9/11 Retrospect
For all the movies I talk about, I am not a TV person at all. I never saw the images of 9/11 until much later and - like my attitude towards the Holocaust - I avoid the images as much as possible. I hold mass-graves and people jumping from buildings with the same feeling of taboo.
I remember sitting in our first weekly staff meeting and hearing a phone call over Rabbi Lookstein's speakerphone that a plane had hit the Towers. We thought that it was a pilot error but then a second phone call came in and we knew it was big.
I sat in my office, listening to the radio, hearing about the Pentagon, about the towers falling. I saw the Hatzoloh guys rushing around, the mission in their eyes. The most vivid memory I have about the unique-ness of the day was the radio message that all police officers, no matter how long retired, were requested to go on active duty.
As clergy, I had a role to play. It was my first year running the Beginners Program and we tried to cope with the spiritual repercussions. However then, and now, I still don't find September 11th to be a day that changed my outlook of the world. Rather, I was part of the minority that felt it reinforced my existing, Stygian, worldview.
I keep a copy of the memo I had sent to the synagogue administrator on September 10th - asking him if he thought we were adequately prepared for a terrorist attack on the High Holidays. I felt in my bones that something horrible was going to happen. This is similar to the letter (which I cannot find) I sent a friend following Yom Kippur, 1995, when I was in Israel, when I remarked that the spiritual state of the nation was so noxious and bleak that I also expected the worst.
For the record, I don't feel the same premonitions now.
But let's be clear: the world has not changed one bit since September 11th. Israel is still a pariah and the world's favorite scapegoat. The world does not recognize that you can either be a friend of terrorists or against them.
My favorite part is that our fearless leader, Bush II, has burned away any and all diplomatic capital that came from our being the victim of a craven calamity. The war with Iraq was bungled from the beginning. The war with Afghanistan is still going on, last I checked. We have casualties daily from Viet-raq, sometimes from big suicide attacks.
My feeling about the war with Iraq is similar to mine about Oslo. The idea behind it was laudable (attack a terrorist state, Peace in Our Time) but the execution (haw) was so flawed as to undermine any of the positive ideas behind it.
What have we gotten from the war with Iraq? A peaceful population? A dead Saddam? A dead Osama?! An object lesson for the Arabs? Its hard to impress a camel-jockey when he's daily kicking your tailbone.
September 11th should remain in our memory, and one conclusion we can bring is that Bush and his sick gang of squinty-eyed thugs and thieves need to be voted away. Let him move in with his father; they can write their joint memoirs: "The Bush Years: What's the Difference?"
For all the movies I talk about, I am not a TV person at all. I never saw the images of 9/11 until much later and - like my attitude towards the Holocaust - I avoid the images as much as possible. I hold mass-graves and people jumping from buildings with the same feeling of taboo.
I remember sitting in our first weekly staff meeting and hearing a phone call over Rabbi Lookstein's speakerphone that a plane had hit the Towers. We thought that it was a pilot error but then a second phone call came in and we knew it was big.
I sat in my office, listening to the radio, hearing about the Pentagon, about the towers falling. I saw the Hatzoloh guys rushing around, the mission in their eyes. The most vivid memory I have about the unique-ness of the day was the radio message that all police officers, no matter how long retired, were requested to go on active duty.
As clergy, I had a role to play. It was my first year running the Beginners Program and we tried to cope with the spiritual repercussions. However then, and now, I still don't find September 11th to be a day that changed my outlook of the world. Rather, I was part of the minority that felt it reinforced my existing, Stygian, worldview.
I keep a copy of the memo I had sent to the synagogue administrator on September 10th - asking him if he thought we were adequately prepared for a terrorist attack on the High Holidays. I felt in my bones that something horrible was going to happen. This is similar to the letter (which I cannot find) I sent a friend following Yom Kippur, 1995, when I was in Israel, when I remarked that the spiritual state of the nation was so noxious and bleak that I also expected the worst.
For the record, I don't feel the same premonitions now.
But let's be clear: the world has not changed one bit since September 11th. Israel is still a pariah and the world's favorite scapegoat. The world does not recognize that you can either be a friend of terrorists or against them.
My favorite part is that our fearless leader, Bush II, has burned away any and all diplomatic capital that came from our being the victim of a craven calamity. The war with Iraq was bungled from the beginning. The war with Afghanistan is still going on, last I checked. We have casualties daily from Viet-raq, sometimes from big suicide attacks.
My feeling about the war with Iraq is similar to mine about Oslo. The idea behind it was laudable (attack a terrorist state, Peace in Our Time) but the execution (haw) was so flawed as to undermine any of the positive ideas behind it.
What have we gotten from the war with Iraq? A peaceful population? A dead Saddam? A dead Osama?! An object lesson for the Arabs? Its hard to impress a camel-jockey when he's daily kicking your tailbone.
September 11th should remain in our memory, and one conclusion we can bring is that Bush and his sick gang of squinty-eyed thugs and thieves need to be voted away. Let him move in with his father; they can write their joint memoirs: "The Bush Years: What's the Difference?"
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at 9/11/2003 01:39:00 PM.
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