The events of September 11 will forever be burned into our personal memories and our national history. I offer here a prayer for our community and for those lost and suffering as a result of the attack on our country.

We pray for God to comfort the families and friends of all those who were hurt and killed in the attacks. We pray that our leaders will be guided in wisdom. We pray to have the courage to meet the challenge each day presents. We pray to walk without fear through the darkness, knowing that we are never alone or
abandoned by God. And especially we pray that all those in conflict find the
courage abandon the course of violence, to join in building a world of peace and
plenty for all.

Interfaith Service

Among many, many gatherings held in the wake of the September 11 attacks,
an Interfaith Service for Peace and Healing was held at Church of the Redeemer
on N. Charles Thursday, September 13 at 7 PM, with the participation of Imam M.
Bashar Arafat, Chaplain, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Baltimore City Police
Department, Revered Jack Sharp, Govans Presbyterian Church, Rev Edward P.
Kenney, St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church, Rev Thelma Smullen,
Church of the Redeemer, Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk, Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, and representatives from the other members of GEDCO, the
Govans Ecumenical Development Corporation.

In addition to Rabbi Bolton, who gave one of three Reflections from different
faith traditions, Beit Tikvah was represented by our president, Ira Greene, who
offered a reading from parsha Nitzvanim (the Torah portion for the week of the
attack), and by immediate past president Esther Miller, who recited the Prayer
for Peace (found on p. 422 of our Shabbat Vehagim prayer book).

Below is the text of my comments:

In Judaism, when a person is buried, their mourners continue the process of
mourning and grieving by reciting the kaddish prayer over the next year, and,
after that, on specific liturgical dates. Paradoxically, the kaddish makers no
mention of death. It is a doxology, in which we proclaim, our awareness of
holiness. We assert that awareness precisely in the moment of loss, even as we
mourn our loved ones.

The Jewish tradition also mandates that this prayer must be said in a prayer
quorum, that a minimum of 10 must be gathered together in order to recite this
text aloud. We can't do it alone, the tradition teaches, we need the support of a
minyan.

Through this custom, we don't deny the loss, or diminish private sorrow, but
rather assert that there is something powerful in unity, in community. Perhaps
even that it is in community that we fully manifest the holiness that we proclaim.
This is what I understand about our gathering this evening. That through our
commitment to, or upbringing in, a particular faith tradition, we come together to
proclaim the universal power of community, of connection, of acknowledging our
shared humanity, our shared fate as mortal beings.

At dawn, life blossoms up and renews itself, at dusk, it withers and dries up,
says the Psalmist, who goes on to say, as if someone was about to protest
against the dreary inevitability of that day… teach us to measure each day, that
we may open our hearts to wisdom.

By measure, our count, I feel the Psalmist wants more from us - treasure,
celebrate, cherish. This is what I can bring here tonight from my tradition - and it
is the most that I can hope to fully absorb myself - we must cherish each other,
cherish our commonality, cherish the values of this country that celebrates
diversity, pluralism, democracy and difference.

In the face of the attacks we have sustained, I seek counsel and guidance from
these words of Torah - tzedek tzedek tirdof. Justice, justice shall you pursue.
The word for justice is repeated, lest we pursue that goal only at first glance,
only lightly, only when it is easiest. We must retain a fierce commitment to
assert our values, our vision of justice, and peace, everywhere we can, for if we
withdraw from that pursuit, we add to the power of those whose views are so
inimical to ours, as Americans, and as people of faith.

I began by speaking of the Kaddish, and I close with a story that refers to
the Kedushah, another prayer Jews recite only in a quorum. A group of learned
men came to visit the Kotzker rebbe. He surprised them with what they took to
be a basic question: "Ayey m'kom kevodo? What place could contain God's
holiness?" They laughed and responded by quoting the Kedushah: "Melo kol
ha'aretz kevodo. Is not the whole world full of God's glory?" Menachem Mendel
answered his own question: "God dwells wherever humanity lets God in."

May this week's tragedy lead us, as one, to nurture holiness, wholeness and
blessing in our lives.