2001 - America Shaken & Awakened- 9/11

Rosh Hashanah Eve

America Shaken & Awakened - 9/11

I was sitting with our friends at First Plymouth Congregational Church last Tuesday night along with several hundred Christians, Jews, and Muslims who had gathered at an interfaith service to hear words of comfort and solace, perhaps a profound perspective or two about the events of several days ago, of 9/11 – perhaps a plan to help individuals deal with the shock experienced at what had become America’s most battered moment since Pearl Harbor.

The Rabbi, quoting from this week’s sedra – Atem Nitzavim, said that like the Israelites in the desert, we Americans stood together in our grief and our perplexity.

The Muslim, thankful to those who had planned this ecumenical event so that he could give voice to his community’s perspective, spoke about being an American as shocked as the rest of us at what had transpired.

A minister from a pacifist tradition spoke about prayer having the power to overwhelm evil. She feared the dangers inherent in our responding with force, which she thought would lead to even greater terrorist retaliations in the future.

Several ministers quoted Psalms; one wrongly gave Moses credit for writing two of them. Organ music, a hymn sung in unison, a responsive reading ... I was unmoved and unsatisfied.

Over coffee afterward, someone asked me what I would have said had I been invited to speak that evening following our nation’s day of tragedy. I began to think about that at first with a sense of gratitude that I was not asked to address the congregation that evening, and then with a sense of obligation that I should have something to say. I began to reflect upon other terrifying moments that we Americans have lived through together. I thought about the day the Challenger went down in the Atlantic. Scenes of that sleek rocket exploding just moments after lift-off and then plummeting into the ocean trailing a plume of white smoke played on TV and in our minds for days on end. USA Today had just gone into publication, and a reporter was on the phone to me early that morning to get a quote. I still have a copy of that paper in which I said, “It’s up to us to make sense of the tragedies that befall us.”

Everyone was shocked by the thought that America’s vaunted scientific community had failed us. Were we as a nation losing our scientific edge? Could our technology ever be fully trusted again? Was this the beginning of more failures ... of sloppiness ... the result of putting our progress eternally into the hands of the lowest bidders?

And we who are more than 45 years old, remember the day Kennedy was shot. Profound shock and horror and confusion; to think that a Communist mole like Lee Harvey Oswald could have been activated to do the shooting, and then the confusion as to why Jack Ruby shot Oswald, and then the Zapruder film and the third shot and the grassy knoll and the dozens of books about various conspiracy theories .... stunned and shocked – we were a more naïve America in 1963. We feared then that our national security had been breeched and that our leadership had been compromised. But Lyndon Johnson boarded Air Force One and was sworn in as president, and we were reassured that the system was sound and under control. The transfer of power had been smooth and swift, but from then on our leaders switched from riding slowly in open convertibles to driving quickly in bulletproof limousines.

In these past several days, there were interviews of elderly men who had been sailors at Pearl Harbor. They spoke of the horror of that December morn when the Imperial air force struck and struck again, destroying part of our fleet and so many personnel. A military base should always be on alert, or so one might think; and soldiers and sailors are part of the war machine. Nevertheless ... stunned and shocked by that attack, we erstwhile isolationist Americans were suddenly and immediately willingly catapulted into the second world war. That was a frontal attack. We knew who did it; we knew exactly why. We knew what was expected of us as a nation and we knew what steps to take next ... and we did. The day of infamy was followed by an immediate declaration of war, and many posters – “Loose lips sink ships,” “Uncle Sam needs you,” and the like. Rosie the Riveter went to work, and the draft took everyone it seems who didn’t enlist, and ration books were issued, and the drippings from frying pans in every household were saved in tin cans, and practice black-outs were held in every neighborhood, and 1943 steel pennies became 1944 cents made of tin, zinc and copper recycled from spent shell casings.

The Challenger was a failure of science and craftsmanship. Pearl Harbor was an act of war. Kennedy was assassinated for who knows what or why. Somehow, the events of last Tuesday were different.

