“The difference between you and us,” Osama Bin Laden famously said, “is that you glorify life and we glorify death.” There cannot be a starker and more succinct summary of what is at stake in this battle. To call our enemies terrorists is to diminish the scope of their evil intentions.
-----------
I have just returned from a shivah home of a family that lost a father in the 9/11 attack. The man left a family of young children. At the shivah, one of the daughters, she could not have been more than twelve or thirteen, was sitting silently with her sisters and mother as everyone was gathered around them crying. Suddenly, the girl looked up and said, “Imma, I am happy for one thing. Remember the night before Abba went to work for the last time? Abba and you came home from a Bar Mitzvah and when you came into the house, Abba said, ‘I am really thirsty and hot. Could anyone please bring me a cold glass of water with ice in it?’ Although all of us were in the room, I looked at Abba and saw how hot he was, and I jumped up and brought him the water with the ice in it. He was happy that I brought it to him. He smiled and said ‘Thank you so much Malkie; that water was exactly what I needed right now!’ Imma, that was the last time I was able to do the mitzvah of kibbud av. I remember so clearly Abba’s face as he drank the water and how happy I felt that I was able to make him happy. I am happy that I have this as the last memory I will ever have of Abba.”
--------------
Who can ever forget the heart-wrenching stories of heroism of people like Shimmy Biegeleisen, who phoned his wife just seconds after the second jet hit the South Tower to tell her how much he loved her and when she handed the phone to his friend, he told his friend, “Take care of Miriam and take care of my children, I am not coming out of this.” He then recited the twenty-fourth Psalm over the phone to his wife and family. And when he finished the verse, “Who shall ascend on the mountain of the Lord? He that has clean hands and a pure heart,” he screamed into the phone, “Oh God!” and the line went dead.
But it is not only the victims who must never be forgotten. We must never forget their murderers, the religious leaders who inspired them, and the millions around the world who cheered them on and called their actions an act of martyrdom. Can you imagine the insanity that God would reward such infamy?
In a verse in the Book of Genesis when Jacob wrestles with the angel, Jacob suddenly turns to the angel and asks him, “Tell me, what is your name?” And the angel replies: “Why do you ask my name?” To which the Biblical commentator Rashi offers this explanation: “You want to know my name. Do you not know that evil has no fixed name? Our names always change in accordance with the times.”
In the 1930s, evil was a swastika. And the world did not know how to react. Today, evil is those who murder and maim as a means of pre-purchasing their tickets to Heaven. Only their garb and logo have changed.
But we never get it, do we? It’s been ten years and we still don’t have a UN resolution forcing every nation to go on record condemning all acts of terrorism against any people. It’s been ten years, and there has been no UN resolution condemning suicide bombing as a crime against humanity.
To win this war, we must remember what Churchill said at Harvard in 1943, “We do not war primarily with races… tyranny is our foe, whatever trappings or disguise it wears–whatever language it speaks. . .we must forever be on our guard. . . ever vigilant, always ready to spring at its throat.”
