Most of all, I need to remember how it felt to walk south a few blocks to Battery Park at the very tip of Manhattan where we could see the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. We five women stood on the dock where people board the ferry that takes them to the statue and then on to the immigration museum on Ellis Island. We arrived at the park just at sunset. The colors over the ocean screamed with red-orange brilliance as if all was well in New York.
There was a huge photographic mural covering a building at the dock with enormous photos of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, reminding visitors of lives dedicated to peace. To the left was the sunset, the statue, the ocean. To the right, a view of the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan, New Amsterdam, the oldest section of New York, where the Trade Center for the world once stood. Only the skyline was missing its two most dramatic pieces. The gaping space between buildings was obscene, unfathomable, especially if you’d been to New York before and could remember exactly where the Towers stood. Sixteen acres, gone.
As we five women took in that sunset, punctuated with the Statue of Liberty to the south, and then looked north to where the giant towers once stood, each of us experienced muddled thoughts about the world and about our lives before and after September 11. To see that much death and destruction up close, or to live and work near where America was attacked, does something to your soul.
As we walked toward the subway, my daughter put her arm around my waist. I reached for Mary Ann’s hand. Karen and Ellen walked close together, sharing their feelings about life after September 11.
We five women in our thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, together for one afternoon, represented a scattering of different relationships. But for three hours that day we were sisters who experienced awe, fear, anger, depression, amazement, loyalty, patriotism and the friendship that comes when people share their emotions. We saw a skyline that was different than before. But we also saw the Statue of Liberty and the sunset. We saw wet ashes and mangled steel on one side of a street and a sunset of enormous brilliance and beauty on the other. It was good to see them both together and to know that even though the skyline of New York will never be the same, the work and hope arising from the ashes in lower Manhattan is the stuff of liberty and sunrises and sunsets so beautiful you simply can’t define them. You need to go there to understand.
Patricia Lorenz
Make It Green
If there is to be a memorial, let it not be of stone and steel. Fly no flag above it, for it is not the possession of a nation but a sorrow shared with the world.
Let it be a green field with trees and flowers. Let there be paths that wind through the shade. Put out park benches where old people can sun in the summertime and a pond where children can skate in the winter.
Beneath this field will lie entombed forever some of the victims of September 11. It is not where they thought to end their lives. Like the sailors of the battleship Arizona, they rest where they fell.
Let this field stretch from one end of the destruction to the other. Let this open space among the towers mark the emptiness in our hearts. But do not make it a sad place. Give it no name. Let people think of it as the green field. Every living thing that is planted there will show faith in the future.
Let students take a corner of the field and plant a crop there. Perhaps corn, our native grain. Let the harvest be shared all over the world, with friends and enemies, because that is the teaching of our religions, and we must show that we practice them. Let the harvest show that life prevails over death, and let the gifts show that we love our neighbors.
Do not build again on this place. No building can stand there. No building, no statue, no column, no arch, no symbol, no name, no date, no statement. Just the comfort of the Earth we share, to remind us that we share it.
Roger Ebert
7
WHERE NEXT?
America has suffered a great loss, but what has not been lost is our spirit, our resiliency as a society.
Colin L. Powell
THE FAMILY CIRCUS By Bil Keane
“Don’t worry, PJ, we’ll rebuild!
It’s the ’Merican way.”
Reprinted with permission from Bil Keane.
Celebrate Life
Life presents as many opportunities for happiness as it does for tragedy.
Rudolph Giuliani
Last night I attended a bar mitzvah that would have been inspirational at anytime, but for the three-hundred-plus who attended in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, it was an amazing, life-affirming experience. I am sharing this story because I believe that many will find comfort from the stories shared with our congregation by a thirteen-year-old boy.
Like many citizens across the nation, my husband and I felt the need to be with people immediately following September 11, and planned to attend the Friday night Shabbat service at the Birmingham Temple of Farmington Hills, Michigan. During the drive, I read from the temple bulletin that a bar mitzvah would be celebrated. I was surprised and hoped it would be postponed, preferring the focus of the evening to be on making sense of the week’s events. Tragically, the adult son of a favorite temple friend had been on the ninety-fourth floor of the World Trade Center, and I knew it would be a sad night as we all struggled to digest this personal and national tragedy.
We arrived to find the parking lot filled and the temple crowded. Many apparently felt the need to come together. The service began with beautiful, mournful music. Then Rabbi Sherwin Wine spoke at length about the horrors of the terrorist attacks. He stated that we had two purposes for being there this night. The first was to mourn the victims, including the son of Skip Rosenthal, Joshua Rosenthal, a fine man who had grown up worshipping at the temple and was well known to many present. The second purpose was to thwart the terrorists’ desire to demoralize us by continuing to celebrate life-cycle events—in this case, a bar mitzvah, the “coming of age” of a Jewish boy.
Next, family members of the bar mitzvah boy read passages about milestones, family, dignity, power and peace.
