Torah For Today: Remembering 9/11

Twenty years have passed since 11 September 2001, also known as 9/11, when Islamist group al-Qaeda carried out a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks on America soil – including flying two planes into the Twin Towers – killing almost 3,000 people. The sense of loss since that day has not abated. So, what does the Torah say about such tragedy? 

Noah’s flood brought about the first Ground Zero in recorded history. God swore by a marvel of nature that it should never reoccur: the rainbow, arched heavenward in a sign of reconciliation with the surviving remnant of humankind. 

The Flood of Enosh wiped out one-third of the human population in the known world. Traditionally identified as the flooding of the great valley lying between the northern shelf of the African continent and the southern reaches of Europe, the waters that broke through at the Strait of Gibraltar formed the Mediterranean Sea. 

To this day, Jews mark this by not blessing that sea with the usual blessing for the marvels of Creation, but by acknowledging the event that made the Great Sea the border of the future promised land. 

Thousands must have died when Krakatoa erupted. According to the revered Rabbi Dr Irving Jacobs of blessed memory, it was the great eruption that created the cloud by day and the fire by night that led the Israelites through the desert for nearly four decades. 

At the Sea of Reeds, the waters parted and the Israelites were able to cross on dry land, but the Egyptian army was engulfed. Even the loss of life of Israel’s enemies was mourned in heaven. Had He not fashioned them all? 

All of the above are natural disasters with dramatic effect. When human beings use terror to strike blows to the hardworking, unsuspecting parents, making their children orphans and their relatives bereft, the only response is to unify more against terror and the politics of hate. 

May the time that has passed prove to be one in which better technology has evolved for greater security and allow the world to conduct its affairs in peace. 

•   Rabbi Ariel Abel is based in Liverpool