A New Year in the Shadow of the Towers, and Our Sacred Responsibility
On Sunday, July 29, 2001, the Jews of New York City, like those all around the world, sat on the floor in a posture of mourning. They were marking an event that happened many centuries earlier, in which thousands of people died. Yet the massive loss of humanity was not by itself the driver of the continuing mourning practices observed so many years after; it was the loss and continuing absence of a building — a center of Jewish practice, both symbolic and functional, that dictated the establishment of an ongoing calendric observance — that rendered Jewish unity and spirituality profoundly deprived. It was the second such building destroyed in that fashion, on the same date as the first.
About six weeks later, on September 11, all of New York City experienced a profoundly devastating trauma of unprecedented intensity, plunging the entire nation into a state of shock, grief and dismay. Thousands died, in ways too horrifying to reimagine. And together with that loss came the destruction of two buildings, this time not only on the same date but on the same day.
Certainly the World Trade Center is not to be compared to the Beis HaMikdash; a “l’havdil” must be inserted lest it seem that the epicenter of holiness in the world is being equated to the financial capital that once stood in Lower Manhattan. Yet it is nonetheless worth considering how much can be represented by a building, “sticks and stones,” mortar and concrete; what its presence can accomplish and what its absence can devastate.
To the monstrous villains who brought them down, the Twin Towers were, perhaps, the symbol of American decadence; or, with their stratospheric stature, of the arrogance of the United States and its people. But to those who cried on that day, the towers represented America's boundless potential, the opportunities bestowed upon its citizens, the promise offered to those who looked beyond its top stories to the sky that seemed the only limit to the aspirations of a people blessed by their government with the freedom to pursue their dreams. That sky came crashing down that morning, and with it the towers; and yet, with that downfall, the soaring skyscrapers became a symbol of so much more.
It is appalling to think that, 25 years later, there is a fog that surrounds the wreckage of that day; a deeply distressing percentage of those born since then have a disgraceful lack of knowledge, not only of what happened but of what it meant for it to happen, and that ignorance is a dire threat to the world this generation will inhabit.
It is obscene that, a quarter century later, there are those who influence aspiring and current political leaders in the United States itself that can claim that America deserved what happened that day. The distortion of the facts and of perspective that could produce such a position is only a part of the travesty. It is not only the depraved assessment that the people of the United States “had it coming”; it is the belief that anything at all could have justified what happened.
The moral abomination that is terrorism is premised on the belief that there is no objective right and wrong in the world; all can be set aside in the pursuit of one’s political goals. An aspect of its incoherence is that it often assigns guilt to its victims using the broadest and loosest of inchoate standards, and then proceeds to exact justice through behavior that meets and exceeds any conceivable definition of evil. Terrorism is the abandonment of morality, the ultimate denial of God’s presence on this earth. The fact that its execution might be accompanied by some point of declaration that “God is great” is one more cruel absurdity and has established a new definition of idolatry for the modern era. The toleration of this attitude undermines the sustainability of all civilization.
There is no grievance that can justify what happened on September 11, just as nothing can justify October 7. If America will have political leadership that does not understand this, if the city that suffered the worst terrorist attack in American history can be governed by those who are unable to condemn its expression anywhere in the world, then the tragedy of the Twin Towers is one that is ongoing and increasing. The hole that scarred Lower Manhattan has been filled in uplifting and appropriate ways, while a hole is developing in the American soul that can unravel its entire fabric.
American society is not perfect, as no society in the world is. But it is a nation of laws, a culture that was established to function “under God” with a recognition by its founders that their Creator had bestowed a dignity upon humanity that came with expectations upon the societies that they would form; an understanding that there are fundamental responsibilities that its members have to each other.
On that dreadful morning in September, the worst of humanity wrought its havoc upon New York City. At the same time, the best instincts of humanity rose to the surface and climbed to the top of the towers. The horrific death toll that day included 343 firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers and dozens of emergency medical responders; individuals who felt their responsibility to others, and rushed towards a crumbling, burning skyscraper.
Rabbi Shimon Shkop defined holiness as the readiness to give of oneself to others, to find room within one’s many competing priorities to look away from one’s individuality and run towards the needs of the many. On that terrible day, so many Americans of all faiths displayed holiness of a magnificent degree, honoring the image of God in response to the disgrace to His Name inflicted by those who would invoke it to accompany acts of unspeakable evil. On that day, this shrine to worldly achievement was sanctified, and its symbolism now evoked eternity.
A quarter of a century later, it is the solemn responsibility of those who would define American culture to honor that holiness, and recognize that there is morality in the world and no grievance can justify the tools of terrorism being inflicted upon the innocents of the Earth; that there are moral distinctions and disciplines that direct our destiny, and that the moral inversion that would call a defensive war “genocide” while calling genocidal attacks “justified resistance” is an affront to the very concept of good and evil.
The commemoration of the victims of September 11 requires first and foremost moral clarity; those who cannot condemn calls to globalize the Intifada, who cannot grasp the chasm separating those who gave up their lives to bring down planes and those who gave up their lives running up collapsing stairways, bring only dishonor to sacred memory.
One of those who died on September 11 was an Orthodox Jew named Abe Zelmanowitz. Abe did not have to die. There was time for him to escape, but that was impossible for his friend and colleague Ed Beyea, who was quadriplegic, and Abe refused to let him die alone.
Two weeks later, on September 26, columnist Maggie Gallagher published an essay about Abe's sacrifice, as did many others. She asserted there that one may or may not term Abe's behavior heroic; he did not rescue anyone. What he accomplished, instead, was to decide on his last day “what kind of man he would be.”
The following day was Yom Kippur, and I had the opportunity to speak about Abe before Neilah. Those brief moments do not allow for much to be accomplished, but one thing that can happen in that time is a decision: What kind of people will we be?
Twenty five years since 9/11 will be marked on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the birthday of a world in desperate need of renewal. Its inhabitants are confronted by the convergence of the two occasions and asked to look inward, and make the decisions and commitments that will answer the question: What kind of world will it be?
Photo caption: Rabbi Daniel Feldman
Photo credit: Yeshiva University
