Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5787

Shana tovah. Ah… We are just getting started. Rosh Hashanah is known by many names. Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance. Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. Yom Teruah, the Day of the Trumpet Blast. I was always taught to pay attention when Judaism gives multiple names to the same moment. Each name reveals another dimension of its meaning. And tonight, on this 25th anniversary of September 11th, I find myself thinking especially about Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Memory. Because there is a difference between history and memory. History tells us what happened, and hopefully correctly. Memory asks what happened has done to us, what happened has done to us, and what it now asks of us. There are dates that belong to history, and there are dates that somehow never quite become history. September 11th is one of them. The convergence, and I’ve spoken about that before, this convergence will not occur in precisely the same way again in our lifetimes, most of our lifetimes. I think maybe our young Aaron Rabinowitz is, yes, probably. The next time September 11th is both on Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah will be in the Gregorian year 2094. I remember exactly where I was on the morning of September 11th, 2001. National City Mortgage, a wholesale lending company in Altamonte Springs, Florida. I was in the office of Sandy Velle, the lead underwriter in her underwriting office, because she had this small TV and yelled out to the rest of us in different departments. I was five months away from making the decision to dedicate my life to Judaism and first accepting a position as a cantorial soloist in a synagogue in Orlando. I was a bit lost at that time in my life, and I felt I lacked purpose. For those of us who lived through that Tuesday morning, we remember where we were. We remember who called us. We remember turning on the television and watching something impossible become horrifyingly real. The smoke, the towers, the Pentagon, the field in Pennsylvania. We remember the people running away, and we remember the people running toward. An entire generation has now been born with no memory of that morning. Young adults know September 11th as many of us knew Pearl Harbor, and even in my generation, Kennedy’s assassination. We’ve only known through photographs and recordings, museums, and stories. And so 25 years later, the question cannot simply be, where were you on September 11th, 2001? It doesn’t necessarily apply. But a more important question may be, what have we learned? Or even, what are we going to do with what we may have learned? The timing of this 25th anniversary of 9/11 is very significant to us as Jews. This year, as we know, September 11th brings us directly into Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Tishrei, 5787. A day associated with destruction meets the birthday of the world. A day in which we remember death, meets Judaism’s annual declaration that creation can begin again. And Shabbat, the foretaste of the world of perfection, asks us to imagine that the world need not be the world as it remains. The convergence of these observances reminds us that while September 11th showed us something terrible, horrific about human beings, it also showed us the opposite. Yes, we saw the depths of what hatred can do, but we also saw what love can do. We saw love and humanity at its most profound. We saw people turn airplanes into weapons, but we saw people turn themselves into shields. Again and again, ordinary people were placed in unimaginable circumstances in the most horrific of circumstances. And they asked one simple question. Actually, they didn’t have the time to ask. They just did. What can I do now? Sarah Elizabeth Lowe was 28 years old, a flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11. And after the hijacking began and normal communications failed, Sarah remembered an old telephone calling card number. She memorized the number. That number helped fellow flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, establish contact with American Airlines on the ground and relay critical information about what was happening aboard the airplane. A phone number, something so ordinary, and yet in a moment of extreme crisis, she used what she had. That’s often what courage, real courage looks like. Simply recognizing…wait a minute. I might have something that might help… Charles “Chuck” Costello was an elevator mechanic. When he saw the towers burning, he went toward them because he understood something the firefighters desperately needed, elevators. People were trapped. He had the tools, and he had the knowledge, so he went in, and he never came home. Andrew Zucker was evacuating the South Tower when he learned coworkers needed help, and he could have continued downward. He could have. Instead, he just turned right around. Sometimes courage is that simple. You turn around because someone needs you. Do we? On this 25th anniversary, I also want to remember that among the thousands whose lives intersected with that terrible morning were Jewish men and women whose actions embody some of our tradition’s deepest teachings. Dan Lewin was 31 years old, an Israeli American mathematician, entrepreneur, husband, and father, and a former officer in Israel’s elite, Sayeret Matkal. He was aboard Flight 11, and according to accounts of the attack, Lewin apparently attempted to confront the hijackers. He was killed before the plane struck the North Tower and is generally believed to have been the first victim murdered on September 11th. Now, he couldn’t have known what was coming when he got on