This Rosh Hashanah, references to the 25th anniversary of September 11 were frequent. As I listened to them, I could not help putting what happened on September 11, 2001, alongside one of the most haunting prayers of the High Holy Days, Unetaneh Tokef. When I heard the words read, they became more than just the liturgy. September 11 became proof that the words reflected reality.

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: how many will pass away and how many will be born; who will live and who will die; who will reach the fullness of their days and who will not; who by water and who by fire; who by the sword and who by wild beast; who by hunger and who by thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague; who by strangling and who by stoning; who will rest and who will wander; who will know tranquility and who turmoil; who will know peace and who suffering; who will become poor and who rich; who will be brought low and who raised up.

But teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah—repentance or return, prayer, and righteousness—temper the severity of the decree.

The words are ancient, but on September 11 they became almost painfully concrete.

At 8:46 on an ordinary Tuesday morning, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 that had departed Boston, struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, another Boeing 767, United Flight 175, also out of Boston, struck the South Tower. Nothing in the ordinary expectations of the people who went to work that morning could have prepared them for death by a commercial airliner deliberately flown into their office building.

That is part of what makes........

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