Ten years ago, the first day of Rosh Hashanah—the two-day Jewish New Year—fell on September 18. That was one week after September 11, 2001, when almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim terrorists. On that Rosh Hashanah, rabbis did not lack for sermon topics.
The fragility of life, the perpetual struggle between humanity's good and evil inclinations, why terrible things sometimes happen to innocent people—these were among the classic Rosh Hashanah themes that gained sudden, urgent relevance that year. Some Christian clergy lamented at the time that they had no religious analogue to Rosh Hashanah, and hence no established liturgical forum in which to address these matters with their congregants.
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