On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, what have I done?

A retrospective

By Rabbi Noam Raucher

One day, shortly after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and his student, Rabbi Yehoshua, were walking near the ruins. Seeing what remained of the Temple, Rabbi Yehoshua cried out, “This is terrible! This is where our people came to pray and offer sacrifice!”

Rabbi Yochanan offered him words of comfort: “Do not grieve, my son. What God requires of us now are acts of g’milut hasadim—acts of loving-kindness.” (Avot D’Rabbi Natan 11a)

I remember exactly where I was and what I saw 25 years ago on Sept. 11.

I was on the Hofstra University campus on Long Island. At first, we heard murmurs that a small plane had hit one of the towers, and we thought little of it. But shortly afterward, we were huddled around television screens watching the Towers fall.

I went to the top floor of the library, where on a clear day you could see Manhattan in the distance. That day, it wasn’t even there. The entire city had disappeared beneath a cloud of smoke.

Having family in school in Manhattan, and Washington D.C., I was naturally concerned for them. My siblings were somewhere in that smoke. My relatives were there. My friends were there.

My children ask me about 9/11 now, and that is primarily what I can tell them: where I was, what I saw, what I feared and how it felt. But 25 years later, I find myself wondering whether remembering is enough.

What have I done in those 25 years to honor the lives that were lost, repair some small part of the damage that was done, learn from those who are different from me, and help heal the pain that was inflicted?

What deliberate acts of g’milut hasadim have I brought into this world to make it a little kinder, a little safer and a little more loving for someone else?

And perhaps most importantly: what will I do now to keep that work going, so that the next generation inherits not only the memory of what happened that day, but a world made more peaceful by what we chose to do in response?

Rabbi Noam Raucher is executive director of FJMC International.