It’s impossible, of course, to turn on the radio or look at a newspaper today without being reminded of this day’s significance. I wonder what this day is like for people who have birthdays. I wonder what it is like for people whose mother died in a nursing home in Arizona. Do they get resentful of the focus this day gets? Does that resentment leave them feeling guilty?
It does me. I feel like a doucebag. Certainly for those who were there, or for those who feared the loss of someone they love, this was a day that changed them forever. They are far fewer than those of us who watched with horror as the benign fiction by which we operate was torn asunder. But it had been so torn before.
Our grandparents faced a whole new world on December 7, 1941. Our parents could not understand how two Kennedys and a King could be gunned down in cold blood. Every one I grew up with came to terms sooner or later with the idea that tomorrow could be “The Day After.” Maybe having passed through all of these existential threats and come out on the other side, we thought the days of mortal enemies had ended with the business cycle. For a new generation, the threat of exstinction was brand new.
Or as old as time. After all, that’s a fundamental fact of life, right? That it was brought to our attention by a cell of religious fanatics rather than a communist superpower does not change its essence. There is not a teenager in Israel that does not know how very real the existential threat is. Just look at the way they hold their rifles as they chat with their friends at the entrance to the market. They know exactly what is at stake.
As do we, again. And not just once a year, but every day. Because it’s not the rifles that make IDF conscripts remarkable, it’s the friendly chats. In fighting to preserve that which we love, we must not destroy it. Ultimately it is our love for our fellows, our country, and our world that makes us scream with rage as a plane pierces the skin of a skyscraper. But it’s the love, not the rage which we must cling to.