Memory and Kindness: Reflections on 9/11 and Ki Teitzei
On the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, we find ourselves revisiting memories that have shaped our world. Each of us has different memories of where we were on that day. It is crucial to pause and share these moments, to offer them up as acts of remembrance and healing. I invite you, friends, to share your own reflections, to bring forth blessings from your memory in this space. In doing so, we connect our personal histories to the collective, reminding us that memory itself is sacred.
I remember being a fifth-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary. All the leaders were away, and we, the senior students, found ourselves unexpectedly tasked with guiding the community through the shock of that day. We didn’t know what to do, but we knew we needed to gather people together. I vividly recall the disbelief when I heard the news, a clear blue Tuesday morning, the kind of day where you can’t imagine such devastation unfolding. Yet it did, and the world as we knew it shifted.
As I raced back to the Seminary after hearing the second tower had been hit, I remember Rabbi Alan Kensky, our dean at the time, sharing a story that anchored us: in moments of terror, we continue to learn Torah, to hold on to who we are. And even though the moment defied understanding, we leaned into our tradition as a source of stability.
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Teitzei, calls us into memory. It lists moments of attack and survival, challenging us to confront who we’ve been and how we respond. Judith Plaskow, a prominent Jewish theologian, writes that memory brings with it an obligation to ethical discernment: we must decide which memories to affirm and which to transform. In Ki Teitzei, we are commanded to blot out the memory of Amalek, yet also to remember Amalek’s cruelty. How do we do both?
On 9/11, the cruelty was clear. But what followed in the immediate aftermath was something else entirely. We saw glimpses of kindness, of gentleness, of a shared patriotism rooted not in division, but in our collective pain. People looked out for each other. Strangers comforted strangers. We didn’t ask who voted how; we simply asked, “Are you okay?”
It’s this kindness that I urge us to remember today. Not the anger or the later geopolitics, but the tender hearts we carried in the days following the attack. We honored first responders. We checked in on neighbors. We saw each other as human first.
Ki Teitzei reminds us that memory can both anchor and transform us. As we remember those we lost and the unity we experienced, let’s ask ourselves: who were we then, and who do we want to be now? With the gift of today, how do we build a better tomorrow?
Let us bless each other with gentleness, with radical compassion, and with the understanding that life is precious — so what will we do with it?