It’s not like America was not warned. It’s just that we have had this false sense of security, this feeling that terror could never be imported to these shores. We were untouchable at home, protected by oceans on both coasts and by friendly neighbors above and beneath us, and ... by the image of invincibility that military might and great wealth project. How brilliant the symbols of their targets – the Pentagon, symbol of our military power, and the World Trade Center's twin towers, symbol of our commercial success in the world.

This attack took us totally by surprise, but we were warned.

• Eleven months ago this week, the USS Cole was rammed by a Zodiac boat off the coast of Yemen as it took on fuel in the harbor of Aden – 17 American sailors died that day. Osama bin Laden’s terrorist groups were implicated. We did not respond to the attack.

• On Aug 7, 1998, car bombs destroyed U.S. Embassy buildings in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people. Bin Laden’s groups again were implicated. Aside from a few shots fired at random in the direction of the perpetrators, we did not respond.

• Feb 26, 1993, a truck bomb went off in the basement of the WTC killing six persons. Six Islamic militants were sentenced to life in prison. Bin Laden was again implicated. Our only response was through the courts. We determined that the perpetrators were crazy and inept ... and that they would ever be thus.

• The Pan Am plane blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988; the TWA plane hijacked to Beirut in 1985; the 241 Marines killed in Lebanon by Shiite suicide bombers who rammed their explosive-filled truck into their barracks in 1983; the Iranian capture of the American Embassy and the holding of 52 of our citizens for 444 days in 1979. The list is longer. Even three weeks ago, Bin Laden appeared on TV in Kabul to tell his people that an event will soon happen that will amaze the world. Just a bunch of crazies who are for the most part either lucky when they succeed or inept when they don’t, we told ourselves.

Mr. Bush has assured us that we will punish the perpetrators of this attack on America as well as those who sponsor and abet them. I certainly hope that the passion of our enemies and their hatred of Western civilization and of democracy falls far short of our resolve to protect our way of life. Desert Storm returned sovereignty to Kuwait, but did not end the long-term threat of Saddam Hussein or of the potentially far more dangerous threat – Iran. Other than that expensive conflict, our response to terrorism has consisted of one brief bombing sortie into Libya, which killed Muammar Gaddafi's adopted granddaughter! We have responded weakly or not at all to any terrorist attacks on our property abroad or upon our citizens. In all humility, might I remind those who will respond that terrorism can not be over-powered, it must be undermined. This is not about saturation bombing, but about saturation infiltration and intelligence and courage. This is not about a $40 billion two month show of muscle, but about a decade-long display of mind and heart and will. The enemy has nothing to lose; we have everything to lose. The odds are not in our favor.

I listened in awe to the responses of our most enlightened national leaders calling suddenly for the most powerful of retaliations against those who would do such a dastardly deed. Many of these are the same folk who have called upon Israel to use restraint under far more wide-spread and more constant occasions of terrorism. I am amazed, but not surprised, by the responses of many ill-informed people who write to newspapers and call in to talk stations asking for a reevaluation of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Give the Palestinians everything and we won’t have to undergo this terror again, they seem to be implying if not saying straight out. They really believe that this is about the Middle East. How pathetically naïve.

This is about western civilization – this is about France and Britain and Germany. This is the continuation of the war launched in the Middle Ages. At least in the minds of those who would terrorize us, this is the continuation of the war fought by Salah HaDin to chase the Crusaders out of Israel in the thirteenth century, and 400 years later by the Ottoman Turks against the Serbians and Croatians over access to Europe. This is not a new war, but the latest phase in the never ending war to conquer the world for Islam. Let me be clear, Islam is not the enemy – Islamic terrorists are. Most of our Muslim co-religionists in America are as appalled as anyone at the events of this week. They are not the enemy – the fundamentalists who regard life as cheap and any other way of life as evil and who will stop at nothing to wreak havoc and death among innocent peoples everywhere to grow their cause – they are the enemy. And they alone.

