9/11 - CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 09/11/25

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

September 11, 2025

18 Elul 5785

Selichot

Parashat Ki Tavo

Like many others, I have some very specific memories of 9/11. I remember where I was when I first heard the news. I remember the feeling in my chest when I watched the towers collapse. I remember who I was with that day as we tried to get more information. A day like that never really leaves you.

There’s one other thing that I remember from that day and the days that followed. There was a sense that all Americans were in it together. There was a feeling of unity. There was a shared purpose.  

For me, it is captured in a photo that I like to post every year on 9/11. It is the moment that three first responders put up an American flag on the ruins of the World Trade Center.

That moment didn’t last particularly long. We quickly returned to our partisan ways. But, each year on 9/11, I’d like to think that we could somehow get closer to that feeling of unity and shared purpose—of course, without another act of terrorism to prompt it.

This 9/11, unfortunately, it’s hard to even remember those days of Americans' focusing on our similarities and choosing to ignore our differences. Today, we are trying to wrap our heads around yet another horrible act of political violence that not only ended the life of Charlie Kirk, but also left a wife without her husband and two young children without their father. It is the latest in a long line of violent political acts.

Today, people who lean to the right are understandably calling out political violence on the left. However, the data show that there is as at least as much political violence perpetrated by people who identify as right-wing. It doesn’t really matter. It’s all wrong and indefensible. We should ALL be decrying ALL political violence instead of trying to make one side look worse than the other. I feel like there was a time when we could do that. I’m not sure what it will take for us to get there again.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the ceremony of the first fruits offering. An Israelite would bring forward the fruits and recite a formula that begins with, “My father was a wandering Aramaean...” and ends with God delivering the Israelites to the “land flowing with milk and honey,” (see Deuteronomy 26:5ff). The early rabbis incorporated these verses into the Passover Seder liturgy because they describe our shared history. They remind us that we have experiences in common—even if we may feel different from one another today.  

Maybe on this 9/11 we here in America can remember our shared history and set aside our partisan differences for the betterment of our country. After all, most of us are not extremists on the left or the right. Most of us reside somewhere in the middle. We have a shared history. We have experiences in common— even if we may feel different from one another today. 

Shalom,

RAF