that plane, yet he recognized danger in front of him in a split second, so he acted. Avrum Zelmanowitz, a 55-year-old Orthodox Jew, worked in the North Tower. His friend and colleague, Edward Beyea, was a quadriplegic and used a wheelchair. Avrum, he could have left. He could have evacuated. Instead, he stayed. He would not abandon his friend. Our Torah, we are commanded, “Lo taamod al dam rei’echa,” do not stand idly by, by the blood of your neighbor if your neighbor bleeds. And Avrum, he did not stand idly by. He sat beside his friend. There was Stephen Belson, a Jewish firefighter in the FDNY, who entered the towers as thousands fled with them. And Ari Schoenbrun, a Cantor Fitzgerald executive, an observant Jew, who survived the impact zone, and despite his own injuries, helped another injured coworker down dozens of flights of stairs. And Jonathan Markowitz, whose survival from the 85th floor of the North Tower became not only a story of escape but a meditation on faith and perception and the extraordinary ways that human beings cared for one another. These are stories, they’re universal, but they’re also particular. These are also Jewish stories, and it’s important for us to know this and to remember this. They matter to us as Jews because we recognize that the values are reflected in the choices that they made. They, without maybe being cognizant, placed Jewish values before them. It’s something we should do. Pikuach nefesh, saving of a life. Lo taamod al dam rei’echa, do not stand idly by. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, we bear responsibility for one other, and our simplest and most perhaps demanding command, Uvacharta bachayim, choose life. They didn’t have time necessarily to open a siddur. They didn’t have a time to read a daf of Talmud. They lived the teaching. In an instant, Jewish values became Jewish action, and that might be one of the reasons we tell their names, we should tell their names year after year, but marking it particularly on this 25th anniversary, not merely so that we know who they are, that is important, but that their choices were vital and ask something from us. Our perception is not always reality, right? We can all have different perspectives. There’s a very important teaching that comes from Parashat Shelach Lecha. You know the story. The 12 spies go into the land, and 10 of them come back, and they only see impossibility, but the two others, Joshua and Caleb, they see possibility. It’s the same land, different perspective. And that’s a lesson for us here in 2026, in 5787. As the South Tower collapsed and darkness filled part of the underground concourse, somebody called out, “Everybody stand up and hold hands.” And they did. They may not have been aware that on Yom Kippur and last week’s parasha, we said, “Atem nitzavim,” you all stand together. Stand up, hold hands, find the way to work together. The same spirit we know was found in community, in people, in Gander, Newfoundland. How many people have seen “Come From Away”? Beautiful. Beautiful. Yes, and it’s important to think about that. The people of Gander didn’t begin by asking who the strangers were. Remember, you were strangers in a strange land. They asked, “Are you hungry? Do you need somewhere to sleep? How can I help you?” We should remember these lessons and each of these heroes and heroines Who stepped up and acted in that split moment when they could have done otherwise. On Rosh Hashanah, even our most personal prayers are speaking about community. They’re written in the plural. “Chatanu,” we have missed the mark. “Avinu Malkeinu,” our parent, our sovereign. “Kotveinu b’sefer chaim tovim,” inscribe us in the book of life. Judaism’s answer to human vulnerability has never been, “Save yourself.” It is, “We carry one another.” And when we hear the shofar, we hear, “Tekiah,” wake up. “Shevarim,” the world is broken. “Teruah,” our hearts are shattered. And then, “Tekiah gedolah,” one long sustained note. We are still here. We are still capable of goodness, of courage, and repair. The world may be broken, but the story is not finished. We remember all those who stood up. Standing up, holding on to one another, and together, choosing life. Twenty-five years later, memory must become the responsibility that we bear. Responsibility must become action, and action is how we turn memory into blessing. So when that shofar calls us into the new year, may we hear more than a sound. May we hear a summons. Wake up, look around, and find the person beside you. Use what you have, do the best you can, take that next step, and then another, because even in the darkness, there is a way forward, and we will find the same way human beings found their way through those stairwells 25 years ago. Stand up, hold each other’s hands. I’m tempted to ask you to do that right now, and move forward towards life. Back to my story. I chose life. Almost 25 years ago, 24 years and a few months, I stepped onto the pulpit of Congregation of Liberal Judaism in Orlando, Florida. I stepped in as a cantorial soloist with no experience and a lot of fear, but a lot of heart. And today, I stand before you as your rabbi and your cantor. My blessing to be a teacher, eternally grateful for the gift that I have been given, having dedicated my life to making a difference to the lives of others within a Jewish context. I have not ever looked back since that time. May we all do our part. Zichronam livracha. May the memories of all who were lost on September 11th, 2001, forever be a blessing. And may the way we live make their memories a blessing, a responsibility, and an obligation from generation to generation, L’dor vador. Ken yehi ratzon. Shana tova and Shabbat shalom.