9/11 Ten Years Later: A Remembrance
Rabbi Ron Shulman
Shabbat Ki Tetze 5771
Here’s what we’ve learned in the ten years since September 11, 2001. We never can lose sight of our best principles, nor abandon our ideals.
I’ve always applied Jewish vocabulary to the commemorations of 9/11 because they impart meaning and significance where it is needed most. That first horrible week ten years ago was America’s Shiva. Every year since, an American Yahrzeit
Now we observe the tenth sobering and sad anniversary of 9/11. Since then, few of us anticipated the extent to which the country and the world in which we live would change. We gather in reflection and remembrance to find light to dispel the dark and quiet to calm the nerves of the past decade.
We live as we choose, and as we must. Time is precious precisely because we cannot ever know what it will bring us. We continue to travel and to fly. We attend public events and gatherings. We still meet and greet new and different people.
We know our dreams and prayers. We strive to live our lives with confidence and poise. We cherish the opportunities of this world, and in a responsible and balanced manner make them the content of our days. This is how we defend freedom, human dignity, our values, and our way of life. By being optimistic and trusting in the promise of a brighter future.
On September 11, 2001 people, places, and the spirit of our country were attacked. On September 11, 2011 we declare that we are in tact and whole, as we continue to define the meaning of what took place and how we responded.
“When you go to war against your enemies,” begins this week’s Torah portion. Each side in every war views their combatant as an enemy. Before this past decade, enemy wasn’t a word or a concept we focused on much off the battlefield. Now it is a regular part of our lexicon.
Ten years ago we lived history. Our vocabulary and perspective changed. Suddenly, we were aware of people, acts, and ideologies against which we stand firm with all good people.
On September 11, 2001 we were all younger. Our children and grandchildren grew up during the last decade in a world less civil and more disturbing. Their consciousness is filled with terror alerts, airport and building security, the sudden news of terror plots foiled or carried out, the longest and, arguably, the most complicated wars in American history. And, all of this against the background of an event they understand more or less, and remember more or less.
I didn’t pass by a security guard to enter buildings while I grew up. I used to meet friends and relatives at the airport gate as they walked right off the plane. I didn’t learn about a Department of Homeland Security when I studied American government in school.
No. None of us grew up during easy times. Every era and every generation face their challenges and difficulties. Yet, this generation that has come into awareness over the past decade needs our help.
They need perspective and hope, as do we. Over the course of ten years all of us have paid a spiritual, if not a moral, price protecting ourselves. Today as we share in the responsibility of safeguarding our nation and each other, together we also need to strengthen the soul of our nation.
That’s why we honor the lives of each one of the 2,996 victims by not overreacting. If we have become more conscious and aware of the hatred that some people do harbor these past ten years, we need to be clear in advocating on behalf of all people and groups who represent goodness and compassion which are humanity’s best instincts and interests.
All people stand as equals among the diverse ethnicities and creeds in our society, and before God. We are one nation, under God, indivisible, who proclaim still our belief in liberty and justice for all.
The horrors of 9/11 felt by all Americans reverberated within the Jewish community not only due to grief at the tragic loss of so many lives but also from a recognition that a terror with which we were all too familiar had now reached these shores. We have marked each anniversary of 9/11 with sensitivity to this awareness. A decade later we feel a keen responsibility to remember and seek perspective for the future.
In 1938, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke in Frankfurt, Germany. As the world crept toward last century’s confrontation with great evil, Dr. Heschel spoke with genuine piety and faith.
“The greatest task of our time is to take the souls of men out of the pit… Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service…”
Rabbi Heschel concluded his remarks with this vision. “There is a divine dream which the prophets and rabbis have cherished…It is the dream of a world, rid of evil by the grace of God as well as by the efforts of man, by his dedication to the task of establishing the kingship of God in the world.
We should not spend our life hunting for trivial satisfactions while God is waiting constantly and keenly for our effort and devotion. The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition. We have not survived that we may waste our years in vulgar vanities.”
On this sacred anniversary, we challenge ourselves to remember this call. We remind ourselves to cherish the promise and potential of justice and goodness. We remember to take responsibility for one another. We work to help our children know a safer, saner world.
How do we mark this tenth anniversary of 9/11? By being kind. Those who attacked us wanted to demean our values and demoralize us. They didn’t. They can’t. Act with kindness toward others. Demonstrate your respect for all whom you meet. Share your caring, your compassion, and your goodness. This is our purpose and our dignity. Be kind on this anniversary and every next day.
These are the best ways to honor the memories of those 3,000 lost souls and the legacy of these past ten years since September 11th. For though we are no longer naïve about the world we live in, we are also no longer resigned to living in a world of terror.
© 2011 Rabbi Ronald J. Shulman
