morning or even know that we are supposed to because that too is memory based. EVERYTHING we do and say is predicated on the memory that we SOOOOO take for granted. So THANK YOU O LORD FOR MEMORY!!!:-):-)!!!
Says the Medrash: The Melachim told Hashem not to create man with the words of Tehillim מה אנוש כי תזכרנו - Who is man that you should REMEMBER him. Should they not have said כי תבראנו - That you should CREATE him??
Memory - on yet a deeper level, connects us to our point of creation. Every morning we say נשמה שנתת בי טהורה היא אתה בראתה וכו' אתה נפתחת בי - The neshama that You put into me is pure, You created it etc. You blew it into me.
The angels were saying that man doesn't use his memory to remember from whence he came. Man doesn't remember the most important part of his being - so why should YOU "remember" him and give him this power of memory that he will misuse??
Hashem didn't accept their claim and created man anyway. To commemorate this, on "Yom Hazikaron" [Rosh Hashana's name according to Chazal] we blow the shofar and say psukim of זכרונות - memories. These memories are intended to instruct us as to what is important in life and to give us the proper perspective. The blowing of the shofar brings us back to the most primordial memory of Hashem blowing into our nostrils ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים and Chazal say that this means that He blew from deep inside himself כביכול to create man.
When we connect to that point with our memories we make ourselves worthy of being recreated for a new year.
The gemara says about the blowing of the shofar כיון דלזכרון קאתי כלפני ולפנים דמי - Since it comes as a זכרון - memory, it is like it is in the Holy Of Holies [and therefore it may not be made with gold]. The memory of the original ויפח באפיו takes us to the Holy Of Holies.
[עי' פח"י ר"ה מאמר כ"ה]
