Remembering September 11, 2001
Shabbat Parashat Ki Teitzei 5771
Yesterday, Melanie and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. Over breakfast, Melanie and I exchanged cards in front of the kids and explained to them that “Mommy and Abba have been married for 10 years.” Micah looked at us and asked, “were we there?” Hannah wanted to know if she was the flower girl. “You don’t remember,” I explained, “because none of you were born yet.” And in talking with the kids about our anniversary, it occurred to me that there are a lot of things they don’t remember.
My children don’t remember what life was like before everyone had a miniature computer-telephone in their pocket at all times. My children don’t remember a scary country called the Soviet Union. My children don’t remember a time when you listened to albums off of vinyl records or tape cassettes. My children don’t remember a time when my favorite bands were not on the classic rock station. My children don’t remember that you once purchased books in a store. My children don’t remember the presidents I grew up with. My children don’t remember a time when you could meet your friends and family as they got off an airplane. They don’t remember a time when you didn’t have to take off your shoes at the airport. They don’t remember that the view of New York from their Grandmother’s building included two impressive towers at the southern tip of the city. They don’t remember a time before terror watch alerts. They don’t remember the day 10 years ago tomorrow when 3000 people were murdered in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.
My children don’t remember that Melanie and I were on a plane on September 11, traveling to Italy for our honeymoon. They don’t know that what was supposed to be a very short layover in London turned out to be nerve racking hours desperately trying to get a call through to the United States to find out if our friends and family flying home to New York from the wedding were on those planes. My children don’t remember a lot of things you and I remember from the last 10 years.
Our anniversary has always been bittersweet because of 9/11. Our wedding was one of the happiest days of our lives, but the subsequent days were among the saddest. I think we’re the only people I know who watched hours of CNN and read the newspaper and called home everyday of our honeymoon. With no way to go home, we went ahead with our trip, but we carried with us deep sadness and fear the entire time. When we returned home, we found our world changed.
My children don’t remember what life was like before 9/11 and they don’t remember what that day and the months and years after that mean to us.
I think that probably for all of us here, September 11, 2001 was one of those events that is etched into memory. We all remember where we were when we heard. We all remember how we spent that day. Some of us here were in proximity to the attacks. Nearly all of us know friends and family who were directly affected. But, a decade after the horror we all witnessed, there is an entire generation alive today that doesn’t remember it the way we do. It’s not just my young children. Even the kids coming through their bar and bat mitzvahs right now don’t really remember it.
Ten years is a big anniversary but in the scheme of things it isn’t a very long time. Nevertheless, a decade is just long enough for us as a society to start thinking about how we go forward keeping the memory of 9/11 alive. As a generation that witnessed that horrible event, it’s our responsibility to think about how we transmit to this new generation coming up, and generations down the line, the significance of the day. I have to wonder, what this terrible event will mean to my children. I personally don’t remember Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, Kennedy’s Assassination, or the moon landing. I don’t even remember Nixon’s resignation or the Yom Kippur War. I know that these kinds of events that mean something to an earlier generation have a different meaning for me. So, what will 9/11 mean to my kids?
Ten years on, we have to start telling the story to a new generation that never witnessed it. What are we going to tell them? Tragically, we are hardly the first generation to ask this kind of question and I hate to think we probably aren’t the last. How do you talk about massive trauma’s like 9/11? How do you pass along the memory to those who are yet to come but who need to learn the lessons?
Sadly, we Jews have a lot of experience with these kind of things: The Shoah (the Holocaust), Pogroms, expulsions, crusades, and the defining tragedy of our people, the destruction of our homeland and our holy Temple. And we could go even further back. This week’s Parsha brings to mind one of the paradigmatic tragedies of our people and perhaps offers some wisdom for us in this moment.
Our parsha, which deals mostly with rules for ethical living, ends with a haunting reminder of what is at stake. Our Torah warns:
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt – how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and how he cut down all the stragglers at your rear. Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as your heritage, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deut. 25:17-19)
The medieval commentator Rashi says that the maliciousness of Amalek was that they attacked by surprise; that this evil was unexpected. And then Rashi cites a midrash to explain that what Amalek did to us is they robbed us of our capacity to feel secure. Amalek destroyed our idealism and made us fear, teaching us that even freedom from slavery would not protect us from dangerous people who would take advantage of our vulnerabilities. Even the relative security of having our own homeland would not be enough.
What a timely and poignant lesson for us! The tragedy of 9/11 is that innocent people died a senseless death and the rest of us were robbed of our ability to feel secure. That’s what terrorism does and why it works. The mitzvah with regard to Amalek is to blot out the memory of Amalek. This doesn’t mean we should forget. Quite the opposite – the Torah specifically says, “Do not forget!” The commandment instead is to blot out what Amalek represents. It means we must never forget that there are people in the world bent on violence, determined to exploit the vulnerable. It means we have no choice but to teach the lessons to future generations. It means that we pay a price for our freedom – the price is the burden of remaining vigilant of evil.
El Maleh Rachamim, God abounding in mercy, May our children never know the pain and distress we experienced on September 11, 2001. May we have the courage to teach them lessons that will hopefully keep them safer. May the memories of the victims always be a blessing to those who loved them and may we never forget them. May God show mercy to those who lost their lives on that awful day; may their souls be bound up in the bonds of eternal life and may they rest in peace. Amen.
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