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A
Fullest Emptiness
Rabbi David Zaslow
Late
morning, May 11 2005, lower Manhattan. Rachel and Debbie are
inside Century 21 shopping for deep discount designer clothing.
I’m across the street standing in front of the World
Trade Center, or what once was the World Trade Center. I weep
and davven there; praying and gripping the metal fence like
a caged wolf on the outside wanting in. I want in – to
walk the halls of this vast empty, urban canyon. I want in
– to walk between what remains of the substructure and
foundation descending three, four, five stories below ground
level. I want to walk, if it is possible, within the essence
of memory itself – to the very place where heaven meets
hell on earth.
The
cavern left by the removal of debris from the Twin Towers
is the fullest emptiness I have ever experienced. Years ago
at the Grand Canyon I was awed by the emptiness that defines
the span between the majestic canyon walls. But the site of
the Twin Towers is different. This is not majestic. It is
not an empty emptiness like the Canyon, but, rather an emptiness
filled with ghosts, memories of steel, concrete, and glass
that once was, no longer is, and yet somehow remains. The
air itself, the sky itself, seems to remember what was once
there. The Towers remain – they remain and live in memory,
catastrophic memory. They remain in the empty chairs in thousands
of homes where children who call the name of a dead parent
are answered only by memory, family stories, legends, home
videos, CNN reports, and scrapbooks. And if I listen, listen
between the voices of life on the streets around me now, I
can hear, actually hear the emptiness itself.
A
few nights earlier, I was in a Brooklyn bar listening to some
great live jazz when I realized how much good living, holy
living, really is like the needle of a record sitting in the
groove. But what I hadn’t realized until I arrived at
the site of the Twin Towers was that as a record in a record
player turns, the needle is perfectly still. To be in the
groove means to stand in total stillness while the record
around you spins. The turntable turns, the record revolves,
but the point of contact requires total stillness. To be in
the groove requires a complete balance between stillness and
movement, between diamond and vinyl. For the needle to do
its work of reading the engraved cuts within the grooves,
it must be still.
Just
like us. To read what Hashem has engraved in nature, in our
own lives, or in the emptiness of what once was the Twin Towers,
we can’t be turning. We can’t be moving to get out
of the way, or to get somewhere else. We have to remain in
place. Totally in place. Perfectly in place. It is difficult
to be still when I want to weep for those whose lives were
lost. It is difficult to be still when I want to pray for
a future free of terror. So I say my prayers, chant the Amidah,
say kaddish, and then enter the silence. Silence in lower
Manhatten is not an oxymoron. It is an honor.
I’m
sure there are other great canyons, but there is something
singular about the Grand Canyon. I’m sure there are many
places of great emptiness where life has been destroyed, but
there is something singular about the Twin Towers. Each of
us contains within us something singular as well. Our fate
is to find out what it is, and then face it with thanksgiving
and hope, and then stand before ourselves and our G-d in silence.
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