As the calendar turns to September each year, I have a feeling that starts to consume me, that I can almost feel in my bones, of a certain foreboding sadness. For in the midst of end of summer reflections and back to school celebrations, I know that the 11th looms once more.
In these days, when a turbulent and uncertain history is being written in real time, September 11 can feel of another age, and indeed it is. It is a day that history will mark, but the sands of time tend to eat away at the immediacy of our memories as we become more preoccupied with the challenges of the present. We never forget, but we tend to remember less often as well.
A whole generation has been born and raised since that fateful moment 17 years ago. They are now confronting their own landscapes of challenge. This is how life works, and this is how time works. We need to teach our history, but not be imprisoned by it.
I have so many dates seared in my mind… December 7 (1941)… June 6 (1944)… November 22 (1963)… April 4 (1968)… August 9 (1974) – just to name a few. They were and are the real backdrop for my time, and those who were on life’s journey with me. I want to tell my grandchildren about what they meant. But like me reading about July 4 (1776) or April 15 (1865), they will note them and maybe remember them, but not feel them as I do.
We are on this earth but a short time. Our lives are marked with memories happy and sad, personal, communal, national, and global. Time strides on. The Earth spins. We pause, to think about the past… and the future.
Sometimes life seems like a series of tests. Today so many of us ache for a nation under siege from within. But we can remember acts of courage and bravery from the past, how darkness can lead to light and fear into strength.
I find it a fitting coincident of the moon and the calendar that Rosh Hashanah and 9/ll overlap this year. As many of our fellow Americans celebrate the Jewish New Year, may the spirit of reflection, redemption, and personal atonement inspire us all.
In thinking about this time, I searched for a rabbinical quote that made sense of the holiday and our larger age and came across the famed 19th century rabbi Israel Salanter who told the story of being inspired by the words of a shoemaker working late into the night, “As long as the candle is burning, it is still possible to mend.” I agree, with my heart and soul. Let it ever be thus.