Shoftim
Where Were You on 9/11?
Dear Friend,
For my grandparents’ generation, it was Dec. 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor); for my parents’ generation, it was Nov. 22, 1963 (the assassination of JFK); and for my generation, it was Sept. 11, 2001.
Ask anyone, and they can probably tell you where they were and what they were doing when the heard the news. (I was in yeshivah in Brooklyn, having just studied a challenging chassidic text, and was able to see the burning towers from the windows of the study hall.)
It was a painful and shocking moment, never to be forgotten.
I remember that afternoon. The streets were eerily still, and people stood outside in small groups. Police officers, men in do-rags and yeshivah students shared wild rumors and projections, bound by a common fear of the unknown. In other neighborhoods, people set up free refreshment stands for those trekking home from Manhattan.
We were all under attack together, and we felt it.
With time, the unity, patriotism and pride that we felt on that day dissipated. The radio turned back to its regular programming, Wall Street reopened, and life continued as usual.
Let us honor the lives of the 2,977 victims by recreating the oneness that resulted from that tragic day. Reach out in friendship, and the world will become a better place.
Menachem Posner,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial team
P.S.: We are now in the introspective month of Elul. What Elul message do you take from the events of 9/11?
Sounds mysterious? Well, to add to the mystery, there is a cryptic Hebrew phrase related to this custom . . .
To trumpet wordless sounds evokes images of cavemen from times when language was nascent and man’s verbal capacity was too limited to convey complex ideas. We now know how to articulate our thoughts in language. So why don’t we?
Even though I realize how lucky I am that we all came out unscathed, and that a car can be repaired or replaced, I can’t help but feel a bit frustrated at the cost and inconvenience that I am now facing.
Just as I would be falling into a deep sleep, I’d waken to the sound of crashing.
A condensation of the weekly Torah portion alongside select commentaries culled from the Midrash, Talmud, Chassidic masters, and the broad corpus of Jewish scholarship.
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Stare it in the face and say, “I know you are not just a lousy day or bad luck. I know you are a good friend—even if for the life of me I cannot determine how. I know there is only one Source of All Things, and nothing can convince me that evil descends from Above. Evil descends fr...