Then Rabbi Wine introduced Jackson, the bar mitzvah boy. At our Humanistic Judaism temple, it is the custom of bar and bat mitzvah students to spend the year prior to their thirteenth birthday researching the life of a Jewish hero or heroine, and apply lessons from their hero’s actions to their own life. Tonight, the Rabbi stated, Jackson would be our teacher.
Jackson climbed the box placed behind the podium and faced the packed room, grinning. Proudly he announced that he had chosen to share the story of the life of Solly Gonor. Jackson had read his book, Light One Candle: A Survivor’s Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem, about how, as a twelve-year-old boy in Germany, Solly had endured unspeakable hardships to keep himself and his father alive during the Nazi regime. Jackson had managed to locate Solly, now a seventy-four-year-old living in Israel, and began a year-long e-mail correspondence.
Jackson told us how Solly, as a twelve-year-old himself, enjoyed sports and hanging out with friends, when suddenly he was no longer free and was in danger because of his Jewish identity. Solly’s family missed a chance to leave the country, and after they were forced from their home, hid briefly with five other families in a barn. In the middle of the night, Solly’s father woke them and led them out of the barn just as soldiers arrived. The family watched in horror as everyone in hiding was forced out, forced to dig their own graves, and shot, one by one.
Jackson shared a story about how the Gonor family lived for a period in the Kaunas ghetto, where Solly endured hunger and cold. Solly was bravely able to retrieve food thrown over the ghetto wall by a boy who had been a friend before the war, each risking his life to make a midnight run to the barbed-wire fence when the guards were not looking. Boredom was another hardship, as the Germans banned one of the Jews last remaining pleasures by ordering the collection and destruction of all books. Knowing he risked his life, Solly and a friend hid books in a forbidden part of the ghetto. Solly grieved when his former math teacher was found with a book and shot.
Solly attributes his ability to stay alive in the ghetto to his friendships with two other teens, both of whom later died in concentration camps.
Solly’s family was sent from the ghetto to a work camp, and then to a concentration camp. It was there that he was separated from his mother, and promised that he would keep his father alive. Jackson told us about Solly’s heart-wrenching experiences at the camp, but also about how Solly used his wits to keep himself and his father fed and clothed.
Finally, the Germans had an idea that the Jewish prisoners would build them a fort, and sent them on a death march through miles of snow-covered roads. Here Solly, in his fatigue, lost track of his father. Eventually, Solly collapsed beside a tree, where he truly believed he would die. He fell asleep. A Japanese American soldier, who awakened him and lifted him out of the snow, told him he was free. Solly was later reunited with his father, who had been taken to a hospital. Just five years ago, Solly was reunited with the soldier who found him in Israel. This reunion brought back many memories that Solly had long suppressed, and that was when he began to write his book. Jackson stated that he had committed himself to telling Solly’s story of courage.
When Jackson finished speaking, the entire congregation stood and loudly applauded his moving presentation. As the clapping finally slowed, Jackson announced that he had one more part to his bar mitzvah. He stated that, “Due to the closing of the airports this week, none of the out-of-towners has been able to come in for this night, except for one. That person is . . . Solly Gonor!” A gasp went through the entire room. Jackson proceeded, “Since Mr. Gonor was not able to celebrate his bar mitzvah when he was thirteen, I would like him to join me now.”
A white-haired man in the front row stood and slowly made his way up to the podium next to Jackson. The crowd stood and applauded wildly. For several minutes, Mr. Gonor stood with his hand over his eyes, struggling to regain his composure. Then Jackson and Mr. Gonor read together, first in Hebrew, then in English.
After the reading Mr. Gonor addressed us, stating that he never expected that his experiences would one day be an inspiration to a thirteen-year-old boy. He stated that he was glad he had been able to make the journey from Israel and meet his e-mail pen pal.
Mr. Gonor’s story reminded us that evil in the world is not new, but that the human spirit and will to survive is strong. At a time when many of us were asking how we could bear the sadness of the days following September 11, we were reminded of those who suffered through years of Nazi cruelty, as well as people in countries all over the world where terrorism is a way of life. We were reminded by thirteen-year-old Jackson that we must, indeed, continue to celebrate life.
Our evening ended by standing together and singing Ayfo Oree. The words, translated from Hebrew, are as follows:
Where is my light? My light is in me.
Where is my hope? My hope is in me.
Where is my strength? My strength is in me.
And in you.
Caroline Broida Trapp
What Is It?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence; toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. . . . The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the darkness . . . of annihilation.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The simple question continues to echo through my mind hours later.
“What is it, Mommy?” my nine-year-old Katherine asked. “What is it that makes some people do something so awful! What is it?”
The day was dawning as she questioned me. We were standing in our front yard, the sky turning from gray to blue as we prepared to take her to school. She looked up at me, her deep blue eyes round, her innocent face waiting expectantly for an answer. Her expression said, “Mommy will know the answer. My mommy can take care of anything.”
