Press Releases
Interfaith Commemoration of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks
Remarks by Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp
Liberaal Joodse Gemeente Beth Jehoeda, The Hague, September 11, 2006
Everyone carries a story - devastation, heroism, courage, the unselfish love, the emptiness, and the hope against hope.We in this synagogue carry ours. It was five years ago when we heard and saw the devastation. It was just a day or so before our jubilee was going to be celebrated. This synagogue was built by Jews who were descendants of those who fled Spain and Portugal when they were driven out by a cruel inquisition. They came to The Hague and they built in 1726 this small magnificent sanctuary.
We in this synagogue were preparing to celebrate the 275th anniversary. That night of the fires, the screaming, the heroism of firemen, policemen and simple human beings, we decided to turn the jubilee celebration into a common commemoration. And so we happened to be the first place in the Netherlands and maybe the first place of many places in the world, where we commemorated together with the representatives of the United States the devastation and tried to speak of consolation. Coincidence in recognition of cosmic order that also exists, and of which which we are seldom aware.
So today, five years later, it is again this small sanctuary, that celebrates at this moment the 280th anniversary, where we are together in sadness but in persistence. We in the Jewish community are preparing ourselves for the High Holy days and the last readings from the Hebrew scripture which will be read tomorrow “Reé natat lefanecha hayom et hachayim ve ethatov ve et hamavet ve et hara” : "See I've set before you today life and what is good, death and what is evil."
Those who were suddenly taken away from life had no choice, others had taken their choice to use evil means of destruction. To choose the bad is to choose evil. But we know out of experience of wars, as was pointed out again and again, that yes, unfortunately, evil can be contagious, but thank God goodness is also contagious. And therefore all those forces of compassion that we try to gather together are stronger than all the evil that passes through.
When I listen to my brother Van Bommel when he interprets and reads from the true Koran I know that we are together because the sentence he has quoted, a central sentence in the Koran, is paralleled exactly word by word in the Talmud, which is the center of Jewish faith and liberty. “He who saves one human life has saved the whole world, who has destroyed one human life has destroyed the whole universe."
Thus Deuteronomy calls us “to choose life.” And we read it in this synagogue from a scroll, newly written by a scribe in Jerusalem for the 275th anniversary of this synagogue. In our proud Holy Ark the Torah scroll is placed next to torn parchments, the only remnants of a Tora scroll destroyed by the Nazis but never fully destroyed. And thus the Torah continues in an unbroken chain of tradition, to speak to us “Ki hamitsvah asher Anochi metsavecha hayom (for this commandment which I command you this day), it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off. It is not in the heaven, it is not across the waters: ‘beficha uvilvavecha.’” "It is in your mouth and in your heart, it can and is to be done."
And so all those acts of courage and all those unseen gestures of love that accompanied the reconstruction, that accompanied these life-saving efforts then and since, our cosmic forces will bring us together, my spiritual brothers and myself, the great spiritual traditions of the world and humanism to build this world in peace. I have been moved like you have been moved by the witnesses of people who have reconstructed their life in these five agonizing years. People who always cry, but also learn to smile again. People have been able to show that goodness is triumphant, yes, the golden rule: "Veahavta re echa kamocha” : "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It is followed in the same chapter by the sentence "You shall love the stranger because you have been strangers in the land of Egypt." "You shall not say because I have been degraded my neighbour should be degraded.” Those who have gone through suffering want love and sustenance, they don't want revenge, they want an end to repression.
Ambassador Arnall and I were infants in the 2nd World War. We have been saved by courageous people. I've been saved by a Catholic, German-born woman, who risked all her loyalties and all her safety and her family for the unknown Jewish boy. Yes, they have been few, but they have been saving lives. All my life I have lived with the knowledge and the conviction that the soft powers of compassion are the powers that will save us.
And so, friends, brothers, and sisters in this community of the living who commemorate the community of the deceased, may the holy blessings be the compassion and protect us and strengthen us to continue our road together in time to build. And so this is for me that symbolically I put a stone here. At a Jewish cemetery one leaves stones to commemorate the deceased, to make a mark. And all those stones together, we believe, will be the stones with which will be built a temple of peace. May our stones together build a temple of peace, of love, where children's fears are turned into a blessed future that will penetrate all the hearts and give us life.