What 9/11 and Rosh Hashanah teach us about remembering forward
(RNS) — Both Rosh Hashanah and 9/11 are days of remembrance. 9/11 conversations, especially on the day itself, invariably include remembering where you were on that fateful day, and Rosh Hashanah is called “Memory Day” in traditional Jewish liturgy. This year, as the afternoon of 9/11 overlaps with the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, they invite us to ask not simply what we remember, but how — and why. What does our remembering make possible?
Memory is as much about the present and the future as it is about the past — an insight as old as the Bible itself, going back to Noah, Sarah and Rachel, to name just a few stories that highlight that understanding.
In each of these stories, God’s remembering is not a recovery of something forgotten. It is an act that changes what becomes possible next. Each remembering serves as a hinge in the story such that the present is transformed and the human characters can begin to move more fully into the futures they each desired. For Noah, that meant the flood waters abating and his ability to get off the ark; for Sarah and Rachel, it meant no longer suffering from the infertility that pained each of them so deeply.
All three stories are…
