Note: The following message contains depictions of the events of September 11, 2001.

I could smell the smoke from the Pentagon. We lived within walking distance from where the third plane crashed. One friend was stuck in traffic when it came in, clipping his car’s antenna. Another had started toward the dedication of the new conference room when he paused to watch a news report from New York and thus kept his life. A third shambled into our synagogue covered with the dust of his office; his office mate did not survive.

You each have a story, or many stories, whether you were in Manhattan, Kansas, or Manhattan, New York. And if you are an adult today, they are as fresh in memory as they were in experience.

Here’s what I did as soon as I checked in on my children in three different states: I called my fellow Interfaith Alliance board member Imam Mahdi Bray. Somehow, I knew that a great collective roar was going to emerge from the throat of America and that it would be directed at him and his Muslim community. What I needed him to know in that moment was that the work and the words we had shared up to September 10 were still true and that I would not allow my pain to supplant his.

I asked him a simple question: Are you okay?

We each spent much of the rest of that day tending to our communities. I went to the emergency room at Alexandria Hospital until we realized that people either walked away from the tragedy or died. I checked in with friends and congregants who worked in and around the Pentagon. I went wherever the public officials and responders needed a clergy person to offer a message of comfort. By the end of the day, Mahdi and I were back in touch, knowing we had work to do together.

A brick had been thrown through the window of a Muslim-owned business in the historic downtown of Alexandria, my home. The mayor called for citizens to gather in support of each other, and so there we were, Mahdi and I, in front of City Hall facing hundreds of residents telling them what we had discovered. Neither of us would make it through the difficult times certain to be ahead without each other. And what was true for an imam and a rabbi was true for every person gathered to proclaim resilience amid grief. The crowd cheered our encouragement and embraced one another.

I wish I could tell that the resolve persisted.

I don’t want to pretend that my friend and I agreed on everything, before or after that September day. We had profound differences, religious, political, and cultural. But we knew then as we know now that relying on our commonality would be the only thing that made those differences safe.

But too many people could not resist the fear and suspicion. Twenty years ago, the challenge to religious, political, and ethnic diversity in the United States took a turn for the worse because of people who saw an opportunity to divide and conquer in the name of their own insecurity. That is, after all, what triumphalism is, religious, political, or ethnic: a lack of confidence in the ability of a person or a group to maintain its integrity without forcing away those who do not agree.

Our Constitution, and especially the First Amendment to it, speaks against such insecurity and the desperate actions that accompany it. Whenever we fall short of living up to its promise, our house divided is endangered. Religious nationalism and white supremacy are merely big words for such insecurity. And it is not enough to try to save yourself alone. We must join together against triumphalism of all kinds.

Here we are, unbelievably twenty years later. I can still smell the smoke, though only in my memory. But it reminds me of the importance of caring for those whose injuries are evident and whose injuries are deep inside. It reminds me that I do not need to agree with all my friends to hold them in my heart and join with them in their time of need. It reminds me that good intentions provoke good feelings, but only dedication and hard work bring results.

Our team at Interfaith Alliance suggested we not make an “ask” in this communication, but I get to override that request. So many things divide us these days. I don’t have to list them; you know what they are. And someone you liked, maybe even loved, has slipped away because they or you or both gave into the insecurity that comes with disagreement.

Please, in remembrance of our better angels in that time twenty years ago, reach out with a simple question, as I do to you.

Are you okay?

In comfort,

Rabbi Jack Moline
President, Interfaith Alliance