As the third anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I’m struck that this anniversary commemorates not only the monstrous destruction on that day but also the beginning of a new global era of fighting the forces of destruction.
Neither I nor my parents, who survived the Holocaust, could have imagined that its lessons would so quickly be forgotten and human beings would become so callous, so indifferent to the instances of genocide happening around them. What can be done today to quell the new danger to the world posed by genocide, war, and terrorism, made increasingly more threatening by the advancement of technology?
The challenges are daunting, yet it is precisely at the moment of greatest darkness and danger that the light of hope shines most visibly.
In a time when the forces of modernity conspire to obscure the individual soul, I believe that our only hope is to return to it. Admittedly, this is a difficult task, but though it may seem a novel approach, reliance on the power of the individual soul has always been part of the Jewish tradition. This act consists of a revolution in which the soul is turned 360°, back to its origins.
The lonely soul facing the void, the seemingly impassable abyss of modernity, is more powerful than armies, empires, technologies, corporations, ideologies, media, politics, money, and all the other false idols. Although humanity is capable of evil and inhuman acts, the human soul is capable of rising above them-and this faith in the goodness of humanity lies at the center of Jewish tradition and is the source of its unshakeable optimism.
This is a call to action on behalf of a world that needs it and a G-d who desires it. We must leave our world of material things and private concerns and engage in the drama of history, for this is the only way to realize the power of our individuality. And the power of our individuality is our capacity to do good.
But what is “good”? It lies in rebuilding the world and what was destroyed, and this rebuilding can be accomplished only by the soul that returns to discover its powers. Just as the effort to rebuild Ground Zero after the destruction of the Twin Towers tests the spirit of America, so the rebuilding of the world entire is a test of humanity; of our generation of human beings-since every generation is judged by the world that it leaves to its children. We must be open to the ever-elusive potential of the individual. The revolution is invisible: It takes place in the soul.
We Jews of the Diaspora have a unique responsibility. Together with our brethren in Israel, we must be more than merely a remnant of the past. The Jewish Diaspora is the manifestation of the Diaspora of the human spirit, for only when the shattered world is put back together can we begin to enter the Promised Land.
26 July 2004, 9 Av 5764