But those who are not informed still call the talk shows, and they are given voice by hosts who often know even less. To paraphrase Menachem Begin, Muslim terrorists kill Americans and Israel gets blamed for it. Isn’t that the sad truth. Sharon is called the Butcher of Lebanon – but it was Christian Phalangists who murdered the Muslim refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla camps. Sharon won a lawsuit against Time magazine for slandering him, as we should all recall. As Prime Minister, he has responded in a firm statesman-like manner to the brutality of terror on his soil, yet he is vilified. “Christians kill Muslims and the Jews get blamed,” is precisely what Begin said in 1982.

Yesterday, a news report mentioned that two men dressed as pilots were captured on their way to board another airplane. Dozens more were detained at various airports around the country. Welcome to the bunker mentality, America. Welcome to the insecurity of not knowing what a new day might bring. Welcome to the brutal manifestations of the hatred that others carry in their hearts. Welcome to the reality that some people can be inexplicably evil and can take innocent lives willfully and maliciously and not give a damn. Welcome to people without a conscience for whom the end justifies the means – religious sociopaths on a mission for their deity. Welcome to the mind-set of kill what you don’t agree with; of ideological rage on a global scale; of brilliantly planned and executed sadism; of fanatic frenzy; of the bitter fruits of the culture of death. Welcome to a new sort of people – people for whom life is nothing and religion is everything.

What a bizarre corruption of religion, which if it is of any value at all is supposed to teach that life is beautiful and sacred and that we are made in the image of God and as such are supposed to learn how to get along. Ideology or faith is supposed to lend perspective to our deeds and our acts; it was never intended to perpetrate hatred and terror. The ultimate message of religion is that love is stronger than hate. We Jews believe that, otherwise we would do no mitzvot, cease all acts of Gemilut Chasadim, offer no prayers of healing, seek no solace from one another, never again try to fix what is broken in our world – tikkun olam. Yes, love is stronger than hate and so we are over-whelmed by the acts of bravery of fire and police personnel who risked and lost their lives for others. And we are touched by the random acts of kindness to aid to comfort to reach out to those who were injured or grief stricken. And we were ennobled by and applauded the restaurants and businesses that spontaneously passed out food and water and supplies to those who were fleeing the disaster. And what praise is sufficient for the steelworkers and the tractor and truck drivers who rushed to the scene to begin the task of moving debris and making the area safer?

At the end of the Second World War, low on fuel and out of ammunition, Japan sent youngsters up in the last of their “Zeros” to dive into U.S. warships. These “divine wind” pilots – Kamikaze, as they were called, were a last ditch effort to affect the outcome of a war – human bombs on desperation suicide missions. But what pray tell were these dumb fools up to in plowing hi-jacked commercial aircraft into civilian structures? Pure terror with a clear message that we can overcome your might and your wealth, America – evil Satan that you are. Evil Satan because of your lack of belief in our god, because of your immodesty in dress, because of your corruption of religious values, because of your equality for women, because of your support for the only other democracy in the Middle East, because of your extensive middle class, because of your free press and media, because of your educational system, because of the independence afforded all of your people. What they call evil, we call freedom – let us not forget the underlying intent of their buzz words.

The object of terror is to get governments to change the way they see the world and the way they deal with it. If this act of terrorism changes our way of life intolerably in any way shape or form, they succeeded. If this dastardly act changes the way the U.S. deals with the Middle East and especially in our boundless support for Israel, the terrorists have won everything. The blackmail of terror never ends; the fruits of terror come suddenly and in continuous waves. If we do nothing in response to this act, more of the same will resume after a brief respite. If the U.S. responds in a violent and disproportionate manner, we will be vilified all the more so, but the terror will abate. That is simply the way it is.

