Dear Friends,
Today is September 11, 2025.
The next time we mark 9/11, in 2026, it will be a quarter century since that terrible day in 2001. Hence, this is the last September 11th of our “still-in-shock” years. Ushering in next year’s quarter century since 9/11/2001 will formally consign the events of 9/11 into a generational shift of history and in the narrative of the American experience. Hence, it is worthy to reflect on our reflecting today.
We learn a little about how to do this from our Torah portion today. Our reading comes from late in the Book of Deuteronomy, when the Israelites were completing their 40-year trek in the desert. Now, they are long removed from their fateful departure from Egypt - in fact, only a few remain alive from those earlier events. Thus, our Torah opens with an instruction to the new leaders to tell the narrative of what had transpired decades and centuries prior.
“You shall then recite as follows before the Eternal your God: ‘My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt… The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us… The Eternal freed us…” (Deuteronomy 26:5-8)
Very simple - yet profound - is the obligation to tell the narrative in a way that is germane to the listeners of any given period. The rabbinic sages knew this when they crafted the Haggadah in the years following the fall of the First Temple in 70 CE. The rabbis were keenly aware that they were writing while still inhaling the ashes of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Thus, they tried to instill eternity.
and timeliness into the Passover Seder. We begin with degradation and concern for the hungry in every age and locale, and we only end with “Next Year in Jerusalem” after we have pondered our own condition. Had they begun with Jerusalem, it is possible that some Seder attendees would not have continued to page 2. Jerusalem likely was not their context, but local hunger could be.
So, too, as we emerge from our 9/11 reflections. What does it mean in 2025? Is it different for Jews because several Arab states now have relations with Israel? Is it feeling archaic because America has been spared any foreign terrorist activity since that day? Are we ready to find a new, ongoing historical place for 9/11? Or, as with the Holocaust, as long as there are those with living memories, do we need to make the moment more present and less historical?
Torah compels us to tell the narrative. But Jewish narrative history teaches us to be sensitive to varying messages. Such is the Torah!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Today is September 11, 2025.
The next time we mark 9/11, in 2026, it will be a quarter century since that terrible day in 2001. Hence, this is the last September 11th of our “still-in-shock” years. Ushering in next year’s quarter century since 9/11/2001 will formally consign the events of 9/11 into a generational shift of history and in the narrative of the American experience. Hence, it is worthy to reflect on our reflecting today.
We learn a little about how to do this from our Torah portion today. Our reading comes from late in the Book of Deuteronomy, when the Israelites were completing their 40-year trek in the desert. Now, they are long removed from their fateful departure from Egypt - in fact, only a few remain alive from those earlier events. Thus, our Torah opens with an instruction to the new leaders to tell the narrative of what had transpired decades and centuries prior.
“You shall then recite as follows before the Eternal your God: ‘My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt… The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us… The Eternal freed us…” (Deuteronomy 26:5-8)
Very simple - yet profound - is the obligation to tell the narrative in a way that is germane to the listeners of any given period. The rabbinic sages knew this when they crafted the Haggadah in the years following the fall of the First Temple in 70 CE. The rabbis were keenly aware that they were writing while still inhaling the ashes of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Thus, they tried to instill eternity.
and timeliness into the Passover Seder. We begin with degradation and concern for the hungry in every age and locale, and we only end with “Next Year in Jerusalem” after we have pondered our own condition. Had they begun with Jerusalem, it is possible that some Seder attendees would not have continued to page 2. Jerusalem likely was not their context, but local hunger could be.
So, too, as we emerge from our 9/11 reflections. What does it mean in 2025? Is it different for Jews because several Arab states now have relations with Israel? Is it feeling archaic because America has been spared any foreign terrorist activity since that day? Are we ready to find a new, ongoing historical place for 9/11? Or, as with the Holocaust, as long as there are those with living memories, do we need to make the moment more present and less historical?
Torah compels us to tell the narrative. But Jewish narrative history teaches us to be sensitive to varying messages. Such is the Torah!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
