20th Anniversary of 9/11

There are certain moments of your life that stand out and, no matter how long it has been, feel like they just happened. Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the day that 2,977 people were murdered in terrorist attacks right here in the United States. 20 years is a long time. The High School students I teach weren't even born yet. And yet, for me it feels like yesterday.

We were living in Manhattan at the time, in Washington Heights. Thank God, we were nowhere near Ground Zero. I was teaching in Moriah Day School and ended up getting stuck in NJ that day, as they closed the George Washington bridge to traffic. My wife was supposed to take the subway to Midtown but stayed home when she saw what was going on. I remember standing in the teacher's room after Tefilla, drinking a coffee, when a colleague came in and said that a plane had flown into the Sears tower in Chicago. Of course, it turned out to be the World Trade Center in NY. There were a lot of rumors flying around at the beginning. Parents started coming to school to pick their children up and take them home. While I do not personally know anyone who was killed that day, I think about the fact that many kids would never see their parents again.

While we were personally safe, it was, and remains to this day, incredibly shocking, sad, and scary. There were so many questions: Who did this? Why? Are there more attacks to come? Will we ever feel safe again? In the days and weeks to come, while Ground Zero continued to burn, and families searched desperately for their loved ones, letters with Anthrax were sent, causing additional panic over possible chemical attacks. Less than a month later the war in Afghanistan began. The world will never be the same.

When I think of 9/11, aside from the incredible sadness I feel for the families of the victims, I think of the courage and heroism of the first responders, who ran towards danger to save lives. And I think of the unity felt by Americans. All the divisions and arguments fell aside in the face of a common enemy/danger. I wish we could somehow feel that unity again today, without needing a tragedy to bring us together. How often we forget that, even with our differences, we are all Americans.

If you have never visited Ground Zero and the 9/11 museum I encourage you to do so. It is powerful. One cannot help but think about things like courage, sacrifice, and the preciousness of life when standing in that spot. Every name on the memorial represents a beautiful story ended in mid sentence.

So this 9/11 let's hug each other a little more. Let's teach and preach love and respect over hate and fear. Let's remember to appreciate the heroes all around us. And let's remember that what unites us far outweighs what divides us.