We have been hearing a lot over the past few weeks about what 9/11 did and did not change for Americans. As I wrote previously, 9/11 did not change much for my family’s existence or approach to the world. But it has altered for me, as for most Jews, at least for now and some time to come, the High Holidays (or Chagim). 9/11 itself occurred just before the start of Rosh Hashanah, and now, every year, it seems we enter the season of our individual and collective atonment through the lens of the just-finished remembrances of 9/11.
Strange that it took al-Qaeda to orient our individual and communal Jewish religious thinking about our pasts and futures around this issue of terrorism — understanding it, living with it, combatting it — that dominates so much of our national and international political attention. Eeerie that Usama bin Laden has presented us with the most direct challenge, not just to our daily lives through his actions as a terrorist leader, but to our Jewish lives by bringing our international political and military actions into such direct connection with our observance of the Chagim. In some ways, then, this juxtaposition of 9/11 and the High Holidays perhaps offers us the ability to think about how we can use the Jewish principles of the High Holidays in our thinking about terrorism, about Israel, about America, about Muslims, about Judaism.
This year, as well, we face the reality of experiencing the High Holidays in the wake of Lebanon (and Gaza). Last year, we remembered Disengagement during our recitation of the “Ashamnu” (or Vidui) and prayed that our individual and collective sins during the occupation of Gaza, as well as the individual and collective pain and tragedy we experienced, might lead to a more peaceful future. Yet just one year later, with the memory of Hizballah rockets landing in northern Israel and the destruction of so much of Lebanon still seering our minds, most of us believe this will be as sorrowful and pessimistic a High Holiday season as we have had since the Intifada began in late September 2000.
But I wonder if it must be. Perhaps we can move from the framework of 9/11 and the tragedy of Lebanon to work as a community, through the symbol of a High Holiday ritual, and use Judaism and the power of the message of the Chagim to begin to achieve what our political and military leaders have failed to.
