Tzipiyah.com

September 11th 2001 – We will all forever remember where we were when we heard about the terrorist attack on the United States of America.

I was in high school back then, my last year of high school actually. The beginning of the day was completely normal. Yet, on the second class of the day, the teacher simply sits down and waits for the whole class to get quiet – no screaming, no yelling, no threats of punishment. He just sits down and waits.

Shocked by his passiveness, we all sit down and become quiet. The teacher then, an older person we loved to imitate as high-schoolers, start describing his own day very calmly and quietly – At 8:30, he got into his car in order to get to school. At 8:40, he turns the radio on. At 8:47, the show was interrupted but breaking news. A plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers. The teacher went on to describe how the other Tower and the Pentagon were also hit.

At that time, no one knew who committed that act. Somewhat ironically, my teacher was convinced it was Saddam Hussein’s doing. However, what everyone understood, even a Grade 11 High school student from Montreal, was that evil had attacked the Free World, Evil had attacked Good. Yes, as much as some or all of us disagree with numerous policies of the United States, there is no doubt about the fact that this attack was Evil, and that its victims were innocent.

It was my first true encounter with Evil. I had heard about anti-semitism in the world. I had even watched the news a few times when there were terrorist attacks in Israel. I had obviously studied a lot about the Holocaust. However, I had never met Evil face to face. Israel was far away for me (I was not such an idealistic Zionist back then), the Holocaust was history and my encounter with anti-semitism was limited to a few insults by idiotic people on the Bus or Metro.

As I encountered Evil on this day, I also encountered Good.

This day has forever changed my life. It is on this day that I realized that the world, left alone without any work, will not necessarily turn out all rosy and good. We need to actively work towards its perfection.

It is on this day that I realized the importance of fighting for good because I saw that people were also fighting for evil. If good was important to us, we had the obligation to fight for it.

Yes, from this day on, I would stay updated with all the latest news events from the world. I would make an opinion for myself and fight for what I believe.

Some people (mostly who look negatively on my activist work) blame Birthright for brainwashing me into an UberZionist. Some people blame Kiruv movements for inspiring me to live my Judaism passionately (even if I was always religious). I credit Ossama Ben Laden for inspiring me to fight him. Of course, I would have rather never have heard of his name, but it is thanks to his evil that I stood up to fight for what I believe is good.

I think that this is the legacy of September 11th. This day can unite everyone in the knowledge that Evil has striked. And this is true regardless of what you consider to be evil: whether it is the intolerance of the Islamic terrorists, the breach of international law, the killing of innocent people, the attack on a country which you feel contributes to the world – whatever your position is on a host of issues, you can find the Evil in the events of that day.

When you look at this evil, and see how a lot of people fight for this Evil, it is your duty to be inspired to fight for what you believe it good. Again, this can vary for each person – some will fight for tolerance (yes, you also need to “fight” for this, it will not happen passively), some will fight for international law, some would fight for innocent victims, some would fight for their country. Whatever you believe represents good, you need to stand up and fight for it.

When something you consider evil attacks, you have two choices: you can complain about it or you can fight to increase the good which will remove this evil – use this evil in order to motivate you to create some good. As Rav Avraham Itzhak Hakohen Kook famously said: “the purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice. They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith. They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom. ” (Arpilei Tohar p. 39). In our generation where so many people actively fight for Evil, we all have the responsibility to try and be “purely righteous”.

Where were you when you heard about the attack and what did you learn from it?