Do I wish that I could agree with the minister who called for prayer and for peace and understanding – and how! If only it were so.

Do I wish that the recitation of a Psalm or two would make the pain and the horror of this week go away – you bet! If only it were so.

Do I wish that perspective could come by whispering toward the TV set as I did last Tuesday, “Good morning, America, welcome to Israel” – without a doubt! It seemed to be so.

So, what is the answer? That I do not know. What is the problem? That I do know. The ills of society are caused by fanaticism run amok. Fanaticism be it nationalistic, political, ideological, or religious is an illness that has no easy cure. But if it has an address the address must be destroyed, and if it moves, it must be destroyed again and again until it no longer moves. Terror attacks must never be seen by anyone as sweet deeds rewarded with candy passed out in the streets to children. How dare the Palestinians do such an insensitive and inhumane thing? How dare adults teach their children to rejoice in the bloodshed of other innocent peoples anywhere. Then again, is there anything they do that surprises the civilized world any more?

For the pilots and crew of the four aircraft we mourn. Of a certain they shared the same terror that 266 innocent passengers faced in their last moments of life. One of those passengers became a Bar Mitzvah and was Confirmed in this synagogue – Danny Lewin, son of Drs. Charles and Peggy Lewin, who moved to Israel some 14 years ago. Danny was a genius, co-founder of Akamai technology. The world knew him as a billionaire; I remember him as a bright sweet kid who had imaginative thoughts. For the thousands who were blown up or crushed or burned or who fell to their deaths in the collapsing towers of the WTC and in the southwest wing of the Pentagon we mourn. Among them may have been several relatives and close friends of our members, but we don’t know for sure yet. The senselessness of it all is profound, and so we lend our hearts in sympathy to relatives and friends whose suffering is so stunning and immediate, and we wish a refuah sh’laymah — a complete healing, to those who were injured in these senseless, callous tragedies.

My colleague Rabbi Mark Greenspan has written “A Prayer for Healing and Action,” which I would share with you. It says much of what we all must feel.

Today as we enter this

season of atonement and penitence,

we're less certain of our future

than we were just a week ago.

Torn by senseless violence,

we grieve for the loss of life and

the destruction that has invaded our land.

As Americans we have been fortunate

to live far from the violence

that others take for granted.

America has been a safe haven.

We now know that we can no longer

live with that illusion.

From now on, we need band together

and be vigilant in the fight against terrorists.

For the first time, we Americans feel

insecure within our own borders,

and uncertain in our homes.

The words of the Unetaneh Tokef

weigh heavily upon us:

“Who shall live and who shall die.”

Who will stop the terror that threatens

all who believe in liberty and freedom?

Shall we succumb to our rage, O Lord?

Shall we allow anger to overcome sense,

and fears to overtake truth?

Shall we become victims

a second time by allowing ourselves

to hate as much as those

who commit such atrocities?

Protect us from ourselves, O Lord,

and save us from our anger. May our

response be measured and weighed

much as our deeds are held in the balance

during these days of awe.

Just as we fast on Yom Kippur

to show that we have

the ability to control our appetites,

so may we have the discipline

to control our indignation.

May we respond with strength,

with justice, and with righteousness.

May we destroy terror – but,

may we avoid hatred and prejudice

in our search for justice.

Let us not cower in the face of hate.

Let us not flee in the face of intolerance.

Out of an indomitable strength, may we

continue to pursue peace with all people

who share our desire for a world healed

of pain.

Let us not forget that in every nation

and in every religion there are

people of good will who desire justice.

May our anger not blind us to the righteous

that is evident in all nations.

Heal the wounds which pain us, O Lord,

save us from ourselves,

and help us to be human beings where

our humanity is called for.

Give us the strength to stop the bleeding

which threatens our world.

Let us live by Your words

Adonai oz l'amo yiten —

Adonai yivarekh et amo bashalom

May God give us strength,

but may God bless all

decent peoples with peace.

Amen