I paused, looking toward the sky. The same sky that had just turned passenger planes into weapons of destruction that plowed into American targets. Targets I had seen personally. Targets I could remember being built as a child in New Jersey. Targets that are visual icons of New York and Washington, D.C.
“Fear. Hatred. Misunderstanding. And the desire to keep people in fear, hatred and misunderstanding.” I looked at my daughter, who at nine is wise beyond her years. She was slowly nodding. I continued, “These people know that if you are afraid, you cannot feel love. If you cannot feel love, you cannot feel peace. These people do not want us to feel peace or love. They want to control us. We won’t let them do that, though, will we?”
In a very short conversation, Katherine had brought my resolve firmly back. She reminded me of a very important lesson that lives deep within me.
In the moments after I heard of the devastation that was occurring so close to where I had grown up, I was frightened to the point of near hysteria. I paced, frantically worried about my children, my friends, my safety, my country, my world. But Katherine reminded me that I could not feel fear and feel love at the same time. As I listened to reports from survivors, I saw gratitude in their words. I heard an unusual peace. I saw light among the tragedy.
We can love as we grieve the senseless loss of so many lives. We can love as we pray. We can love as we donate time, blood and money to the Red Cross and other charitable organizations. We can love as we talk to complete strangers, sorting out our own feelings about the tragedy. We can love as we hug our children, friends and neighbors. We can love as we take an extra moment to simply feel grateful for each breath. For each moment. For each person whose lives we touch positively. We can love as we put one foot in front of the other. We can love as we choose to trust. We can love as we serve our fellow world citizens.
Later that day I was with Emma, my four-year-old daughter, at the park. She came to me and I gave her a big hug. She looked at me and stated simply: “A plane flew into a building. Lots of people died. Let’s talk about it.”
So we did. Plainly, and with the vocabulary of a preschooler, we talked about what had taken place in New York City. She went back to playing.
Soon she returned to me and said, “Mommy, give me a nice big hug so the bad guys can’t get me.”
And I did. Hug. Love. Keep the bad guys away. And when the bad guys come anyway, remember to hug. To love. To trust. To feel peace deep within you.
Hug. Love. Live.
Julie Jordan Scott
STAHLER. ©UFS. Reprinted by permission.
Something Special
“I would do something special for her. Not take out the trash without being reminded. Something special, something I wouldn’t ordinarily do.” With tears streaming down his face, the gentleman had just answered the reporter’s question, “What would you do differently if you had known you might not see your wife again?”
Now, I personally think that is a pretty crappy question to ask anyone, much less the husband of a victim of a terrorist attack. The reporter seemed to have no compassion for this man whose wife’s plane had been flown into the World Trade Center.
“I’m just glad I kissed her good-bye and told her I loved her this morning,” he managed to choke out.
Of course, we would all act differently if we knew time together with our spouse was running out. My anger at the insensitive reporter simmered along with the disbelief and fear that had become part of my life since watching the results of the attack on America. “Stupid guy,” I muttered to myself, switching off the television. Maybe I needed a break. I have that luxury. I can turn off the pictures of the devastated buildings, despondent relatives and harried rescue workers.
But could I turn off my feelings? My husband Alan and I farm. He was cutting a field of soybeans that afternoon. I decided to go take pictures of the American flag he had mounted on the back of our combine. With terrorists trying to cripple our nation, we wanted to show our support: The American farmer was still hard at work. r />
Back at the house, starting a load of laundry, I found myself thinking about that interview. I would do something special, played over and over in my mind. That gentleman would never have that opportunity now, but I did. I hope Alan and I have another forty years together. But there are no guarantees. Tomorrows are not guaranteed.
Something I wouldn’t ordinarily do. Well, his pickup could sure use a good cleaning. So I got to it. After about thirty minutes of vacuuming and scrubbing the interior, I was ready to wash the outside. I had one little problem: Starting the power washer was a bit tricky. You had to choke the motor just enough, and the idle had to be set just so. The possibility of getting jerked on the recoil was significant. Something special. . . . Grabbing the pull rope I tackled it head on. Suddenly it was very important to me to accomplish this surprise for Alan. Several attempts later, with no success and an aching arm, I thought I might not succeed. Lord, I prayed silently, I could sure use your help. I want to get this started so I can finish this for Alan. I really want to do this for him.
The guilt hit immediately. How could I bother our Lord at a time like this? Thousands were praying for their loved ones. Much more important prayers needed his attention right now. “I’m sorry, Lord,” I whispered. How could I be so selfish? I had spent a lot of time in prayer over the past three days, asking for comfort for the victims’ families, strength for our nation’s leaders and healing for all of us. My request for help now was automatic. I always ask for help when facing a difficult task. But it just didn’t seem right to do so today.
Defeat didn’t seem an option either, so I pulled the rope one more time. The motor sputtered to life.