My Lesson on the Day of 9/11

By Rabbi Zalman Heber, Director of Chabad of Pierce County in Tacoma, WA

As the world commemorates the 15th anniversary of September 11, I’d like to share a small, but powerful memory that I experienced on that very fateful day.

All those that remember 9/11 from up close will all have an “I will never forget” moment. It’s that exact moment that I’d like to share with you.

That year I was studying in Kollel. When I learned of the attacks and that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, I immediately made my way down the street and up to the rooftop of 788 Eastern Parkway (on top of the 770 shul), to get a better view of what was happening on the Manhattan skyline.

I recall standing next to a handful of people, including Rabbi Simon Jacobson, as well as a police officer from the New York finest. We were shocked, horrified and speechless at the site of the twin towers billowing with smoke into the clear morning skies.

There was a deafening silence on the rooftop, other than some short words of exchange, as we were all trying to grasp and make sense of what we are witnessing in front of our eyes.

And then that moment…. the first tower collapsed behind the huge plume of white smoke and sod surounding the site of the Twin Towers, we all looked at each other and all shouted “oh my god… oh my god!”…. thousands of people have just perished!

I remember that we turned to the police officer and asked him how many people he thinks just died? He said, “I would have to estimate that probably tens of thousands have just lost their lives.”

But what captured my attention was down below on the street. As the towers were collapsing and thousands were dying in front of our eyes, I leaned over the rooftop to look down at Eastern Parkway, and saw something so very ordinary, yet something that I’ll never ever forget.

It was a New York City sanitation garbage truck that had just stopped in front of a garbage bin on the corner of Easton Parkway and Kingston Ave. The sanitation worker was getting out of his truck and filling the truck with the garbage bin, totally oblivious to what had just happened a mere couple miles across the Hudson.

It was that dichotomy and paradoxical moment that caught my attention. Two realities had just flashed simultaneously right in front of my eyes. With one eye I saw destruction, chaos and evil at its worst, and with the other eye I saw the mundane routine of daily life.

How these two worlds can co-exist simultaneously? we will never know, but they do exist.

What I learned at that moment was that there will be moments in our lives that we can only describe as “chaos”.. when we feel as if the entire world is collapsing around us. It’s at that chaotic moment, at that same time when we are faced with what seems like an insurmountable challenge, that we need to continue with our day-to-day lives and simultaneously march forward with fulfilling our mission and goal.

This lesson is something I think about all the time on Shlichus. As Shluchim we will often be faced with moments of chaos and nisyonos, and we must learn the art of balancing our moments of challenge along with proceeding with our regular ongoing daily responsibilities and activities.

I’m sure there are mashpiim that can provide deeper explanations of that moment according to the teachings of Chassidus. But that’s my 9/11 “never forget moment.”

New York remembers 9/11 on Sunday * Photos by Itsik Roytman